Monday morning arrived early as we had to get up and get to the trail head to meet the bus for the trip to the camp by 8:30. This meant that we had to pack, and eat breakfast in time to leave Lake Louise by 7:45. Helen had pre-arranged with the restaurant for a group of 16 to be there by 7 so they could have everything ready to serve us so it would be quick. Well once again we experienced a lack of preparation despite what was set up in advance. The poor server worked very hard and the cook had to really work fast to get prepared to serve us but all worked out fine.
We traveled to the parking lot at Lake O’Hara in cloudy weather with a forecast of rain. Why do we do this to ourselves we wondered as we parked and hauled our duffel, tent and backpacks to the staging area. At least we are not walking the 11 km to the campsite so we felt excited yet glanced often at the sky with worried eyes. The weather cooperated.
We got to the camp to learn that we need to stand by and have a quick lesson from the park ranger. Then we were expected to rush to find a tenting site – hopefully close to the bathrooms. Now the campsite is really great. The bathrooms are clean and semi-heated. There are a couple of sinks outside the bathrooms with running potable water. In addition to several outside picnic tables, there are 2 buildings with wood stoves that provide shelter and a place to warm up for campers. The outside fire pit has benches around so you can be comfortable if you wish to sit there. We all agreed this is a really comfortable campsite. All we missed was showers and warm water.
Ok, cloudy skies, weary eyes watching the clouds, listening to a park ranger and wondering if there will be time to get the tents up before the skies open. But right now it is sunny so no one is worried....or are we? We rush to find a tent site. And all successfully set up our tents with some sunshine. We are thinking of a hike when it starts to rain. We are seasoned hikers so a little rain is not a problem, out comes the rain gear (rain pants, rain jacket, backpack cover and hat or ponchos). Of we set the the bunch of 16 troopers marching in a line to explore Lake O’Hara.
When we got up around 3 we discovered the sunshine out and felt the need to stretch our legs for a quiet walk around Lake O’Hara. The sunshine continued until we got back when a new clouds passing over decided to drop a load of water on us, but one of our group (Lorraine) had thought to have us set up a tarp over part of her tenting area and we were able to sit there for happy hour enjoying some refreshments. By the time we finished that we had sunshine again and we were glad to be able to make our dinner.
What we discovered this first day, besides the incredible vistas, was that the weather man was on our side. We arrived in dry and set up our tents, we hiked in sunshine around the lake and we were able to make dinner without being rained on. Thank you sir!!
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