Canada Day 2018 Mt St Piran

(As Castle Mountain Got Scratched due to Winter-like Conditions)

A plan dreamt of for months, but terminated by nature.

                  

From the get-go, this trip was something special. In Red Deer, one of the cars got a flat tire.

Troubled by near-constant rain, sometimes very heavy, we made it to the HI Lake Louise Alpine Centre late Friday night.

June 30

Saturday started with chances of rain and sun, on and off.  But Castle Mountain was fully surrounded by heavy clouds.

After a filling breakfast buffet at the Lake Louise Ski Resort, we loaded into gondolas on our way up to the meadows.

June 30th is absolutely too early to fully enjoy the vegetation of the meadows as flowers will only start blooming in late July.

Whole team: Raphael, Marysia, Yanek, Jola, Zosia, Damian, Jason, Beata, Andrzej and Julian. Everyone looks happy, but we still see the heavy clouds.

The gondola ride down was wet, but we had a chance to spot a single grizzly bear wandering somewhere under the lift.

The weather report for July 01 for Castle Mountain was less than promising.

Not knowing if the hike would be possible, we decided to opt for Mt St Piran as the safer option.

July 01 Canada Day

A quick breakfast and off we go. We took a single picture at Lake Louise; the objective of our hike is to the right of centre with a couple stripes of snow.

The hike was not difficult as it follows a trail to Mirror Lake and Agnes Lake.

Soon, Chateau Lake Louise and the iconic lake were way below.

Taking short breaks on the switchbacks allowed us to keep up good spirits, and the summit got closer and closer.

Closer to the top, we realized that it was going to be wet, or rather cold and miserable as zwangla was all over the summit.

Andrzej negotiated with (prayed to) St Piran (a VI century Irish saint) to get a bit of sun on the summit. He was successful for few minutes.

A snack and a summit photo to celebrate Canada Day, and we had to start packing to descend as snow started to come on us sideways. Still in the blizzard, we sang Sto Lat to Beata and Andrzej for their 29th Wedding Anniversary. After that, we started to rush to get lower.

On the positive note. It wasn't dusty, and it wasn't too hot at all. 

You can see the weather conditions on Castle Mountain in the top right of the above picture. We made the right call!

After that we could not keep up with the youth, and they quickly disappeared from our view on the way down.

The weather around Lake Agnes was much nicer, and everyone was happy to rest for a moment. Here we had a chance to come across more people as this is quite the attraction for weekend turistas. They were shocked when we told them about the blizzard we had encountered just an hour before.

Still on the trail but very close to the hotel, we heard the call for Canada Day cake at Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise. The cake for 700 people was big enough for us to get a piece. I know for sure next time I'm in Lake Louise, I will come for the Black Forest Cake at the hotel – it was delicious.

A little party at the hostel completed the weekend adventure. We had a final photo in front of the hostel before it was time to drive back home. I feel blessed, that I could have spent Canada Day 2018 weekend with all of you. 

And yes, in two days we climbed about 312 floors, walked 52542 steps, and best of all we did it together: Thank you Damian, Julian, Beata, Jola, Marysia, Zosia, Rafal, Jason and Andrzej. (in order from the summit photo)

Yk