40. Helen Lake

Distance: 14k round trip to ridge above the lake
Elevation gain: 550m to ridge plus 493 to peak

On July 6, 2015, Herm and I camped at Lake Louise to get an early start for this reputedly gorgeous hike through alpine meadows to Lake Helen. We hoped to also do the peak above it.

It was a perfect day and we looked forward to getting through the trees to the views. But first, we had a little surprise: a spruce grouse, who was not afraid of us.

We continued on up through a controlled burn site. Herm found a few white barked pine trees and so it was interesting to learn later that the forest had been burned to encourage growth of more of these trees.

 Across the valley from our climb we could see Crowfoot Glacier.

Because there were virtually no mosquitoes in camp or at the parking lot, I left the repellant in the truck. Big mistake! They were soon so thick that I asked another hiker if we could borrow some. Later, my eye swelled half shut and my hand grew puffy, maybe mosquitoes, maybe a different biter that we didn't notice.

Finally, we were through the trees and could enjoy views. Behind Herm is Cirque Peak which was our secondary goal.

The flowers were beautiful, fleabane, heliotrope, arnicas, heather and bright magenta paintbrushes.

Total meadow views are wonderful but tend to blur in a photo.

Helen Creek leads out of Helen Lake and makes a nice watery sound :).

Helen Lake is not as spectacular as its surroundings but it's a good place to eat lunch. Climbing the ridge above gives a better view of the meadows and the small peak on top is the crown and was our goal.

On the way up the ridge we were supposed to greet some marmots and sure enough one was there waiting to have his picture taken.

The view from the ridge revealed more tarns and the trail from above.

Now on up to Cirque Peak. We heard others talking about  going up via a "tedious" trail, (shown just around the rocky section)

so we thought we'd just scramble up the rocks which the book suggested as an alternate route. But,,, soon we reached a trail alongside the rocks and followed it trustingly, until...it grew too narrow and we decided we'd rather not take the risk and reluctantly turned around and went back.

By then we decided against going to the peak since we planned to climb another mountain the next day. We were disappointed but wise since we had enough energy left to have another great hike the next day.