WEDNESDAY, 28 OCTOBER 2026

(Canmore, AB)

I woke early, but Andrew was still sleeping, so instead of getting up and looking out the window to see what the weather was doing, I did what any reasonable person would do. I found a webcam for Canmore town centre and peered at it on my phone. It was snowing. No view of the mountains. But, at least the roads still looked clear.

When Andrew woke I made coffee and took mine out onto the balcony. Sadly not much of a mountain view due to the low cloud, but the big pine trees outside the lodge were wrapped with tree lights and, combined with the bits of snowy mountain I could see, it all felt very festive.

Eventually, after a gentle start, we got ready for hiking and took everything to the car. I had located a free car park that would put us within 10 minutes walk of Graze for breakfast,  instead of the mile or so walk from the hotel, and would also be on route for our hike. When we got to Graze we announced we were back… and the waitress asked if we wanted two orange juices again… nice to be remembered…probably! I did consider something else from the menu, but the omelette was just so good last time that I had to have it again. 

Walking back to the car we could see the bottom of mountains around town, and there were some light snow flakes, but once we drove towards the Kananaskis and out chosen hike, it started to rain and then snow more heavily. Nevertheless, we continued and decided to see what it was like when we got to the trailhead. It turned out to be not too bad there, just -2C and snowing. The wind was also cold, but I hoped the hike would protect us from the worst of that.

We had picked the Troll Falls walk, which goes mostly through the forest until you arrive at the waterfalls. The outbound trail looked possibly icy from the car park, so we fitted spikes to our boots. We probably didn’t need them for most of the outbound route, as the snow was thin between the trees, and there were plenty of pine needles to give traction. Once we arrived at the falls the snow was deeper, more compacted, and might have been slippy, but we were fine. (I had read get it is often slippy there, which had also led me to the decision to use spikes). 

The falls were, at this time of year, fairly light in terms of flow, as the Marmot River wasn’t much more than a gentle stream. However, it was starting to freeze, and there were not only big icicles, but solid ice all around the waterfall area. I had warned Andrew that he probably wouldn’t see a troll, but I was wrong. Right there on a wooden railing was a baby troll, keeping an eye on things…

We took a different route back, through the Hay Meadow. This was muddier, and had more leaves and frozen vegetation, which clumped together in a frozen block with the snow and stuck to our spikes. Every few steps we gained enough solid mass to create platform heels under our boots. We took the spikes off and were better off without them here.

The route went across what is probably a lovely flowery meadow in summer, before offering a view of the Kananaskis River. The evidence of seasonal flooding was evident from the strewn tree trunks. After that we passed an information board telling us about the efforts to monitor eagles and other birds of prey, where we concluded that I have the wing span of a Golden eagle.

From there it was a walk back through the forest, with trees occasionally creaking ominously in the wind, before reaching the trailhead.

From there we started our trip back, but stopped for a brief walk at Barrier Lake. This is a reservoir rather than a natural lake. We looked at the notice board which had signs we don’t often see at home, in addition to route information. The reservoir feeds a hydroelectric station, so the first part of the walk is industrial in nature. Usually, that would just have been a warm-up section, before heading into the trees to do a loop hike, and then finishing with the same flat section in reverse. However, the wind was blowing across the reservoir and Andrew in particular felt the cold from it, so we turned around not long after reaching the trees. They, too, were frozen.

Back at the car we drank hot coffee, before driving the 40 minutes or so back to Canmore. On the way we crossed a cattle grid which appears to be called a ‘Texas Gate’ here. According to Google, the name stems from the late 19th-century cattle drives moving north from Texas into the Western Canadian prairies. In any case, this one was quite icy and very slippy as we drove over it. The road driving back was a bit icy in places too, and despite putting the front windscreen heater on, water froze to the window and then to the wipers, rendering them dysfunctional in terms of cleaning the windscreen. Luckily we got back before it got too bad to see through, and we cleaned the ice off the wipers and washed the windscreen when we parked up.

We settled into our room, putting the fire on and drinking coffee, then having showers to warm up. For dinner we chose the Grizzly Paw pub, but given the weather we drove back to the free car park and then just had a short walk to get there. The portions were huge, and no, we definitely didn’t eat it all, but at least we didn’t leave hungry.

And that’s it but today. I had hoped to do a ‘big’ hike up to Rawson Lake tomorrow, but given the weather and the possibly road conditions (it’s a 75 minute drive each way, into the back country), we have concluded that it probably isn’t the right weather for it this time. So instead we’ll most likely be doing a town-based walk, which will then offer opportunity for shopping and coffee, as well as (hopefully) some scenery if the clouds finally lift. 

[Editor’s note: today’s video of both hikes is here https://vimeo.com/1240515683].