We woke up at 4AM and headed out at 5AM to Lake O'Hara parking
lot in Yoho National Park. Lake O'Hara is the most coveted day hiking
destination in the Canadian rockies and they have a quota of 42 day
hikers per day allowed into the area where they are bused in from the
parking lot on an 11km dirt road to Lake O'Hara itself. The 42 places
on the bus can be reserved 3 months in advance and they typically sell
out within an hour of becoming available. So our only hope was that
there would be some cancellations on the day we show up and we can
grab those cancelled spots as standby hikers. We got to the parking
lot at 6AM for the 8:30AM bus. Thankfully, there were enough
cancellations and we were lucky to get on the bus. On the lake shore
we decided to take the Opabin Plateau loop and started the hike around
9AM. Highlights of Lake O'Hara:
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| Tarn on Opabin Plateau |
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| View from Opabin Prospect |
Opabin Plateau: Beautiful view from Opabin prospect down to Lake O'Hara and
Lake Mary. The plateau is dotted with a bunch of small lakes and streams
around which you can wander. There are a lot of Larch trees which turn beautiful yellow in fall.
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| Opabin Lake |
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| Yukness Ledges Trail |
Yukness Ledges: This trail connects Opabin plateau to lake Oesa. It
is a very narrow trail which precariously hugs the side of a cliff
most of the time and requires some judicious route finding. Not
something for poeple with a fear of heights.
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| View from Yukness Ledges Trail |
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| Lake Oesa |
continuous views of Lake O'Hara and its surrounding peaks. Every
single step of this trail has a beautiful view.
Lake Oesa: Lake Oesa is a large deep blue lake set in a glacial cirque
surrounded with cliffs. Water out of the lake cascades through a
series of waterfalls and more smaller lakes to finally end up on Lake
O'Hara. The trail from Lake Oesa down to Lake O'Hara is very steep
and would not be easy if we tried to come up it.
We came down the lake Oesa trail and took the 4:30PM bus out. Lake
O'Hara is the most beautiful place we have seen and was the highlight
of our trip. This place has hikes to suit every level of fitness and
all of them are equally beautiful. We would wholeheartedly recomend
anybody going there to make an attempt to visit the place. I took a
lot of pictures here: every turn in the trail brings someting more
interesting to see and seem to deserve a picture of its own.
Chiranjeeb
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