Highline Trail is a hard-packed trail with multiple route options. Well-used by fat-bike riders, mountain bikers and trail runners, it's also a an easy-to-reach conditioning trail well-suited for winter hiking. Mostly in the woods, there are a few peek-a-boo views into the Bow Valley, including the flood-hardened Cougar Creek.
The trail to the summit of Fairview Mountain is steep and short, which just about qualifies it as a conditioning hike. But two key factors distinguish Fairview Mountain from most conditioning hikes: 1) the trailhead is at Lake Louise, so you're probably looking at a bit of a drive to get there; and 2) reaching the summit rewards with outstanding views of Lake Louise, plenty of glaciers and range after range of Canadian Rocky Mountains. If you're lucky, you'll also enjoy an abundance of wildflowers and the company of a marmot or two along the way.
Friends, family and physiotherapists have repeatedly recommended that we hike or snowshoe to Taylor Lake. We finally listened! To be honest, trail conditions also factored into our decision to hike to one of the most accessible hanging valley lakes between Banff and Lake Louise. The posted distance of 12.6 km and 585 m elevation gain …
We've made reservations to do the guided hike to the Burgess Shales in July. It's a 20 km (return) hike, with more than 800 meters elevation gain, so we definitely need to get in some conditioning hikes before we go. Since the GeoKids had a day off school today and the weather forecast looked pretty …