17 people gathered in the Ribbon Creek parking lot hoping that the clouds would soon lift and allow us to enjoy the Memorial Lakes. It didn’t turn out that way. Drizzle increased to steady rain along the trail. Just before the first waterfall we all gathered (except one person who had run ahead) and 11 people decided they had had enough of hiking in the rain and turned back.


To go on or to turn back? That is the question.

The rest of us carried on and found the missing person at the first waterfall. We took a vote and decided to continue on, preferably to all the lakes. There was good trail all the way to the first lake, although steep around the waterfalls. From the first lake we could see the headwall which dams the third lake and the massive of Mt Bogart and it’s outliers behind. Several trails lead from lake 1 to lake 2. We chose the southernmost one which ascends through scree and meadow along the left side of the valley. Part way up we took pictures of sun on Mt Allen and felt sorry for all the hikers who had turned back too soon. The trail brought us to a nice spot overlooking the second lake from the South. It really looked emerald and we decided to have a short lunch break here during a rare dry spell.

It didn’t last though. We hiked up a combination of scree, rock and meadow on the South side of the lake and arrived on a low ridge over-looking the third Memorial Lake.

We hiked around it and stopped at the memorial for the people killed in a 1986 air crash and rescue. Here we had another short lunch break in almost dry weather and enjoyed views of the surroundings, except for the peaks in the clouds.

For our descent we chose the shortcut to the first lake described by Gillean Daffern.--invalid photo1224--
Scree and a gully brought us down into short avalanche shrub around the East end of the first lake, where we regained the main trail. From here we marched back to the parking lot in steady rain. We treated ourselves to coffee at the Kananaskis Hotel Deli and got soaking wet again walking from the parking lot to the door. 5 minutes later we looked out and saw blue sky and sunshine! What’s the moral of the story? 1) Only fools hike in rain or2) If you are already wet, you might as well persevere and see all the wonderful sights up there.I go with number 2 this time. The 6 ultimately successful hikers were: John, Peter, Doug, Sue, Joe and Rita (your scribe).