Sunshine Meadows July 26, 2022

When I think of hiking Sunshine Meadows in Banff National Park, the song "Walking on Sunshine" by Katrina & The Waves, always comes to mind! This summer is the first time this piece of paradise is open for hiking since late summer of 2019.  Today we went 🎶🎶walking on sunshine🎶🎶!

During the twenty minute gondola ride up to Sunshine Village, we put a route plan in place on how we would cover the area.  We opted to begin hiking from the Village in the direction of Rock Isle Lake.  Very early on along that route, we already had a gorgeous view of Mount Bourgeau behind us and.....

....this amazing view of Quartz Hill in front of us! 

At the junction in the centre of the photo, 

we veered to the right and not long after doing so, 

we arrived at Rock Isle Lake.

 Rock Isle Lake

Our plan of attack was to hit the three lakes first.  We circled around to the back side of Rock Isle Lake which afforded us this view of a perfect reflection. It was time to carry on and descent through the lush forest towards the next two lakes. 

The wildflower situation began to perk up.  This bouquet of Pink Mountain Heather grabbed my attention.  

Grizzly Lake looked lovely!  

This was our first view of it and once we crossed the bridge, the view really opened up.

We noticed the area on the opposite side of Grizzly Lake still showed signs of where that fire in 2017 was yet it was nice to see all the green that was popping up over there.  The Lake itself looked green too!  We followed the trail that hugged the shoreline on the left.

There is a nice platform at the Simpson Viewpoint where you can see off into the British Columbia part of Kootenay National Park.  Here you can notice how wild and big that 2017 Verdant Creek Fire was.   

Very quickly after leaving the Simpson Viewpoint, we arrived at Laryx Lake.  We came upon a few benches with a gorgeous view and choose this to be our lunch location.  It was also time to respray against the bugs.

view of Laryx Lake as we hiked further along the trail

I opted for a photo as we took one last view of Laryx Lake.   

Hippies on Sticks

We left Laryx Lake behind, came to the intersection of the one way trail which meant we completed the loop and it was time to ascend back to Rock Isle Lake.  We continued past Rock Isle Lake and then veered off to the left where we climbed a bit more. It was now time to begin my favourite part of the whole hike.  We had two and a half kilometres to cover along the Twin Cairns to Monarch Lookout Trail towards those mountains in the centre.

Forgetmenot Wildflowers

crossing a bridge on the Twin Cairns to Monarch Lookout Trail

looking back at the trail we just hiked along, 

with a view of the mountains in Mount Assiniboine Provincial Park

It was mid way along this trail where the Paintbrush wildflowers put on a grand performance!

My favourite colour of Paintbrush!  

We were welcomed by an array of wildflowers alongside the trail.

Aster Wildflower

the views remained amazing

small creek crossing

I was thankful for the tarns that were still full!  

This was our view of a section of the Sunshine SkiHill to the right and loads of Hippies on Sticks to the left ,just before reaching the intersection to head up to the Monarch Viewpoint.

looking back from the trail towards the Monarch Viewpoint

We arrived at the Monarch Viewpoint to have this spectacular scene!  The trail descends down towards Simpson Pass.  You can see Healy Pass in the centre ahead where the dark green area is, with the mountains of the Egypt Lake area as the backdrop.  We settled in here for a bit of time and savoured the scenery paired with home made sweets which one of the ladies made.

It was time to gear back up and carry on with our day.  We retraced the trail back to the junction and continued straight back to the intersection to hike the Meadow Park Trail.  This trail would eventually get us back to Sunshine Village and the Gondola Station.  This was our early view along the Meadow Park Trail.

along the Meadow Park Trail

We carried on and shortly after this meadow section, we entered the forest and began the final descent.

This was the first photo I took this morning of Sunshine Village, just after the gondola ride up and shortly after we began our hike.  The orange dots mark where the trail was that we just took to descent back to the Village at the end our hike.  The Gondola Station is at the right.  

We made it back to our vehicle and while gearing down and cleaning up, we held a quick short brain storm session on whether or not to some how crown our day.  All in favour was the consensus to acknowledge our gratifying and fulfilling day hiking Sunshine Meadows.  In recognition of seeing such beautiful lake and mountain scenery plus witnessing an amazing flower show, we decided to crown our day with a hot meal and cold beverage at the Rose & Crown!   How fitting!  

Cheers to  🎶🎶 walking on Sunshine and don't it feel good 🎶🎶 !