Tim

Hey Raglow! 

Hey Whitney!

If we had some eggs, we could have ham and eggs if we had some ham!

I met Tim when I went to Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico at age 16.  We were not in the same troop in scouting but were both part of the Toledo Area Council which put a group together for this high adventure experience.  As we hiked, we dreamed of good food (vs the freeze-dried stuff we carried on our backs).  One one leg, we had a long uphill hike to Ponil camp.  We thought the program promised  "showers" and "Mexican Dinner."  With each heavy step, we droned those words to keep us moving.  We crested false summit after false summit each time thinking we would see the camp just over the rise and repeatedly being disappointed.  On a rest break, someone re-read the itinerary and found out we were wrong about the showers.  After that our drone without "showers" turned to "Mexican Dinner, Mexican Dinner."  The root beer saloon, with the famous sarsaparilla, was a consolation to the non-existent showers.

Tim and I stayed in touch ever since, visiting whenever I went home to Walbridge, Ohio.  We both married amazing women, have amazing kids. A last minute decision by Joyce to not join me until Vancouver, opened up the section of the itinerary and I immediately called on Tim, recently retired.  Robin (thank you very much!) encouraged him to take the opportunity and Tim was able to arrange his schedule to meet me in Calgary and stay until we reached Vancouver.  That's the way it is with us.  Very spontaneous.  2 years ago September, similarly, my brother Bob invited me and other brothers Paul and Dan to Kelley's island.  I called Tim and he joined the merry crew within hours of the call for an amazing time together (thanks Bobby!)

I had some time alone after Paul left West Glacier National Park and I went to East Glacier, Waterton Lakes (which might be called north Glacier as it is a Canadian extension of Glacier National Park.  I enjoyed the private time but it was great to now have a travelling partner in Tim. 

After Sibbald Lake, we drove to Banff at the Lake Louise hard-sided campground.  We were able to stay there because I was in a travel trailer vs a tent or pop up.  The "soft sided" campground for tents was surrounded by an electric fence to keep the bears out!

Like Glacier, Banff has a lot of tourists.  To put that into perspective: I made my reservation on the opening reservation day for Canada National Parks on April 23, 2025.  That day was a work day for me and I brough my personal laptop knowing I would have to log in before 8. The website told me I'd be randomly assigned a place in line amongst all the others logged in before 8.  After that they would be in line according to the time.  at 8, another message popped up--I was in line at 15,087th place!  They estimated (correctly) that they'd get to me in about 30 minutes.  Astonishing!

It was cloudy and rainy the day we drove through Banff to Lake Louise, so we didn't get to see some of the mountains around Banff proper.  At the visitor center, the ranger told us about a nice 11.5 mile hike.  Take the shuttle to Lake Moraine over Sentinel Pass to Paradise Valley. and catch the return shuttle there.  Seemed like the perfect distance and not too difficult.  Tim and I are experienced hikers (even though Tim often reminds me that I flunked him on Orienteering merit badge at Pioneer Scout reservation a few decades ago! :))

I need to take bear spray? You gotta be kidding!
"Not kidding!  I need to justify my purchase!"

We had water, Bear Spray, lunch, snacks, rain gear, binoculars. I didn't pay for Alltrails app but took pictures of the map. We arrived at the ski area parking lot where buses depart and tried to get on the 8:00 shuttle.  Though it was not full, there were no reservations left and no cancellations that we could see on line.  After repeated refreshes we scored a 10:00 shuttle pass.  We tried but were refused an early seat on the 9:30 shuttle.  We arrived at beautiful Moraine Lake at about 10:30, took a look around and began our hike.  

At Moraine Lake

It was beautiful, if a bit crowded including some 2 dozen middle aged Ohio State Buckeyes on a ladies outing.  We saw tons of wildflowers, mountains, snow fields, glaciers and lakes. Arriving at Sentinel pass we saw 4 young backpacking ladies ascending from Paradise Campground.  The trail at that point looked sketchy and we asked about it and they said they mistakenly went way to the right but pointed to the tracks in the snow where we needed to end up.  Neither they, nor the ranger who suggested this route, cautioned us about the decent from Sentinel pass.  We managed to avoid the crowds at that point--these backpackers were the last people we saw on the trail!

View from Sentinel Pass

 It was steep with loose scree and boulders that shifted under our feet.  There were cairns to show the way until about a quarter way down the slope and we had to pick our way down backwards on all fours with rocks and even big boulders sliding down. Tim and I both agree this was the toughest section of trail we had ever hiked!  It took a couple hours at the pace we were going just for that section. 

Our view for the next 2 hours!

The late start and slow progress down sentinel pass put us behind schedule.  It didn't help that we took the trail to paradise campground and had to back track a mile to get to the trailhead (thanks to a German backpacker for sharing his information).  It turned out the Alltrails map picture was misleading. We now had about 4.5 miles to go at 5 PM.  Was the last shuttle from Lake Moraine at 7?  Or was it 7:30?  Could we possibly make it to the trailhead in time?  If not we would have to walk an additional 3 miles or try to hitch with a late employee.  We hustled and made it seeing the last bus in the parking lot.  The driver after asking if we got lost, informed us we had 30 seconds to go.  I was so relieved not to have an additional 3 mile hike!  I was pretty spent.  We paid for it the next day in shredded muscle from the sustained pace!  Tim signed up for an 11.5 mile hike and didn't seem to appreciate the extra 1.5 miles for our detour!  One good thing, though, was seeing the Giant Steps Falls.  We saw a cute marmot also!

Mr. Marmot