I am continually amazed at the beauty of the Canadian Rockies. Just this past weekend, my friend and I went to Skoki to tag a couple peaks – Lipalian Mountain and Purple Peak. After spotting photos on a Facebook page earlier this week, I knew I had to go there.
With Larch madness in full swing, the Hwy 1 traffic and trail parking was silly. We felt a little anxious as we noticed large groups of hikers who also heading to Lipalian Mountain.
However our worries were unfounded. Once we started on the trail (about 3 kilometres on the Lake Louise service) before we started up a climb through the trees adjacent to the ski-out, eventually reaching the Larch Express chair lift. From there it was a steep ascent over to scree to a boulder field. We realized we had strayed slightly off the trail when we found ourselves navigating over boulders.
Higher up we could see the clear path from the boulder field, which we followed to Lipalian Mountain summit. The views were outstanding. I felt like I was walking on the moon. We could see Lake Louise, Moraine Lake and Temple Mountain from the summit.
The only downside was the wind so we didn’t linger long at Lipalian Peak. I couldn’t wait to head over to Purple Peak. We could see it in the distance and the colours were out of this world. We kept stopping to take pictures between wind gusts but it didn’t take long.
We had a quick chat with a hiker who was taking a trail down through the valley from Purple Peak. We thought we would do the same.
What a great a decision. We didn’t come for the larches but they were out in full force. We were so fortunate to be the only two people in this incredible larch forest. When we were coming down the trail to the valley, we could see hiking groups heading to Lipalian summit.
We picked up a faint trail in the forest before joining up with a main trail then onto the Lake Louise service road to parking.
Another choice mountain peak. This was never on my radar but it is in the Alan Kane scramble book. There are actually several mountains in the Skoki area that I would love to climb one day. (Trip stats: 18 kilometres, 1,184 metre gain.)