Day 8: Jasper to Lake Louise, Banff National Park (Mosquito campground)

Well I made it to Banff National Park. The good stuff first, the landscapes have been stunning. I'll have a lot of great pictures to share when I get back. The mountains, the glaciers, the glacial lakes and rivers- all beautiful. I met a couple from Switzerland and another from Idaho, all impressed with my journey. Did a hike up to Little Beehive at Lake Louise from the suggestion of a friend I met in Alaska last year.

Now the bad. I made some poor decisions today and I was lucky not to have to pay for them. I got started hiking at Lake Louise too late. When I was just setting off the sun was behind the mountains. The days tend to be shorter around here because of that. Instead of turn back at any convenient point I powered through all the way to the top of Little Beehive. I still had light from the reflections off other mountains. But the temp was falling fast too. I made it back down, by far the last one off that trail today for sure. So a few demerits for hiking late, alone, in bear country without the necessities to spend a few hours in the cold if something should happen. I was fine but things can go wrong and no need to make them worse by being unprepared. I did have fire starter kit at least, but when I got back to the parking lot the temp was 33, not good if I had twisted an ankle or something worse. Anyway, I made it back to the parking lot without incident but I still had 20 miles to drive back to the campsite. As a rule I don't like to take the motorcycle if I'll be out after dark. Short trip around town or something, fine but I know the risks, motorcycles are dangerous and being out at night, or even dusk, puts adds to the risk and exceeds my threshold. I've added extra, blinking break lights for rearward visibility but I put off extra road illuminating forward light and promised myself, for this trip I wouldn't be out after dark unless it was a few miles back from dinner or something- not 20 miles after full dark in deer, bear, elk, couger, rabbit country. And no joke, any of those could have ended my night ride badly. Fortunately a rabbit was all I saw and he was in the other lane, jumping off the road. Did I mention it was cold? It was a long 20 miles back to camp and I was not happy with myself. And as much as I wanted to rip the throttle and get it over with I took it slow and cautious. At least when I'm doing stupid stuff I try not to dig the hole any deeper.

So I made it, like I said, I didn't have to pay the price this time but I acknowledge I took risks I know I shouldn't have. So why belabor the point and expose my mistakes here to everybody? Because it really happens. Maybe its not as blatant as my poor decisions tonight but we all have decisions that lead us down a path and sometimes we choose poorly but hopefully we can realize when we make a mistake and learn from it and hopefully not make the same ones again.

For me, I always question what it is that lead me up to the point where a poor decision seemed reasonable. This time, I think it's that I'm ready to head home. My thought was that if I got in a hike this afternoon/evening I could make it through the town of Banff, through Calgary and back into the US and be at East Glacier all tomorrow. If not I'd spend tomorrow morning doing the hike and probably not make the border until Thursday. So what's an extra day? To me it seemed important. I'm getting tired of the road and spontaniety, not knowing where I'll sleep or where I'll be tomorrow. Sometimes it's nice but like anything there is a limit and right now I'm feeling like I'm approaching it. But it could be I'm just tired from a full day and tomorrow my capacity will be replenished. In either case, I do feel I've accomplished what I set out to do and if I go strait home or spend some time in Glacier it'll all be alright with me.