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Did a fun and adventurous trip near the beginning of October with my sister and my dad. We started off with the shuttle to Lake Louise, then ascended the Saddleback Pass and dropped down into the shady and cold Paradise Valley. We followed the trail past Lake Annette, and then to the back of the valley, and proceeded to visit both the Giant's Steps and the massive green Horseshoe Lake. It is quite an isolated and magical place! I would have loved to spend more time there, but we were on a timer to get all the way over to Moraine Lake by 7pm to catch the final shuttle, and it was already past 2pm! Instead of ascending Sentinel Pass, we planned to take a route over Wasatch Pass, further west, which would spit us out right above Eiffel Lake (and was actually less elevation than Sentinel). At first glance, from our vantage on the moraines near Horseshoe Lake, we were feeling some misgivings, as the terrain looked "big", as the topo maps often fail to give a good picture of the actual landscape. Thankfully, we descended one of the moraines back down into the larch forest, and made quick progress to the foot of the boulder field below the pass. This route was actually quite simple, just some boulder hopping and ascending talus slopes, and the grade was fairly moderate, and not too loose (although we did hear two big slabs crash down earlier in the day). Not a lot of evidence of foot traffic. Then the descent down to Eiffel Lake trail was fine, we just followed the obvious gully that people take when doing Wasatch Peak. It's steep but not bad at all. Then the final walk out was a gorgeous display of the Valley of the 10 Peaks, basking in golden autumn sun. Can't get better than that!
Laura doesn't know how to use her self timer yet, so must resort to silly shots like this. She's showing off her new "staff of Gandolf". you can't really see it in this picture, but the detail of it lower down really does look like Gandolf's staff, and I reckon the idea for it came from this Lancewood as much of Lord of the Rings was filmed in this area (kind of braided wood). I trimmed the roots off so as not to poke my eyes out, and was thrilled to learn that my hand fit nicely into them, so used it as my 2nd walking stick on the Milford Track ... and then used it for all tracks thereonin.