Photos in Bold: Night Hikes in the Rockies
Night Hikes in the Rockies
By Christine o’Brien
During the COVID-19 pandemic, I started to hike weekly, to stave off my growing cabin fever. I was a university student and spent most days in my bedroom, watching pre-recorded lectures between workouts and naps. My part-time job became obsolete due to health protocols, and the gym I attended was only open to private trainers.
The outdoors quickly became my solace. Each day I either rode my bike or explored the ravine near my house. When a former classmate invited me to hike with him on weekends, I couldn’t get enough.
When the world began to open up, our school and work schedules stopped aligning. But I was determined to continue hiking on my own. Through what information was accessible—Avalanche Skills Training, local guidebooks and blogs on the Alberta Rockies and government trail reports—I educated myself on backcountry safety. But there were always lessons to be learned on the trail. For example, I discovered first-hand the consequences of inadequate backcountry nutrition and gear. The most influential lesson of my hiking journey, however, has been timing my hikes around seasonal daylight hours.
Alberta is known for its harsh, dry winters, but our most testing seasonal change lies in our short days. Near the winter solstice, the sun rises at 8:45 a.m. and sets at 4:30 p.m. If you attend school or work from nine to five, you hardly see any sun. For hikers, this means planning backcountry goals carefully. When I began hiking, I found myself trekking the latter half of many winter trips in the dark. One night hike, in particular, took Type 2 fun to a new level.
In December 2021, a prolonged period of extreme weather rendered me unable to hike for three weeks. On one of the first warm days, I packed my Osprey and drove to Canmore to hike an unofficial peak called Grassi Knob.
When I reached the first major incline, it was already 4:00 p.m., just an hour before sunset. Stubborn, and determined to make up for lost “fitness,” I pressed on. Two hours later, at the base of the summit, I was faced with a short scramble. The climb left me exposed to a cliff to my right and what would be a steep tumble down the treeline to my left.
Self-doubt halted me in my tracks. It was well after nightfall. The rock face ahead was blanketed in the past three month’s snowpack. Reduced visibility impacted my ability to determine safe holds. For the first time, alone on a mountain, I realized how easily a mistake could lead to my death.
I felt completely out of my element. Without enough visibility to find an alternate route or my usual scrambling buddy to encourage me, I was on the verge of a panic attack. I began to consider my options to retreat. The trail was intended to be hiked as a loop, not an out and back. I knew descending the way I came was more dangerous than braving the short climb. I could call for a mountain rescue, but this would mean staking out for several more hours.
What I really needed was to talk to someone.
I unlocked my phone and stared at the miracle of full cell service. I called my Dad, who listened to me while I relayed my situation and slowly calmed down. When he gently told me to hang up and pay attention, I was able to press on.
From the summit, I could see the lights of Canmore, Dead Man’s Flats and Exshaw. I silently cursed myself for not bringing my camera before continuing down the switchbacks on the west end of the trail.
Luckily, the trail had been blazed before me. A few hours later, the glow of townhomes illuminated the forest floor. It was close to 10:00 p.m. when a woman on her balcony called out to me.
“Did you just hike through that forest alone?” she asked.
“Yes, I did,” I replied.
“You’re one brave woman!” she huffed. “There’s a family of cougars in that forest. They’ve been making the news for the past few years.”
Despite my distressing experience hiking Grassi Knob, I continued to hike at night. The experience prompted me to make smarter choices. From then on, I stuck to popular, well-trafficked trails.
A few weeks later, I trekked up a local peak called “Prairie Mountain.” The trailhead is just 50 minutes west of my hometown—Calgary, Alberta. After dark, I found myself passing locals, trail runners and photographers like myself.
After the hike, I stopped at the trailhead to experiment with astrophotography. When I returned home, editing the raw images was something I was looking forward to wind down with.
With my new approach, I visited trails I wouldn’t typically see due to traffic and tourists. In 2023, I hiked Fairview Mountain in Lake Louise during “larch season”—the transition period from summer to fall in the Rockies, when larch trees turn golden before their needles fall.
In recent years, the phenomenon has gone viral on social media, causing an influx of tourists. Parking lots by Lake Louise now fill up by 6 or 7 a.m. during summer and fall. Dedicated hikers and tourists must either start their mornings near 3:30 a.m., or book a shuttle weeks in advance. As a late riser and introvert, I wrote off hiking near Lake Louise years ago due to the hassle.
Learning to hike in the evening, however, provided me with the opportunity to secure a parking spot at Lake Louise after most people had left for the day.
Soon I began to invite close friends on sunset hikes. What began as my personal solace became a way to connect with friends and family. The uniqueness of evening hikes was something people around me were interested in hearing about and experiencing.
Recently my friend Mark, an avid climber and scrambler suggested we tackle Heart Mountain Horseshoe in Kananaskis. Due to my fear of heights, starting the trail afternoon helped us avoid trail traffic. We only ran into three other groups during our seven-hour Saturday trek, and we took our sweet time at the near vertical headwall.
Solo adventures continued to provide me with unique experiences. The first time I saw the Milky Way was in Banff National Park upon returning from a sunset hike to Taylor Lake. I reached the lake at sunset and watched campers reading in hammocks by the shore. The return was straightforward, though dark. When I reached my car, I was greeted by a view of the Milky Way above the trailhead.
Despite the unique opportunities evening hikes offer, returning in the darkness has never gotten easier. Not every late-night hike earned me a photo worth sharing. More often than not, adverse conditions sent me rushing back to the safety of my car.
One evening, unbeknownst to me, Alberta Parks staff set fires off the trail to Yates Mountain in Kananaskis. The hike features a series of switchbacks through a forest near Barrier Lake.
I had just begun a night hike there when a utility truck drove past me. A few minutes later, I found myself hiking past several small fires off the trail.
I turned back when I realized the danger I could be putting myself in should the fires have spread. Later, I learned the fires were set to burn for pine beetles, a pest that is damaging to trees in the Alberta Rockies.
On many occasions, I found myself so invested in a hike that I pressed on despite my intuition. On night hikes, this caused intense anxiety, as I pushed farther into the forest or up a peak as the light faded from the sky.
On a solo hike in 2022, I drove nearly two hours from Calgary to a popular trail called Junction Falls. By the time I arrived, the sun was low in the sky. I had no service or InReach at the time. To begin the hike, I waded thigh deep in the Sheep River. Later, I crossed another creek using a fallen tree as a bridge.
In hindsight, I wouldn’t recommend any novice hiker to tackle the trail solo. The 14-kilometre out-and-back trail begins with a river crossing. The unmaintained trail is riddled with divots and holes made by horses and there were only two points where I was able to successfully end a message from my InReach to my emergency contact.
Though I managed to cross the first creek crossing on the return in twilight, the second was in total darkness. I was more concerned about an animal encounter at the water than falling in due to the thigh-deep currents late in the day.
Four years have passed since I began my hiking journey. During COVID, hiking in the mountains was my solace. My solo adventures helped me reset for another long week of at-home learning. I could release the pent-up desire to move freely when I was forced into a sedentary lifestyle.
In 2021, a year into the pandemic, I summited local peaks and immediately felt “at home.”
But in 2023 and 2024, my hikes have become more infrequent, and forced. The novelty of hiking alone has worn off. When I began hiking solo, it used to feel like taking a gulp of air.
Floe Lake, BC
SPRAY LAKES, KANANASKIS AB
Recently, I encountered a black bear while solo hiking. The experience felt like a warning I couldn’t ignore.
I’ve been lucky enough to make it home from every adventure over the last four years. But luck runs out. No photograph or adventure compares to the feeling of safety in your own body. To make the time to connect with friends and pursue passions that were unreachable during the pandemic.
Chasing sunsets in the Alberta Rockies has allowed me to experience freedom unmatched by any other sport. I’ve fostered a sense of independence and self-reliance through backcountry education and solo hiking on a weekly basis. But over the years, I’ve learned that no photograph or summit high can compare to sleeping through the night or consistently feeling safe in my body.
I am not ready to step away from backcountry recreation, but after seeing the dark side of chasing sunsets, I’m ready to follow a new path. One that leads to more connections, reaching my career goals and regulating my nervous system.
