Larch Valley

Larch Valley

Distance: 5.8 km to pass
Elevation: 724 m
Duration: 2 h to Sentinel Pass
Difficulty: easy to moderate

Access: access from Moraine Lake, MUST be in groups of 6 or more – they checked us last year and fined people who weren’t in groups of six

The hike to Larch Valley ranks as one of the more popular outings in Banff National Park, especially in autumn when the subalpine larches display a radiant golden glow. (This trail can be crowded in the fall, particularly on weekends--other good areas for the colour of the larches turning are the meadows above Taylor Lake and the slopes around Boulder Pass.)

Arrival at Larch Valley is a reward well-earned, since you climb 550 metres in just 4.2 km. After the series of steady switchbacks up from Moraine Lake, you might enjoy a pause on the rest bench at the junction with the Eiffel Lake trail.

Keeping right for Larch Valley, the first stands of larch soon appear, then you come to a fair-sized meadow. Mt. Temple rises loftily to the north, while ahead stand Pinnacle Mtn. and Eiffel Peak--named for a rock tower on its north side (not visible from this trail) that resembles the famous landmark in Paris.

After a level section through the meadow, the path leads up steadily--although more gently than the trail up from Moraine Lake--to pass the last trees at approximately km 3.7. Five hundred metres further on, you reach the shore of the largest of the Minnestimma Lakes nestled in the bowl between Mt. Temple and Pinnacle Mtn. The name of these small tarns has the evocative meaning "sleeping water." It was bestowed by early explorer/mountaineer Samuel Allen, who had the assistance of Stoney Indian William Twin in choosing the many names from their language that he conferred on features.

Of Allen's original Stoney-numeral names for the summits on the south south of the Valley of the Ten Peaks, only those for Neptuak (nine) and Wenkchemna (ten) survive. The others have been renamed for non-Natives; one of them (Peak Six) honours Allen himself (http://www.canadianrockies.net/luminous/mplarch.html).