Mounties are warning they may be forced to temporarily close the road to one of the most spectacular areas in Banff National Park for viewing larch trees in fall colour in a bid to control parking woes and traffic congestion this coming weekend.
Lake Louise RCMP intermittently closed Moraine Lake Road last weekend (Sept. 24-25) because of public safety concerns, and they want to avoid the chaos of last weekend, when thousands of hikers headed to Moraine Lake and Larch Valley.
Mounties say the parking lot at Moraine Lake was full and vehicles were backed up for several kilometres along the narrow road – and say it would have been difficult to get police cars or ambulances there in the event of an emergency.
“It was a very, very busy weekend and we want to give people the heads up that this is something we’re going to be doing for the remainder of the season until the road closes in October,” said Lake Louise RCMP Cpl. Jeff Campbell.
“Many people were pretty upset, but we’re doing it for public safety reasons, because there’s so much traffic, and we also want to make sure visitor enjoyment is at a premium, with as little frustration as possible.”
Larch Valley is a unique larch forest high above Moraine Lake that features breathtaking views of the Valley of the Ten Peaks. It is consistently ranked as one of the top day hikes in the parks, particularly in fall when the leaves go from green to gold.
It is also an area in which grizzly bears love to roam. On Monday (Sept. 26), Parks Canada implemented restrictions mandating hikers travel in groups of four because of recent bear activity.
Parks Canada managers say the traffic volumes last weekend were higher than expected, but they do not expect the crowds to be as big this coming weekend, particularly given temperatures won’t be as warm and the larches peaked last week.
Alex Kolesch, acting visitor experience manager for Lake Louise, Yoho and Kootenay, said RCMP and Parks would meet over the winter months to come up with a better solution for next fall.
“We will come up with a traffic management plan to deal with the overflow parking situation when it gets to a point where the RCMP feels a road closure is necessary,” he said. “I have no idea of what those options are at this point.”
Both environmental and park user lobby groups agree last weekend’s experience for visitors is unacceptable and, while both agree public transportation must be part of the solution, they differ on other management options.
The Association for Mountain Parks Protection and Enjoyment (AMPPE) says Parks Canada missed an easy opportunity to educate visitors at the park’s east gate last weekend on other great locations within the park to view the turning larch trees.
“Let’s face facts, it’s a beautiful weekend and this happens every year and they could have proactively got the word out ahead of time,” said Monica Andreeff, the group’s executive director.
“It’s a missed opportunity for a higher visitor experience that would have been a fairly easy fix.”
Andreeff said the huge traffic volumes also underscore the need for a strategy for regional transportation, especially in Lake Louise, perhaps even with a pickup location in Banff.
“When we talk about regional transportation in the long-term planning, Lake Louise is one of the areas where it’s needed, especially on big weekends like Ice Magic and the larches,” she said.
“But as with anything, it takes commitment and it takes dollars. Whether it’s coming from the federal government, municipal governments or ID9, it’s got to get to the top of priority lists.”
The Bow Valley Naturalists have long called for limits to human use, and say this is perhaps one example of where Parks Canada should be setting limits in the national parks.
“We strongly support limits for both ecological and visitor experience reasons, and those might be different thresholds for different places,” said Mike McIvor, the group’s president.
But McIvor said diverting people to other locations is not the answer, especially without knowing the ecological or visitor experience consequences of increased human presence in those areas.
“If you’re not going to do anything about limits, do you want other places to be filled up and busy like Moraine Lake, too?” he said.
“It’s not just a matter of saying Larch Valley under these conditions, or Moraine Lake under these conditions is a problem for both wildlife and people, and therefore we’ll encourage people to go somewhere else. If that’s not done in a strategic way, it’s not a suitable response or alternative.”
McIvor agrees with calls for a public transportation system.
“As far back as I can remember, there’s been a commitment from Parks Canada to move forward with public transportation initiatives and, of course, there would be hardly a more logical place for that than Moraine Lake,” he said.
“I think the lack of any serious effort to do something about public transportation there is a real failing, although I do understand it’s complicated. But the alternative is what happened last weekend.”
Kolesch said the park management plan gives direction for Parks Canada to pursue a transit system, but he said that is a long-term solution that could be part of the Bow Valley Regional Transit Commission.
“It’s definitely in the future years of our planning,” he said.
Kolesch said limiting human use is not an option Parks Canada wants to pursue.
“I think the disbenefits of something like that are, frankly, greater than the benefits. Instead of limiting people’s access, we need to give people alternatives and suggestions,” he said.
“It’s an iconic place in Canada. Frankly, if it’s their only opportunity to go there, perhaps they would prefer the inconvenience to go there rather than not at all and we don’t want to make that decision for them.”
Kolesch said other great places to view the larches include Arnica Lake, Taylor Lake, Bourgeau Lake, Lake Agnes, Big Beehive and Saddleback. “They are all very beautiful and great alternatives,” he said.
