Heart Eyes, Vol. 223: What I Did on my Summer Vacation
Friends! Hello. Happy Friday. I’m back from the mountains and settled in at home and work, and now suddenly it’s…almost September? I don’t understand at all, but I’m trying to go with it: adjusting to a new life schedule, looking forward to what’s to come in the coming season, and allowing myself to be plied with all the peaches and tomatoes and corn I can get. It’s not vacation, but it has its pleasures.
Wherever you are, whether you’re getting ready for new things or just continuing with the seasons, I hope this weekend is golden and lovely. I think you’re doing great.
Where to Go: Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada
It always makes me happy when I get to visit a place I’ve been dreaming about for a long time—and this summer I got very lucky in that regard, and spent a week hiking in and around Banff National Park with a couple of friends.
It’s an incredibly beautiful place and we had a great time. Maybe you’d like to go, too? Here are a few highlights, observations, and things we learned along the way:
One of the main things to know about Banff is that there are lots of other people there! It’s a popular international destination with a summer high season crammed into ten or twelve weeks, tops, and working around that reality did influence how we approached our trip. That said, we we didn’t find it to be a dealbreaker: we learned some lessons and made some sacrifices to avoid the worst of the crowds, but we had plenty of space and quiet on most trails and our particular après-hike scene was never mobbed.
On that note, we stayed in an Airbnb ski condo in Canmore, 15 minutes south of Banff (both the town and the park), and it was such a great choice—we went into Banff (the town) for dinner one night and it was such a zoo. Canmore is a bit farther from the parks, but its vibe felt far more manageable and it still had plenty of amenities (and we never once waited for a restaurant table there).
Do as I say and not as I do: Book your shuttles well ahead of time! Some key destinations in the area can only be accessed by shuttle or have very limited parking, and all the shuttles require advanced reservations. We didn’t realize how quickly they would sell out, which is why we got up at 4:30 one morning to get a parking spot at Lake Louise—you can’t go to Banff and not see Lake Louise!—and did not make it to Moraine Lake and the other mandatory-shuttle spots at all. Next time!
That said, Lake Louise was worth the unfortunate wake-up time—it is, in fact, very beautiful. We arrived in time to watch the moody, foggy sunrise and got an early start on the Teahouses Trail, an eleven-mile loop that hits both of the Swiss-style hike-in teahouses built there in the early 1900s. (They have no electricity and are supplied by helicopter, but there’s table service and they offer a variety of fresh baked goods, some soups and chili, and a variety of local teas—a delightful Will Hike for Snacks moment.) We did the loop clockwise and had a 9:30 a.m. lunch at the Plain of Six Glaciers teahouse before doubling back to the one at Lake Agnes, and were happy with that choice—we were among the first customers of the day at the Plain of Six, and we got to go down the switchbacks from Lake Agnes instead of starting out with that big climb. (The Lake Agnes teahouse was packed when we stopped by—I think it always is during high season—and we didn’t stop to eat there. But the lake is stunning.)
Aside from Lake Louise, we came up with a varied and delightful itinerary of other hikes, which I think we all really enjoyed: Helen Lake (long, forested climb to alpine meadows and a lake), Johnston Canyon to Inkpots (waterfall-studded canyon carved by a rushing river, continuing to a mountain meadow ringed with peaks, with a complex of different-colored springs), and Bow Glacier Falls (lake > river > waterfall flowing off a glacier, the headwaters of the whole valley’s watershed). Also: there are so many more! We mostly hiked in Banff National Park, but the whole area is blanketed with amazing parkland—plus there’s Jasper just a couple of hours away.
All this to say, we had a great time in the mountains. (Good job, Canada!) Maybe you would, too.
What to Bake: Ultimate Zucchini Bread
And here we come to the nitty-gritty. Trails and views and logistics, yes, but what about the snacks?
My friends and I have a finely tuned selection of Trader Joe’s trail mix, peanut butter pretzels, smoked almonds, and M&Ms (a special reward for wildlife sightings) that we carry on the trail, but also, we are civilized people and we do not go into the woods without baked goods.
Enter the Smitten Kitchen Ultimate Zucchini Bread—an instant classic, conveniently seasonal, and a key element of our vacation-treats game. After all, who doesn’t need a giant loaf of tender, crispy-topped cake to remind you that vacation rules apply? It’s even better if you can get your exploding zucchini plants down to inbox zero before you go on vacation—because you’ll definitely have more when you get back.
Now. The truth is that zucchini bread is a tender soul and does not fare all that well jostling around in a backpack all day, but it’s a clutch player in other ways: as a grab-and-go first breakfast/consolation on the pitch-dark 5 a.m. drive to Lake Louise, for example, and stashed in the car as a small prize for finishing a long hike. It is so good at those jobs, and many others! I wonder if you’d like to put it to work, too.
Blockbuster Review: The King and I (1956)
Not exactly up to modern standards of cultural observation and interaction, of course…but a delight. Do I love Yul Brynner now? (I already loved Deborah Kerr. And those skirts!)