Hike Out from Twin Falls
A very easy and quick walk out on a very straightforward trail that can be traveled in any conditions.
The Yoho Valley Trail serves as access to the Laughing Falls campground, Twin Falls campground, and Little Yoho Valley and is an efficient way to travel to and from any destination in the area. The trail begins at the popular Takakkaw Falls, the highest falls in western Canada, and spans to the Twin Falls Campground, near the toe of the Yoho Glacier.
The Takakkaw Falls parking lot is situated a 13 km drive up the Yoho Valley Road (about 15 minutes) and the total driving time from the Calgary city limits is about 2:15 hours. The Yoho Valley Road is closed from October 10th to June 14th, so be mindful of this when planning your trip.
If starting at the parking lot, head north and through the Takakkaw Falls campground. Follow the very good trail until Laughing Falls, where you will once again continue straight, with a left turn just before the Twin Falls Campground. If starting at the Twin Falls campground, turn right and head down the trail, shortly after, take another right. After this point, continue straight through the Laughing Falls campground and the Takakkaw Falls campground until the parking lot.
I awoke and it was still dark out. I checked my phone and it read 4:00 am. Still two more hours of precious sleep before we would start the day.
Well actually it was 3 full hours. I awoke and immediately knew we slept in by how light out it was. We didn't even think we needed the alarms. I guess we were wrong. Since we were already an hour late, I rushed us and we packed up and cooked breakfast rather quickly.
We still ended up leaving the campground way later than expected (1.5 hours later) so we'd have to try to catch up on the walk out at least a little bit if we wanted to have time to complete Mount Stephen.
Starting down the trail from the campground.
After a while, we got to the turn off that you can take to get to the Little Yoho Valley. A lot of folks use this as the approach trail instead of the Iceline Trail. We're pointing out the Yoho Glacier lookout trail, that we didn't have time to do. Also it starting making me a bit mad that there were no distances on the signs, I kinda wanted to know how far everything is.
Laughing Falls. They did not look or sound like they were laughing, so I have no idea where the name came from.
Now we were on to the highway leading back to the parking lot.
Soon enough, we were back at the lot and getting ready to try to get a permit for Mount Stephen.
This small hike out passed very quickly and rather uneventfully, which is why it's such a short report. I just added it because it completes the Takakkaw Falls backpacking trip story, and someone like you might find it useful for navigation or whatnot.
Anyways, we drove down to the visitor centre, feeling bittersweet about the trip being over. Well, I mean it wasn't over just yet. So, we got down to the visitor centre and talked with who we think was the supervisor. He informed us that to get a permit it has to be 3 business days in advance and ideally over email. This is a really serious thing I guess, so we'll have to wait for another opportunity to Mount Stephen. Instead, we chose Mount Field, a shorter and easier objective, and that was probably best anyways, since Mount Stephen had a bit of a dusting of snow on it.