The Ink Pots

Elevation: 1640 m (trail high point: 1750 m)
Elevation Gain: 500 m (cumulative)
The Ink Pots are a series of seven cold spring water pools located alongside Johnston Creek. Each of these springs features a unique green/blue hue as a result of the minerals present. These minerals settle to a greater degree in the springs with the lowest flow rates, making them the most vibrantly colored. Below the Ink Pots, Johnston Creek cascades down to the Bow Valley through a deep canyon, which features several impressive waterfalls. The Creek and Canyon both take their names from a prospector who resided in the area in 1882.
My Ascents:
September 15 2023
Trailhead: Johnston Canyon Trailhead Parking
GPS Track: The Ink Pots via Johnston Canyon

The day after our 10th anniversary (which we celebrated atop not one, but two, beautiful peaks), I woke in our camping trailer next to, not one, but two, beautiful girls 😎 (my wife Brianne and our nearly-1-year-old daughter Lillian 😇). Thanks to grandparents, our older kids were cared for, and we were able to enjoy a quiet night around the campfire. 🔥 As the sun rose and we stirred, there was (uncharacteristically) nowhere that we had to be and nothing that we had to do. If we’d wanted to, we could have sat around in our pajamas all morning; What a luxury! 🧐

Obviously, that’s not what we did though. Who are we kidding? A day off work with only 33.3% of our usual parental responsibilities? Oh yeah – we weren’t wasting that in pajamas – we were going to go hiking!

Having spent the night at the Johnston Canyon Campground, we figured we’d take advantage of our proximity to get an early start on the stupidly popular Johnston Canyon trail nearby. We’d attempted to stop here for a quick hike on our way home from camping a month earlier but had been turned back because the trailhead’s expanded parking lot (and even its overflow parking lot) were full. 😒 Hoping to avoid a similar outcome this time, we literally packed our trailer up, moved it to the hike’s parking lot and ate breakfast there. By 9:30 am, we were fueled up, packed up and ready to go!

LEFT: Our littlest hiker Lillian shows off her cute Koala mitts 🐨 and her buddy for the hike (“Stamps Panda”)! 🐼 Brianne and I may not have gotten to sit around in our PJs but Lilly sure did (since it was quite cold and her sleeper was fleecy).
RIGHT: Brianne was also keen to model her fleecy clothing as we crossed Johnston Creek and started our brisk morning hike! 🥶

For an agency that oversees numerous hiking trails that have no signage or uselessly limited signage, the signs at Johnston Canyon were oddly specific! As a scientist, I’m also curious about the accuracy here, as this degree of precision would require GPS measurements that are difficult to reliably obtain in a deep canyon! 🤔

LEFT: Every time we’ve hiked this trail with our kids, they’ve insisted on hiking atop the retaining wall in the lower canyon, instead of using the paved trail. Without them around, it was my turn to be the big kid! 😁
RIGHT: Admiral, there be canyon here! 🤓 Pleasant views down from the first of the trail’s many suspended catwalks.

A blurry Brianne keeps a good pace as we follow the catwalks upstream. Our early start ensured that the trail was not as horrifically busy as it often is, however, it also made photography challenging since the canyon remained in the morning shade for most of our hike up.

LEFT: Even with an early start, there was already a reasonable queue to see the lower falls. Since you can see them from above without waiting, we skipped the line and looked down. 😂 Later on, when we returned, this lineup stretched for at least a hundred meters! 🤯
RIGHT: Taking a selfie above the lower falls rather than at them.

While I generally prefer summit scenery to canyon scenery, I must admit that the latter can be nice too (although only as a change of pace). 🙃

If anyone is ever wondering where the “secret cave” is, Parks Canada has now made it incredibly obvious. They have also made it abundantly clear that anyone venturing off-trail here to reach the cave will face a penalty of up to $25,000. This cave’s popularity exploded when shots of it started appearing on social media. Unfortunately, this led to black swift population declines, as the cave is one of their preferred nesting sites. While I laud Parks Canada for taking steps to protect these birds, the cynic in me wonders if they used to nest all over the canyon before Parks Canada built a massive trail right through it?... 🤔

LEFT: While we judged the queue for the lower falls to be unreasonable, there was only a 3 or 4-person wait for the upper falls so we visited them from below…
RIGHT: … and above. Once again, when we hiked back down an hour or two later, the lineup to see these falls was at least 100 meters long!

Above the upper falls, much of the 3,050-m hike looks like this: an unremarkable walk in the woods. 😐

LEFT: Eventually, the trail stops going up through the woods. At this point, it starts going down through the same woods. Talk about excitement!
RIGHT: While there’s really nothing to see for the 3-km above the upper falls, the scenic payoff was still worth it when we did reach the vibrantly colored Ink Pots. 😍

The Ink Pots, as you can see, are located in a beautiful meadow, whose openness allows for fine panoramic views of Banff’s nearby Sawback Mountain Range. Click to see larger.

A host of onlookers survey the colorful springs, no doubt contemplating if these little (but colorful) mud pools were worth the 5,485-meter walk. 😂

A closer look at one of the “Pots” reveals circles in the mud around the spring’s inlets.

While Lillian is more accustomed to summits than Ink Pots, she nevertheless enjoyed them (only as a change of pace, of course). 🙃

After letting Lilly roam free in the alpine meadow and enjoying a lunchbreak on a small bench, we packed the food and the baby back up and started back down.

A parting Ink Pot panorama, looking up the Johnston Creek Valley towards outliers of Noetic Peak (center left) and Mystic Peak (center right). Click to see larger.

Enjoying fine views towards nearby Mount Ishbel on a fine September afternoon.

LEFT and RIGHT: As the trail returned to the dull forest, Brianne was unimpressed 🤨 at the 100 meters of elevation that we had to gain in order to descend. It was also around this time that she grew distressed at the discovery that we’d lost a cute mitten in the likeness of a koala. 😱🐨

LEFT: Back in the canyon… You know the 3-km through the woods was dull when the only photos taken over that span were a pair to showcase how unimpressed my wife was. 😂
RIGHT: While Brianne didn’t love the woods or the going up on descent, she was overjoyed 🥳 when we found our lost koala mitten along the busy Johnston Canyon trail. 🐨

Reunited with Lilly’s koala mitten, Brianne, Lillian, “Stamps Panda” and myself made haste while attempting to dodge the busy canyon’s crowds. "Highlights" included a father blocking the entire path for several minutes so that he could make his young son take a photo of him, hundreds of people lining up (and likely waiting hours) to see a pair of waterfalls, and a group perplexed that their large wagon couldn’t roll over a boulder the size of a nightstand. 🤦‍♂️ On the drive home, we amused ourselves by reading Alltrails reviews for Johnston Canyon and these suggested that the events that we witnessed are highly ordinary here. One review even suggested that this should soon be a moving sidewalk. Heaven help us if some bureaucrat at Parks Canada reads that one and gets ideas… 😬

While the hike down was busy (and at times absurd), it was still calm compared to the raucous reception we got when we returned home to our other girls that evening. It seems that they missed us while we were away celebrating our anniversary, and we definitely missed them too. 🥰 For our next anniversary, maybe we’ll even get to miss Lillian! 🙃🤔