Canada’s Beauty Secret : Little Visited Lake O’Hara in British Columbia Is an Alpine Paradise for Hikers and Cross-Country Skiers. Summer, Fall or Winter, It’s . . .

The secret first revealed itself to Judy Gardner a dozen years ago. The occasion was a weekend getaway for Gardner and her husband, Bill. A word-of-mouth recommendation from friends led the couple, who live in Calgary, in the Canadian province of Alberta, to the Lake O’Hara region of Yoho National Park, about two hours west of Calgary and tucked just inside British Columbia.

For Gardner, who is only slightly atypical of the regulars who have returned to this hiker’s paradise again and again, her first visit was profound. She had gazed on mountains all her life, but this was different. It was, she recalls, as if Mother Nature had rallied some of her most spectacular peaks and most scenic lakes and strung them into an irresistible configuration connected by a necklace of superb trails.

Almost straddling the border with Alberta and resting on the western flank of the Continental Divide, the watershed of the Rockies, Lake O’Hara is one of the most picturesque alpine areas in Canada. It is also one of the least known and visited. This is a happy consequence of both its exalted location (it begins to reveal itself at about 6,700 feet) and the strict custody of Canadian Parks Service, which limits access to protect a grand but delicate ecology.

Ironically, Lake O’Hara lies just on the other side of one of the most photographed scenes in the Rockies, the world-famous Lake Louise and its craggy backdrop, Mt. Victoria. If you were to stand on the peak of Victoria and turn your back on Lake Louise, you would have your first promising glimpse of the centerpiece of this 19-square-mile territory, the glacial blue jewel of Lake O’Hara.

“The first year I came here,” Gardner remembers, “I met a man who had come up every year for over 50 years.” Today, she feels the same relentless tug. One summer alone, she returned 14 times between March and September, occasionally with her husband but frequently alone, often hiking from dawn to mid-afternoon.

Similar affection for the region has been echoed many times since 1887, when surveyor J. J. McArthur became the first white man to see the area. He shared his discovery with Robert O’Hara, a retired British colonel who was possibly the area’s first tourist.

Another was Walter Wilcox, a Yale-educated photographer and explorer who wrote: “In all the mountain wilderness, the most complete picture of natural beauty is realized at O’Hara Lake.”

Nearly a century has passed since Wilcox paid tribute, but Lake O’Hara today is not so different from the place he described.

Much of the credit for this unchanged beauty goes to the fact that visiting is a challenge, sometimes even a chore. No cars are allowed. They must be left in the parking lot by the Trans-Canada Highway, about seven miles down a fire road. Visitors must make reservations to arrive and depart on buses, which are scheduled four times daily between June 19 and September 30.

Some pilgrims come just for the day from Calgary. Some pitch their tents at the local Lake O’Hara campground, about a half-mile down the road from the lake. Others settle for a bunk at a communal cabin, the Elizabeth Parker Hut, which is operated by the Alpine Club of Canada.

But some come for a coveted stay at the Lake O’Hara Lodge, a distinctly civilized but rustic retreat perched on a bump of land at the northwest end of Lake O’Hara. This was my choice on my most recent visit, last September, when I met Judy Gardner. The lodge, Which consists of a chalet with eight bedrooms and 11 cozy cabins at lakeside, can accommodate about 50 people and is a unique escape, distinguished by a gracious staff, European cuisine, high teas and, of course, the singular setting.

It is a setting of many remarkable views, especially on fair days when a guest can amble the few yards to Lake O’Hara, feel the fresh yawn of morning or the last gasp of day, stare into the startling blue of the lake and gaze up to watch a paint box of colors spill over a panorama framed by more than a dozen towering peaks, several with Stoney Indian names such as Hungabee, Wiwaxy and Odaray.

The grandeur is not something you’ll find splashed on brochures inviting the world to come. Like Judy Gardner, most visitors learn about it from friends. In fact, the owners of the Lake O’Hara Lodge--which operates from mid-January to mid-April, and mid-June to the end of September--rarely advertise; they claim to be in the enviable position of having 85% repeat visitors, 99.9% occupancy and a demand several times greater than capacity.

Indeed, arranging a stay at the lodge can require patience, perseverance and flexibility, since it is the more tenured guests who get first choice in the lottery of dates, a hallowed tradition that does not yield to bribes, bombast nor bluster, according to a management that has coped with all three.

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I also heard of Lake O’Hara by word-of-mouth, in the mid-80s.

My first visit was in late june, and snow still blocked some of the trails. But in other areas, I was struck by the sight of great bursts of lichen and wildflowers, including alpine orchids. When I learned that O’Hara offers one of the most vigorous floral displays in the Rockies, I wasn’t surprised. The area had already announced itself as a mountain paradise with its ridge of castellated peaks enclosing a vast bowl filled with plateaus and valleys, thick forests, meadows, waterfalls and a bounty of lakes.

Within a three-mile radius of Lake O’Hara, there are 25 other alpine lakes or ponds. And within a five-mile radius are 50 miles of trails. On my first trip I sampled enough of the trails to learn that some are gentle and bucolic, others are more stubborn and difficult. None, though, is disappointing.

The visit solidly sealed my affections, and when the occasion of my wedding came a few years ago, Lake O’Hara seemed a perfect spot, romantic and grand. The challenge, however, of organizing too many family members and friends eventually scuttled our plans.

But only temporarily. My wife, Vicky, and I delayed our Lake O’Hara honeymoon until last year, when we finally arrived carrying a 2-year-old son, Jeremy, across the threshold. Our visit, we conceded, was going to be somewhat compromised by the quest for baby-sitters from among off-duty staff and, inevitably, some split-shift hiking. But we convinced ourselves that the magic of O’Hara would outweigh petty logistics.

That’s because Lake O’Hara is like few other places. As a guest has written in the register at the lodge: “If there is a paradise, this is it . . . our favorite place on Earth.”

I have stayed many places where guests have had nice things to say. But these tributes mean more because they come from the large number of repeat visitors, people such as George “Tommy” Link, a Chicago botany professor who visited for 50 consecutive summers, from 1928 to 1977.

Link was one of the key people responsible for the construction of many of the popular hiking trails that today weave throughout the region, and if there is one to try first, it is the Adeline Link Memorial Trail, which circles Lake O’Hara for about two miles.

There are some hikes to challenge the lungs, and the individual who ignores their call would miss some of the most splendid outings in the Rockies. In June and July, there are the wildflowers, and in September there is the luminous gold of the larch trees, the only conifer to turn color in the crisp days of autumn.

There are few destinations better than Opabin Prospect, a high, rocky perch that offers a daunting vista. It is a one-hour hike up from Lake O’Hara by either the East or West Opabin Trails. The latter is the steeper but more scenic. It was on one of several hikes up the trail that I encountered two California newlyweds, Gary and Kathy Madden of Palo Alto. At the Prospect, we stopped for lunch and the Maddens reflected on many other hiking areas they had visited, including Yosemite. But, they declared, looking down to Lake O’Hara, “this is the most beautiful place we’ve ever seen.”

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I returned to the cabin in the afternoon to tend my son so that my wife could enjoy her own hike up to Opabin Prospect. When she returned, she was flushed, partly from her brisk pace on a chilly day, but also from an encounter on her way down the East Opabin Trail. In dim light on the tree-lined trail she had spotted two dark creatures around an approaching bend. Remembering earlier talk about bears, she imagined they were two grizzly cubs.

The pair was blocking the trail, which fell off steeply on both sides. Vicky wondered where the mother bear might be. She peered around a tree, which revealed a clearer picture: The two cubs were, in fact, porcupines, poised like a couple of tollkeepers with little apparent interest in budging.

After 10 minutes, the two parted slightly and Vicky dashed between them and paced the rest of the way down on a burst of adrenaline.

Although it turned out to be a tame encounter, it still served as a reminder that the Lake O’Hara region is a living wilderness, where animals such as mountain goats, Marmots, porcupines, grizzlies and even the elusive wolverine are Occasionally seen. Indeed, on our visit, a burly grizzly was reported to have been seen attacking a lame mountain goat high up on a slope, and it’s part of local lore that, in 1985, a hiker was badly mauled in an encounter with a grizzly. While the risk of such attacks is probably remote, a female grizzly did enter a campground this summer, and park rangers worry that the bears will learn to associate humans with food and pose a threat to visitors.

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The Lake O’Hara Lodge is owned by Michael and Marsha Laub, who bought it in 1975 after a friend advised them it was for sale. THey were inexperienced innkeepers, but they wanted to raise their children in the great outdoors. So the Laubs bought the place, eventually bringing in another partner, Tim Wake. He had fallen under the spell of Lake O’Hara in 1969, when he was a 17-year-old student working for the summer as a dishwasher.

The affable Wake is an expert in helping keep the backcountry lodge up and running, and, in the winter season, he is chief host and cross-country guide to winter visitors, whose price of admission is a three-to-four-hour ski up the fire road (suitcases or backpacks are hauled by snowmobile).

It was one of Wake’s two daughters on whom our son bestowed a wildflower one afternoon. Picking posies at O’Hara is one of the cardinal sins, but the hand is sometimes quicker than the baby-sitter, and it’s hard to reprimand a 2-year-old for good intentions.

While he wooed his new friend, his parents went off in search of their elusive honeymoon. After a vigorous hike, we spent the balance of that sunny afternoon lying on a great slab of rock under a seamless blue sky listening to a waterfall. If there is a sweeter pause in the world, I have yet to experience it.

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If Lake O’Hara is paradise for the Laubs, the Wakes and the almost cultlike group of regular guests, it isn’t necessarily everyone’s tonic.

I heard one couple grumble about the “boot camp” regimen, which requires that buses be boarded or that meals be served at specific times. Night life at the lodge is homey, turning to spirited conversation, or reading by a fireplace or browsing through the collection of photographs in the main chalet.

There is one picture of J. E. H. Macdonald of the Group of Seven, Canadian landscape artists of the 1920s, who painted on the wonderful Opabin Plateau. Arthur Lismer was another Group of Seven visitor, and it was with great delight that Vicky and I discovered from the guest register that he had once stayed in the very cabin that we occupied, a rustic but comfortable room with beds covered in floral-print down quilts and a porch facing the lake.

We met another painter, Horace Champagne, who has returned many times with his wife and son since his initiation in 1980, another of those regulars who got here by word-of-mouth.

Since his induction, Lake O’Hara has given Champagne the inspiration for more than 300 paintings, including one that hangs over an enormous fireplace in the main chalet.

“Hiking around here,” Champagne says, “is like walking on a rainbow there’s so much color.”

But, as we discovered during our September visit, those hues can be muted in a flash by a surprise snowstorm. The snow didn’t keep any of the guests off the trails. Instead, we abandoned the slippery steeper trails for less precipitous paths, and fanned out in different directions to marvel at yet another of the local complexions.

GUIDEBOOK: Lovely Lake O’Hara

Getting there: The Lake O’Hara area lies in southeast British Columbia in Yoho National Park, bounded by Alberta’s Banff National Park to the east and Kootenay National Park to the south. Fly from Los Angeles to Calgary on Air Canada (nonstop) and Delta (nonstop and direct, through Salt Lake City). It’s a 2 1/2-hour drive from Calgary to Lake O’Hara on the Trans-Canada Highway; the parking lot at the access road to Lake O’Hara is seven miles east of Lake Louise. Where to stay: Rooms at the Lake O’Hara Lodge start at $220 per night per couple; cabins are $310-$350. . Price includes all meals, high tea, taxes and bus transportation to and from the lodge. The food is excellent, prepared by a Swiss chef; a recent four-course dinner menu listed melon with Swiss dried beef, fettuccine with Belgian endive and cepe sauce, salmon poached in a strawberry-peach vinegar sauce, and hazelnut-parfait dessert. Wine, beer and liqueurs are extra. The lodge also serves meals and high tea ($5) to non-guests who have reservations.

Reservations: Between June through September, write to Lake O’Hara Lodge at P.O. Box 55, Lake Louise, Alberta, Canada T0L 1E0; telephone (604) 343-6418. From October to May, write to P.O. Box 1677, Banff, Alberta T0L 0C0; (403) 762-2118. There are a few dates still available in September, but summer rooms are booked long in advance, with priority given to longtime repeat guests. There is a wait list for possible cancellations. From January to April, when the lodge hosts winter cross-country and backcountry skiers, rooms are easier to come by. In summer, Yoho National Park operates three roadside campgrounds and a variety of backcountry camps. The Lake O’Hara campground can be reserved a month in advance. Since public access to the lake is highly restricted and demand is high, reservations are a must for the bus that transports visitors to the lake (for about $4.70). The hike in by foot takes three to four hours. For campsite or bus reservations, call (604) 343-6433 or write Yoho National Park, P.O. Box 99, Field, British Columbia, Canada V0A 1G0; for maps or other information, call (604) 343-6324.

The Alpine Club of Canada operates a communal cabin, the Elizabeth Parker Hut, open all year (about $13.50 per night). For information, call (403) 678-3200, or write Box 2040, Canmore, Alberta, Canada T0L 0M0.

For more information: Contact Tourism British Columbia, 2600 Michelson Drive, Suite 1050, Irvine 92715, (800) 663-6000.