'Lake O'Hara is just iconic': Lottery deadline looms for day-use bus seats

You only have a few days left to enter Parks Canada’s lottery to secure a seat on the day-use bus to visit Lake O’Hara in Yoho National Park this summer.

The entry deadline is at 11:59 p.m. on March 31 and demand for the draw remains high with 8,400 entries as of Tuesday afternoon.

James Eastham, public relations and communications officer with Parks Canada, says they’ve seen between 8,100 to 8,500 entries every year since launching the lottery in 2020.

About 1.100 are randomly selected every season.

The lottery was brought in during the pandemic due to the spike in people visiting the lake for hiking and camping.

“Lake O’Hara has always been a  highly-prized destination in Yoho and definitely -- even throughout the pandemic, despite the drop in international travel -- there’s still very strong demand from our regional visitors,” said  Eastham.

“Before we went to the random draw, reservations would sell out within minutes of becoming available, so this at least gives people the month to apply and you do get that chance if your draw is successful.”

You can’t drive to Lake O’Hara and while Parks Canada doesn’t restrict people from walking to the lake, it is a 22 kilometer round trip.

You can enter the draw as many times as you’d like but each entry does come with a $10 fee, which helps support the lottery and to maintain facilities in Yoho National Park.

Lake O’Hara is the only area in Canada with a random draw and Eastham says there are no plans to extend that elsewhere.

“We introduced the random draw in 2020," Eastham said. "That was in response to just the incredibly high demand for very limited numbers of seats on the shuttle bus and it’s our way of trying to ensure as fair a process as possible for people to be able to access that area.”

HIGH DEMAND

It’s not just a challenge to secure a seat on the bus, but booking a camping spot at Lake O’Hara also takes a little luck.

Reservations released on January 25 have sold out fast, leaving many people to turn to sites like Schnerp.com which scans campgrounds across much of Alberta for cancellations and then alerts people when spots open.

Schnerp’s founder, Daniel Thareja, said there were around 500 people on the site Wednesday morning looking for a camping spot at Lake O’Hara.

“Parks Canada opened a little earlier this year in end of January as opposed to March last year so there’s way more room for cancellations,” he says. “It’s a lot for how early it is.”

Thareja said at the website’s peak last year, 1,500 people were searching for camping spots at Lake O’Hara.

“Lake O’Hara is just iconic,” he says. “It’s just a really nice alpine backcountry experience with beautiful shots, beautiful lakes, beautiful mountains, beautiful views and all the above packaged in a really accessible way with the bus system there.”

Lake O'Hara is a popular destination during larch season. (Photo courtesy Dawn Walton, CTV Calgary)

It was actually Thareja’s own challenge trying to visit Lake O’Hara that motivated him to develop the website.

“When I looked online it was all booked and when I asked my friends how does anyone go here they say a) you have to get lucky on opening day or b) you just refresh the webpage all day long and hope something comes up. I’m a software engineer by trade, so my brain went off and said this is silly.”

If you’re not lucky enough to secure a camping spot, a seat on the bus, or willing to trek to the lake, Thareja says there is no shortage of back up options nearby.

“The great part about the Rockies is you can look off the beaten path that is just as beautiful as the Lake O’Haras, the Lake Louises, the Moraine Lakes.”

You can apply to secure a seat on the day-use bus to Lake O’Hara here.