AMERICA’S HAT
Back
in the summer of 2005 Christy and I visited the Canadian Rockies for the first time. It was one of our best trips ever, featuring
a month of hiking and camping in Banff, Yoho, Kootenay, and Jasper National
Parks and Mount Assiniboine and Mount Robson Provincial Parks. We did 4 backpacking trips spanning 16 days,
and spent the rest of our time car camping, dayhiking;
and for Christy, cycling. I think it is
the most scenic place we’ve visited, but for some reason it took us 9 years to
return.
Our
second trip would be a little different.
Christy had a full summer planned.
She had 8 weeks off from school, but planned to spend one of them doing
a swim race around Key West, and another cycling across Iowa. Due to the timing of the Iowa trip, she
didn’t have 4 contiguous weeks before school resumed. I can take 4 weeks off each summer, and I
like to take advantage of it – particularly in a place as huge as the Canadian
Rockies. Ultimately I decided to fly out
in mid-July. I would do two challenging
backpacking trips with my friend Dave before Christy flew out to join me.
One
highlight of our first trip was a scramble to the summit of Cirque Peak in the
northern portion of Banff National Park.
The peak provided the most spectacular view I’ve ever seen. The best view was to the west, over Bow Lake
to the Bow Glacier, the Crowfoot Glacier, and the Wapta
Icefield. When
we were there, I pointed in that direction and told Christy that one day I
would hike there. She laughed at the
time, but when we began planning this trip, she reminded me of my proclamation.
I
did a little research on hiking the Wapta Icefield. It turns
out that it is possible to do a small portion of it on a 3-day trip. The Alpine Club of Canada (ACC) maintains
huts at the foot of the Bow Glacier and on the Peyto
Glacier. Members of the club can stay in
the huts with prior reservations. We
considered doing this, but decided against it.
Hiking on the glaciers and icefields safely
requires prior training and experience.
And even with the necessary preparation, the trip is dangerous for a group
of two. The glaciers are riddled with
crevasses – some of which are hidden under thin veils of snow. If one of us fell into a crevasse, how would
the other person get them out? It seemed
that doing the trip safely required a group of at least 3 – at least for
beginners like ourselves.
There
was another option. Yamanuska
Adventures offers a guided 3-day trip, with one night in each hut. The trip isn’t exactly cheap, but we thought
it might be worth it. We were all set to
book it when I started exploring the Yamanuska
website. They offer all sorts of guided
trips, programs, and classes in the Canadian Rockies. One program is a 3-day snow and ice
mountaineering class. It features two
days of instruction focused on self-arrest with an ice axe, walking in crampons
on ice, and crevasse rescue. These are
skills we should’ve learned long ago, but it’s hard to acquire them in North
Carolina! The best part of the class
though would be on day 3. On the final
day, we’d put our skills to use climbing Mount Athabasca or another of the
major peaks surrounding the Columbia Icefield.
The
class really appealed to Christy and me.
The trip across the Wapta Icefield
sounded nice, but the class offered the opportunity to acquire some skills and
to climb a mountain that would normally be well beyond our limits. The class would force us out of our comfort
zone, but we were up for the challenge.
We decided to book it.
The
class was scheduled for the first weekend of August. Christy’s ride across Iowa was in mid-July,
two weeks prior to the class. That would
give her just enough time to drive home from Iowa, unpack, and repack. We booked her flight to Calgary on Thursday,
July 31st. The class started
on Saturday morning, so she would have a day and a half to acclimate before it
started.
My
other goal for this trip was to visit some areas that we missed on our first
trip. This included those first two
backpacking trips, both in Jasper National Park. The first would be a 4-day trip into Tonquin Valley with Dave.
That would be immediately followed by a 7-day trip with Dave on an
extended version of the Brazeau loop. We would do the classic loop starting with
Nigel Pass and continuing to Jonas Pass and Brazeau
Lake. However, instead of returning to
the Nigel Pass trailhead, we would continue off-trail into the headwaters of
the Brazeau River.
We’d hike over Cataract Pass, and into the White Goat Wilderness. A descent of the Cataract Creek valley would
bring us to the Cline River, which we would follow upstream to Pinto Lake. From there, we would follow a trail over
Sunset Pass and back down to the highway at the Norman Lake / Sunset Pass
Trailhead.
After
those backpacking trips I would return to Calgary to pick up Christy at the
airport. We’d spend three days on the
mountaineering class, followed by a few more days of car camping at the
Columbia Icefields.
Afterwards, we would tackle our only backpacking trip together. I planned a moderately easy 3-day trip in
Yoho Valley. Christy has had knee
problems for several years (including two surgeries) and carrying a heavy pack
is a major problem. Our plan to avoid
this was simple – I would carry almost everything. That meant scaling back the ambition a little
bit. Still, even 3 days in one of the
most scenic parts of the Canadian Rockies would be fantastic.
The
final week of the trip would feature more car camping
at Lake Louise, followed by a 3-day trip to Lake O’Hara. Lake O’Hara is famous, and yet difficult to
visit. Due to its extreme popularity,
Yoho National Park has established strict quotas on visitation there. The road to the lake is closed. To get there, you have to take a bus, which
requires advanced reservations, or you can walk 7-miles one-way. Overnight accommodations are limited to a
lodge (stupid expensive and booked solid every summer), an ACC hut, and a
campground. Getting a spot at the
campground requires advance reservations, too.
In fact, it’s necessary to call exactly 3 months before the start of the
trip to book it. Typically the campground
fills up in the first hour that the phone lines are open. I spent two hours re-dialing on that magical
morning. Eventually I got through, and
somehow there was still space available.
We booked two nights there – the final two nights of our trip.
I’m
pleased to report that I was successful in visiting new areas on this
trip. Almost every hike was different
from what we’d done on our first trip.
The only overlap was a single dayhike to Wilcox Pass, across from the
Columbia Icefields, and Yoho Valley. But even those hikes were different. For my second hike to Wilcox Pass, I started
at a different trailhead and took a different route to the pass. I even included a cross-country ramble to an
overlook of Wilcox Lake. On our first
visit, I hit most of the highlights of Yoho Valley in a single 18-mile marathon
dayhike. This trip was a 3-day
backpacking trip, but it included some areas that I missed on that first
dayhike, including Little Yoho Valley, Kiwetinok
Pass, a scramble up Mount Scott Kerr, and the northern end of the Iceline Trail.
I’ve
now spent 2 full months hiking in the Canadian Rockies. Despite this, I still haven’t seen
everything. In fact, there are enough
areas that I haven’t visited to make up another month-long trip. Hopefully it won’t take another 9 years to
get to them!
It’s
pretty well documented that Canadians talk funny. In fact, it can be a bit bewildering for
those of us that hail from south of America’s Hat. So, for your convenience, I’ve included a
handy Canadian / ‘Murican translation guide
below. Keep this handy so you can refer
back to it later.
CANADIAN > ‘MURICAN TRANSLATION GUIDE
Canadian
word ‘Murican equivalent
Oh
ya OK
Fer sure Definitely
Eh? Right?
Aboot About
Loonie Dollar
Biffy Toilet
Liter Quart
Petro Gasoline
Mayor
Rob Ford Mayor
Marion Berry
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Please remember to Leave No Trace!