Canadian Rockies (July 2015)

In mid-July 2015, a group of us—my high school friend Nirmal, now living in Alberta, Canada; Claudette, Dan, and Nicole, friends of Nirmal, also from Alberta; and Tom and I—spent a week backpacking in the Canadian Rockies.  The original plan had been to hike the famous Skyline Trail, but a wildfire closed that trail just a few days before our hike, and our resourceful Canadian friends quickly put together a Plan B trip over some utterly gorgeous countryside.


Tom and I had made our ways up to Canada separately: he had driven up from Tucson (part of the way with Linden), stopping at various national parks along the way, while Wendy and I had flown into Calgary and spent a week exploring the area around Banff.  We eventually got together in Calgary, the wives flew back to Tucson, and Tom and I drove up to a little town named Red Deer, halfway between Calgary and Edmonton, to meet Nirmal.

Day 0.  Tom and I drove over to Nirmal's house after breakfast on July 18.  We threw our stuff into the back of Nirmal's pickup, picked up Dan, who lived not too far away, then headed west towards the mountains.  The drive was pleasant and relaxed: we took a short detour along the way to see Crescent Falls, a large and very cool two-storey waterfall, and reached Abraham Lake around 3-ish.

Crescent Falls

Abraham Lake is a large artificial lake whose water is such a beautiful blue that it looks fake, and we desert folks weren't accustomed to so much water in any case, so for a little while we just walked up and down admiring the scenery.  Then Claudette and Nicole, the other members of our hiking party, showed up, and we piled back into our vehicles and headed to our campsite beside the lake.  We'd brought along several different kinds of liquor, and festivities ensued.

Abraham Lake

Day 1.  After breakfast the next morning we broke camp and headed out.  Conversation was subdued, possibly a consequence of the previous evening's festivities.

We ran into our first glitch once we got to the trailhead: Nirmal's hiking boots weren't in his truck.  After some discussion, we decided that three of us would hike ahead slowly while the other three drove back to get the boots; we agreed to rendezvous at a campsite a few miles up the trail.

The Trail to Pinto Lake: Day 1

Claudette, Tom, and I hiked up the trail at a relaxed and leisurely pace.  The scenery was gorgeous, the trail delightful, the weather perfect.  We reached the designated rendezvous, at the campground by the junction of Shoe Leather Creek and Cline River, around lunch time, fully expecting the rest of the crew—Dan, Nicole, and Nirmal—to come barrelling down the trail any minute.  We waited... and waited...  and were beginning to get worried when, fairly late in the afternoon, they finally wandered into camp looking tired and ready for a break.  It turned out that they had lost the trail early on and bushwhacked most of the way to the campsite.    It was late enough, and they were tired enough, that we decided to camp there for the night.

Our campground was right beside the Cline River.  The scenery was gorgeous: on one side there was the swift-flowing Cline River, flanked by patches of bright purple-red fireweed; on the other, thick forest.   Clouds scudded across the sky, their shadows racing across the landscape.  And no people! This was wonderful beyond words!

Views from Shoe Leather Creek Campground

Relaxing

Day 2.  The trail heading west out of or campsite was obvious enough (at least initially), but also confusing—at least initially—because of all the braiding around two trails coming together, though the various braids merged together soon enough.  The hiking was delightful, though at one point we lost the trail for a little while and ended up bushwhacking through the forest for a bit; in the process, I learned how different forest bushwhacking is from desert bushwhacking, and how much work it is to go over and around and over and around all the fallen tree-trunks lying around everywhere.

An interesting aspect of the hike was our "bear shouting".  The idea was to make enough noise that we wouldn't surprise any bears.  Bear bells were ineffective, and carrying on a loud conversation got tiring quickly, so instead every few minutes someone in the group would yell out.  The interesting thing was that, while from the bear's perspective it didn't much matter what we yelled, we didn't want our yells to alarm any other hikers who might be within earshot.  So most of the time our yells were some variation of a friendly "'Allo bear!"  greeting.  If Pooh had been in the neighborhood I'm sure he'd have greeted us back.

The trail mostly followed the Cline River and didn't involve a whole lot of elevation change.  As we got closer to Waterfalls Creek, at one point we realized that we needed to be on the high ground above the cliffs flanking the river; the hike up the almost-but-not-quite-vertical cliff face was breathtaking.  Once we got to the top, so were the views.

We reached Waterfalls Creek campground in the early afternoon.  The scenery was gorgeous: the Cline rushing along right beside the campground, thick stands of bright green conifers lining the banks on either side, and behind them mountains rising jaggedly into the sky.

Views: Waterfalls Creek Campground

Day 3.  The goal today was Pinto Lake today (10 miles; 16 kms).  The trail continued alongside the Cline, pleasant and mostly fairly level.

Nirmal and I

The Crew

The sky began clouding up after a while and we had a couple of brief drizzles as we hiked—and although we broke out the rain jackets and pack covers, the showers were light and brief.  The weather in the mountains of Alberta is fickle!  A saying I heard repeated several times was, "If you don't like the weather in Alberta... just wait five minutes."

Remnants of an old log bridge

Mingling of waters: Cline River and unnamed creek

We reached Pinto Lake mid-afternoon-ish.  It was beautiful—but, lest we get effusive-praise-fatigue, it's important to put that adjective in context.  We're not accustomed to large bodies of water on our hikes in Arizona: I've heard it said that in the Desert Southwest, a lake is any puddle that lasts three days.  Even so, after a week of sightseeing and several days of hiking in the Canadian Rockies, it's easy to become blasé about scenery.  But, even after compensating for all that, Pinto Lake was lovely.  The crystal water shaded over from clear by the bank to a bright blue-green and then into a deep blue further out.  A light breeze ruffled the surface of the water, pushing little ripples across the lake and making bright bands of sunlight shimmer across the lakebed.  I could've sat and watched this for hours!

Pinto Lake colors: afternoon (L) and morning (R)

Pinto Lake: morning stillness

Day 4.  Some early-morning excitement.  Most of us were still sleeping in our tents when a moose that was grazing nearby was startled by Nicole walking by and galloped right through the middle of camp with a loud clatter of hooves.  Our first Big Critter of the trip—at about the size of a horse, it seemed small for a moose, so maybe a juvenile.  The ruckus got people awake and moving.

Undercover dinner

After breakfast we packed up and headed east back towards the Waterfalls Creek campground.  By and large we followed our way in, though there were places where we went a different way; and of course things looked different from the other direction.  So the hike back was just as enjoyable, and just as fresh, as on the way in.

Later that day, as we were setting up for dinner, Dan (who had been off getting water) came rushing in to report a storm moving in.  We hurriedly set up some tarps to shelter under.  Dinner was cozy, but—thanks to Dan's timely warning—dry.  The storm didn't last long: as they say, if you don't like the weather in Alberta, wait five minutes.

I think it may have rained again later, but by then we were in our tents.  There's something wonderfully soothing about the sound of rain on the outside of a tent when you're all warm and snug inside the cocoon of your sleeping bag.  It reminds me of boyhood days in Kohima and Shillong, snuggled up under the covers, listening to the pounding of the monsoon downpour on the corrugated tin roof.

Day 5.  Getting packed up in the morning took a little longer than usual because we tried to get our tents---which were wet from yesterday's storm---to dry a little.   So the scene at breakfast was of tents festooned all over and between trees all around the campground.  Our Canadian hosts also showed us a way to get the water off wet tents: you pair up, grab opposite ends of the tent, and shake vigorously in unison.  The whole process of transforming tents from "wet" to "only somewhat damp" is surprisingly quick and efficient.

We followed the Cline River back to where it met Shoe Leather Creek; but before we reached the actual campground (where we'd spent the first night), we swung right and headed south towards Landslide Lake.  The trail was definitely more challenging than that to Pinto Lake: steeper and narrower, the streams wilder.

We reached the confluence of Entry Creek and the outlet creek from Landslide Lake around mid-afternoon.  Landslide Lake wasn't all that far away from here, but it had been a respectable day's hike and people were tired, so we decided to camp there for the night.  The "campground" was small and there wasn't a lot of room for all of our tents, with a few cramped campsites perched precariously on a steep hillside.  But other than a having to climb up or down a bit of hill to get anywhere, this worked out fine.

Day 6.  The final stretch to Landslide Lake, not too far away.  Even with a relaxed start, we reached the northern tip of Landslide Lake around mid-day.  Along the way, just a little north of the lake itself, we passed through several good-sized rockfalls: large fields of dark-gray boulders.  From the size of the trees beginning to push their way through, the rockfalls didn't seem all that old: maybe a couple of decades.  Whenever it happened, it must've been pretty loud!

Landslide Lake is a long narrow lake running roughly north-south.  It's supposed to be a popular hiking and fishing spot but, while we saw some trash at the campground, we didn't see any other people while we were there.  The campground sat just off the lake shore, maybe twenty feet above it; the hillside continued rising behind the campsites, again covered with rockfall, for maybe a hundred feet.  The view from the top of the rockfall, once you got up there, was stunning.

Much more than the campgrounds we stayed at along the Cline, Landslide Lake had many different kinds of colorful wildflowers blooming all around (for example, I counted four different kinds of Indian paintbrush alone).  There was also an intriguing little waterhole near the campground that, from the many animal tracks all around, looked like it was visited by wildlife.  We toyed with the idea of setting up Dan's camera in motion-sensing mode, but in the end didn't.

Indian paintbrush by Landslide Lake campground

Day 7.  Our hiking-out day.  After breakfast we packed up and headed south, following the east shore of the lake.  Although the day had dawned with some blue in the skies, by the time we got on the trail, around 8-ish, it had clouded over.  By the time we were about halfway down the side of the lake it began to drizzle lightly.

As we were heading down by the side of lake, we came upon what is one of the most incongruous sights in all my days of hiking: a bicycle, sans front wheel, parked neatly on the lake shore.  Someone had gone through a lot of trouble to drag that thing there!

Landslide Lake at dawn

The bicycle

Raingear and pack-cover break

From the south end of the lake, the trail climbed about 3,600 feet (1,100 m) up to a pass at about 8,200 feet (2,500 m), then down the other side to the trailhead.  The trail became very faint as we left the lake, and at some point we zigged when we should have zagged and headed up the wrong drainage for a little ways before realizing our error and getting back on track.  A little ways into the uphill climb we saw a herd of mountain goats grazing on the hillside across from us, which was very cool.

Mountain goats

The vegetation grew sparse as we climbed higher and approached the tree line.  The few trees that there were grew in small scattered stunted clumps.  The hills around us were shrouded in clouds, and there were patches of snow on the ground.  It all looked very tundra-like; meanwhile we were huffing and puffing and perspiring freely inside our rain-jackets as we labored up the trail.  The scenery, the plants, and the weather added up to quite a unique experience, and if I hadn't been so tired and out of breath I'd have taken more photos (I should have).

Landslide Lake seen from part-way up the hill

Approaching the tree-line

Eventually we came to the pass: the hill flattened out and then dropped away, the landscape opened up in front of us.  We sat and panted and wheezed for a little bit, then picked up and moved on.  The trail contoured along for a little bit and then began to drop down into the valley below.

The descent was steep!  Up at the top there was a long section of loose scree that slid with each step: not too bad (and maybe even fun) to descend, but it must make for hard ascents!  Then we passed through a section of forest that had burned from a fire some time ago.  The vista of the broad valley in front of us, with high cloud-shrouded peaks beyond, was gorgeous, but our fatigue cut into the appreciation.

View of the valley during the descent

We weren't too far from the bottom when we ran into a mother and her teenage daughter heading up the trail.  The mother asked us how much farther it was to the top, and seemed taken aback when we burst into laughter.  We talked her out of the hike, and they turned around and came back down with us.

Prayer flags near Landslide Lake trailhead

We reached the valley floor soon after that.  As we walked towards the parking lot, we passed through a forest of aspen trees that had Native American prayer flags tied to them.  Although I knew nothing about them, just the thought of prayer offerings to the Spirits put me in a contemplative mood.  I had just had the wonderful fortune of spending a week walking through some truly gorgeous country with a group of wonderful people, and in the process made new friends and renewed old friendships. A prayer of thanks seemed appropriate.