This was a milestone hike for me a few decades ago and I never wrote anything down about it. The Sawtooth #3 thread got me to thinking about it and I finally got my act together and wrote this out.
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Back in the 1970's I spent a few summers and winters working in Lake Louise Alberta, in the heart of the Canadian Rockies. I started off doing the regular hikes but over the seasons I gravitated to scrambling nontechnical routes up mountains and off-trail backcountry hikes above treeline. The topo map became my guidebook. The only problem I encountered was finding partners. Occasionally I would meet someone who was game but our days off rarely matched. I had been looking at a route that began at a place called Johnson's Canyon half way between L. Louise and Banff. It ended in Skoki valley "behind" the Lake Luise ski area. The route followed the trail up Johnson's creek and then turned off to Badger pass, a very seldom visited pass that lay roughly 25 miles from the highway. From there the route descended the far side of the pass and departed from the trail that turned south 40 miles to Banff. Then there appeared to be a stiff climb up to very large and broad, domelike area that was glaciated. After crossing this flat glacier (Bonnet Glacier) the route ascended and followed a long bench that rose and fell over a series of minor cols to an exit point. The exit point was a pair of notches that led to the trail system in Skoki Valley about 10 miles from the highway. It looked like about 50 miles total with about 8000 feet of gain and loss.
I went down to the warden's office in Lake Louise Village and showed my proposed route to one of the wardens who had become a friend and who was a mountain rescue specialist at that time. Cliff (good name for his line of work) thought the route made sense for a solo trip because such a flat glacier would have no tension points and therefore no crevices. That sealed it and on my next day off I stuck out my thumb and hitched a ride to Johnson's Canyon, a major tourist attraction and a very impressive canyon it was too. I was in high gear so I didn't stop to admire nature's handiwork. I didn't start hiking until noon and had 25 miles of trail to cover with 4000 odd feet of elevation gain. Looking back nearly 30 years later I can see that I fairly flew up those 25 miles. My goal was to average 3.5 mph and to do this I ate as I hiked and left my footwear on for the numerous river crossings. After 7 miles the entire Johnson's Creek valley is above timberline and is bordered by big mountains. The weather was good and I hiked as fast as my legs would carry me. I was in the kind of shape that I can only dream about now. I was in my early 20's and when I wasn't working I was out hiking.
Once at Badger's Pass I set up my tent, cooked a meal of macaroni and peanuts and sat down and wrote a long letter home on the back of my topo map. (I had completely forgotten about that letter until one year ago when my mother handed it to me and asked me to put it in Word format.) It gets dark very late in the Rockies in July and when I turned in it was still light out. As I lay in my bag thinking about the big day coming I heard a noise, then another similar noise. It sounded like rocks bumping lightly into each other. The pass was at an elevation where nothing other than lichens grew. I unzipped the tent's door and stuck my head out. A deer was crossing the pass, had seen my tent and was proceeding to continue on its route but by detouring as far upslope and away from my tent as it could. We had a staring match and then I went back to bed.
I was up and on the trail before dawn and the sky was overcast and brooding. I was glad to note that the mountain tops were below the cloud ceiling. It only took a few minutes to descend the pass and then the adventure began. My stiff climb proved to be easy because there was still lots of snow and I was able to kick steps all the way to the rim. I was so excited as I approached the top of the slope. When I arrived I was greeted by the site of this very large ice field that stretched away in many directions. It appeared to be spilling over the edge of an inverted saucer which is exactly what it was doing, very slowly. It was a grey morning and a gentle but persistant breeze was blowing into my face. My heart quickened and I felt nervous. I lay out my map, checked it and proceeded to step onto the glacier. At first, every step frightened me, on occasion I would suddenly sink in an inch or two and have to stop and calm myself down. I decided to dig down into the consolidated snow and was reassured by the thickness and solidity of what lay beneath my feet and began to stride purposefully toward a tiny rocky island in the sea of snow covered ice.
Right away I had a problem. I was unable to determine where my route lay. Nothing made sense. I sat there with my map oriented to north and could not relate what I saw to my map. This was bad. I had one feature a way off in the distance, far below me: Douglas Lake. I looked from where I had come and that made sense too. Then I lined up my map route with what I was looking at and a wave of adrenaline juiced through me as I had an AHA! moment. In spite of what the map indicated my route was entirely glaciated and climbed much much more steeply than I had interpreted. It was also tilted obliquely as it followed the base of the rocky ramparts that towered above it. That was my bench and my proposed route. I was crestfallen. I remember sitting there for a long time with the breeze ruffling my hair as I weighed my options:
1-Turn around and go back from where I had come. Depressing.
2- Head off the glacier toward Douglas Lake and whack through remote grizzly territory for 10 miles. No way.
3- Go back and hike the trail to Banff 40 miles. Yeah right.
4- Carry on with the planned route. Scary.
I sat and studied that route very, very carefully and came to the conclusion that it wasn't entirely galciated and that there was minimal crevice risk. I got up off my little island and started walking again. Now the trip had taken on a whole new feel and I wondered if I was doing the right thing. The sun came out in full glory and baked me as I worked my way up to my bench. My spirits soared because I was surrounded by the most majestic beauty imaginable and the going turned out to be relatively easy. I encountered some cracks that were 2 inches wide and the snow had melted back from them exposing blue ice. I reasoned that any real crevices would be fully exposed. I had the rock wall on my left and the views down onto the Bonnet Glacier as it rolled away to the right. Beyond, in every direction were mountains. I rose up to the crest of the first rise and the next one seemed very far away. Nothing to do but keep going. When I got to the first low point I detoured around a large pool of water that had a wall of ice rising about 15 feet straight out of it. Gradually, I started to feel the mental strain but I thought I was going to get off the glacier and onto solid ground at the second col. I was really anxious to crest that rise and step onto some rock. I was even doing a mental countdown. Then when I stood at the top all I could see was yet another snowfield that rose vertical 500 feet to another col. Obviously I had done some optimistic map bending. I was dismayed but quickly realized it was all in my head. If I had walked this far there was no reason to anticipate problems on the next section. I plodded along as the sun beat down on me crossing more heights of land, dropping down to low points and patiently plodding up and over the next rise. I finally reached the end of the bench and arrived at the exit notches.
A wave of relief flooded through me as I stood on rock. I had probably been on snow or ice for the previous 6 hours. There was a flat area and I lay all my topo maps out oriented to North and, having folded the edges under to have one continuous map I placed stones at the corners. I had a field day ID'ing many, many peaks before heading for the first notch. When I got there I had to laugh. There was a big snow bowl to descend and climb out of on the other side through the second low point. This took 20 or 30 minutes to do and then the trip was over. The sun was still very high and I estimated that it had taken me 8 hours to get from my camping spot to there.
I slowly picked my way down to the hiking trail with a very deep satisfied sensation balooning in my chest. I couldn't believe what I had just done and knew I had broken through some sort of mental barrier. The hike to the Lake Louise ski area went through Skoki Valley country which is reputed to be among the most beautiful hiking areas in the world.
When I arrived back in the village after 80 klicks and approximately 8000 feet of elevation gain I felt a hankering for a cold beer or three. I went into the bar, sat down and called out, "Waiter! Two beers!"
************************************************** ******
Back in the 1970's I spent a few summers and winters working in Lake Louise Alberta, in the heart of the Canadian Rockies. I started off doing the regular hikes but over the seasons I gravitated to scrambling nontechnical routes up mountains and off-trail backcountry hikes above treeline. The topo map became my guidebook. The only problem I encountered was finding partners. Occasionally I would meet someone who was game but our days off rarely matched. I had been looking at a route that began at a place called Johnson's Canyon half way between L. Louise and Banff. It ended in Skoki valley "behind" the Lake Luise ski area. The route followed the trail up Johnson's creek and then turned off to Badger pass, a very seldom visited pass that lay roughly 25 miles from the highway. From there the route descended the far side of the pass and departed from the trail that turned south 40 miles to Banff. Then there appeared to be a stiff climb up to very large and broad, domelike area that was glaciated. After crossing this flat glacier (Bonnet Glacier) the route ascended and followed a long bench that rose and fell over a series of minor cols to an exit point. The exit point was a pair of notches that led to the trail system in Skoki Valley about 10 miles from the highway. It looked like about 50 miles total with about 8000 feet of gain and loss.
I went down to the warden's office in Lake Louise Village and showed my proposed route to one of the wardens who had become a friend and who was a mountain rescue specialist at that time. Cliff (good name for his line of work) thought the route made sense for a solo trip because such a flat glacier would have no tension points and therefore no crevices. That sealed it and on my next day off I stuck out my thumb and hitched a ride to Johnson's Canyon, a major tourist attraction and a very impressive canyon it was too. I was in high gear so I didn't stop to admire nature's handiwork. I didn't start hiking until noon and had 25 miles of trail to cover with 4000 odd feet of elevation gain. Looking back nearly 30 years later I can see that I fairly flew up those 25 miles. My goal was to average 3.5 mph and to do this I ate as I hiked and left my footwear on for the numerous river crossings. After 7 miles the entire Johnson's Creek valley is above timberline and is bordered by big mountains. The weather was good and I hiked as fast as my legs would carry me. I was in the kind of shape that I can only dream about now. I was in my early 20's and when I wasn't working I was out hiking.
Once at Badger's Pass I set up my tent, cooked a meal of macaroni and peanuts and sat down and wrote a long letter home on the back of my topo map. (I had completely forgotten about that letter until one year ago when my mother handed it to me and asked me to put it in Word format.) It gets dark very late in the Rockies in July and when I turned in it was still light out. As I lay in my bag thinking about the big day coming I heard a noise, then another similar noise. It sounded like rocks bumping lightly into each other. The pass was at an elevation where nothing other than lichens grew. I unzipped the tent's door and stuck my head out. A deer was crossing the pass, had seen my tent and was proceeding to continue on its route but by detouring as far upslope and away from my tent as it could. We had a staring match and then I went back to bed.
I was up and on the trail before dawn and the sky was overcast and brooding. I was glad to note that the mountain tops were below the cloud ceiling. It only took a few minutes to descend the pass and then the adventure began. My stiff climb proved to be easy because there was still lots of snow and I was able to kick steps all the way to the rim. I was so excited as I approached the top of the slope. When I arrived I was greeted by the site of this very large ice field that stretched away in many directions. It appeared to be spilling over the edge of an inverted saucer which is exactly what it was doing, very slowly. It was a grey morning and a gentle but persistant breeze was blowing into my face. My heart quickened and I felt nervous. I lay out my map, checked it and proceeded to step onto the glacier. At first, every step frightened me, on occasion I would suddenly sink in an inch or two and have to stop and calm myself down. I decided to dig down into the consolidated snow and was reassured by the thickness and solidity of what lay beneath my feet and began to stride purposefully toward a tiny rocky island in the sea of snow covered ice.
Right away I had a problem. I was unable to determine where my route lay. Nothing made sense. I sat there with my map oriented to north and could not relate what I saw to my map. This was bad. I had one feature a way off in the distance, far below me: Douglas Lake. I looked from where I had come and that made sense too. Then I lined up my map route with what I was looking at and a wave of adrenaline juiced through me as I had an AHA! moment. In spite of what the map indicated my route was entirely glaciated and climbed much much more steeply than I had interpreted. It was also tilted obliquely as it followed the base of the rocky ramparts that towered above it. That was my bench and my proposed route. I was crestfallen. I remember sitting there for a long time with the breeze ruffling my hair as I weighed my options:
1-Turn around and go back from where I had come. Depressing.
2- Head off the glacier toward Douglas Lake and whack through remote grizzly territory for 10 miles. No way.
3- Go back and hike the trail to Banff 40 miles. Yeah right.
4- Carry on with the planned route. Scary.
I sat and studied that route very, very carefully and came to the conclusion that it wasn't entirely galciated and that there was minimal crevice risk. I got up off my little island and started walking again. Now the trip had taken on a whole new feel and I wondered if I was doing the right thing. The sun came out in full glory and baked me as I worked my way up to my bench. My spirits soared because I was surrounded by the most majestic beauty imaginable and the going turned out to be relatively easy. I encountered some cracks that were 2 inches wide and the snow had melted back from them exposing blue ice. I reasoned that any real crevices would be fully exposed. I had the rock wall on my left and the views down onto the Bonnet Glacier as it rolled away to the right. Beyond, in every direction were mountains. I rose up to the crest of the first rise and the next one seemed very far away. Nothing to do but keep going. When I got to the first low point I detoured around a large pool of water that had a wall of ice rising about 15 feet straight out of it. Gradually, I started to feel the mental strain but I thought I was going to get off the glacier and onto solid ground at the second col. I was really anxious to crest that rise and step onto some rock. I was even doing a mental countdown. Then when I stood at the top all I could see was yet another snowfield that rose vertical 500 feet to another col. Obviously I had done some optimistic map bending. I was dismayed but quickly realized it was all in my head. If I had walked this far there was no reason to anticipate problems on the next section. I plodded along as the sun beat down on me crossing more heights of land, dropping down to low points and patiently plodding up and over the next rise. I finally reached the end of the bench and arrived at the exit notches.
A wave of relief flooded through me as I stood on rock. I had probably been on snow or ice for the previous 6 hours. There was a flat area and I lay all my topo maps out oriented to North and, having folded the edges under to have one continuous map I placed stones at the corners. I had a field day ID'ing many, many peaks before heading for the first notch. When I got there I had to laugh. There was a big snow bowl to descend and climb out of on the other side through the second low point. This took 20 or 30 minutes to do and then the trip was over. The sun was still very high and I estimated that it had taken me 8 hours to get from my camping spot to there.
I slowly picked my way down to the hiking trail with a very deep satisfied sensation balooning in my chest. I couldn't believe what I had just done and knew I had broken through some sort of mental barrier. The hike to the Lake Louise ski area went through Skoki Valley country which is reputed to be among the most beautiful hiking areas in the world.
When I arrived back in the village after 80 klicks and approximately 8000 feet of elevation gain I felt a hankering for a cold beer or three. I went into the bar, sat down and called out, "Waiter! Two beers!"
. Don't hog the marshmallows...
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