Entre Les Murs

Back From the West

Despite reservations in some quarters, our mountaineering excursion was tremendously successful.  We split the time between Alpine Club huts and really nice hotels, compromising between two different travel philosophies.


Phase 1 was at Elk Lakes Provincial Park, in B.C.  We hiked in over Elk Pass to an ACC hut that used to belong to the park rangers (who now just use the kitchen).  It's a relatively new addition to the ACC's hut inventory, and it hasn't caught on yet.  There seem to be some challenging peaks and very pleasant hikes in the area so it may just be a matter of time, but we had the hut to ourselves for three nights.

We then made our way back to more familiar ground, at Emerald Lake near Lake Louise, which was once on the ten dollar bill.  In that image it was in the foreground to Mt.  Burgess', home of the Burgess shale, which was its own UNESCO world heritage site until it got rolled in with the rest of the park.



Showered and with fresh clothes, we next headed to the Little Yoho Valley, just a few miles away as the crow flies, but lacking wings, we took the long way around via Takakkaw Falls and carried packs.  There we moved into a more crowded hut, the Stanley Mitchell, made more so by rain that drove some army cadets camping in tents to seek shelter with us for a morning.  Once the rain cleared, we headed up towards Mt McArthur, North of the hut, and the Glacier des Poilus.

Now I really shouldn't have made so much of "glacier school", but I did want Janet's first experience on a real mountain glacier to include some safety training to give her confidence.  To be fair, practicing self-arrest when you're not actually sliding down a sheet of ice is a bit like practicing artificial respiration with someone who hasn't actually ceased breathing: so awkward as to diminish the value of the exercise almost to nil.  You have to jump in the snow and lose a little control before you can arrest, and when you're all bundled up, roped and harnessed, and in a strange environment it's not easy to jump off the cliff, as it were.  By the time we were ready to begin Janet had had enough snow for the summer.  Still, it's an important skill in that strange environment, and we'll have to try again next time.

There are more pictures here.

posted 24.8.08