Smoke and Snow: Baldy Pass

Joan and I checked out of Cathedral Mountain Lodge and drove a short distance to the Siding Café, in Field, to pick up lunch supplies. They have great sandwiches and baked goods, but we discovered that after Labor Day the Siding doesn't open until 11. Oops.

At the Visitor's Center in Field Joan bought a couple of books, we picked up two Le Chocolatier bars, and we had a long chat with a warden from New Zealand about trail closures due to bear activity at Moraine Lake and Paradise Valley, the uses and misuses of GPS, and what constitutes an emergency-demanding rescue. Then it was off to Kananaskis Country.

Just east of Canmore and off the Trans-Canada there was a trail head and Mount Lougheed viewpoint which we'd never visited before. The mountain in the center is Lougheed.

We're looking almost due south from the end of the road, from the top of this map to the bottom:

Here's a zoom-in on the mountain, which tops out at 10,194 feet.

Signs described the history of the area and the role Sir James Lougheed played in therein.

We then drove to Highway 40 and the parking area for Baldy Pass, another hike that we've done once before but not since the 2013 floods. By satellite view, the route was thus,

and by map, like this.

The trail began on the far side of the highway, and after crossing, Joan and I were winding gently through woods.

The trail from the Wasootch Creek parking area joined us, and we approached Indian Creek.

 Almost there, and more stones were in the path.

Now the trail followed the rubble-filled creek. Sometimes we scrambled through the rocks following cairns, and sometimes the path had shifted to a stream bank.

As you can see, we had a lot of altitude still to gain.

In this stretch we met a guy (age 55) and his wife from Calgary ex Edmonton ex Ottawa. He was fresh off an unexpected heart attack and monitoring his heart rate as he hiked. Not long before the heart attack his doctor had said he was in great shape, and didn't need another physical for three years, but some measure (I forget which) had been 4.9 where 5.0 suggests intervention. Fortunately he survived this oversight and has been recovering well.

The trail continued to ascend. Watersheds on either side of the valley had violently contributed to the destruction lower down.

The route left the valley floor and metamorphosed into a rooty trail climbing steeply through the trees on the south flank of the valley. It was much shadier than the rock river we'd left behind, and the higher Joan and I went, the more common it was to cross snowy patches. We enjoyed occasional views of the ridgeline north of us.

The winds were blustery when we reached the cairn at the pass.

Here we met a couple with a white dog. They had planned their hike ahead of time, but somehow she needed to ask us, "what's the name of that mountain?" There's a place in the world for good paper maps, such as the Gem Trek series, and classic guide books, such as Gillean Daffern's.

Joan and I turned to the south and continued with a short climb, to the point where the trail leveled off and began to dip down into the next valley. There we sat down and lunched. This was the view back past the pass towards the north.

Descending down to the pass.

There is an unofficial trail beaten along the ridge rising to the north, and many hikers take advantage of it. We spotted the white dog couple there with our binoculars more than once.

I'm sure the view from anywhere along the top is grand.

Perhaps, if we revisit Baldy Pass in another few years, we'll give it a go.

Back in the woods, not far from the road, Joan and I spotted a trail camera we'd overlooked on the way out. From the University of Calgary.

A short drive later we checked in at the Delta Lodge Kananaskis, recently purchased by Marriott, extensively renovated, and reopened two months ago. There were oddities in the reorganized rooms, such as, no towel racks, and a common bathroom/closet door -- open it to the bathroom and you've closed the closet, and vice-versa. The staff was friendly and empowered to fix less structural problems, such as a sock left on the floor by a previous guest. The larger restaurant, the Fireweed Grill, was now dubbed the Forte, and its omnipresent mood music was classic 1960s pop ("One Fine Day") instead of disco, an improvement.

Joan and I ate well but spent a fitful night before rising for the next day's hike at Upper Kananaskis Lake.

CR2011: Pocaterra Cirque and Mount Engadine Lodge

The next day was a transit day between Canmore and Mount Engadine Lodge. These places are less than an hour apart, but we took the long way around and hiked through Pocaterra Cirque and partway to Little Highwood Pass.

The trail to Pocaterra Cirque starts at the parking area for Highwood Pass, 7238'. The more popular Ptarmigan Cirque trail, which we have traversed several times, most recently in 2009, is just across the highway. For Pocaterra Cirque, start on the interpretive loop trail and then follow a small path, but avoid tramping down the middle of the sensitive Highwood Meadows. After crossing the Meadows, the path begins to climb and split and intertwine; the ground has boggy patches much of the time, and hikers have gone different ways to avoid wet patches. The trail comes together again before you cross the shoulder of a ridge, leave the denser pine forest, and see the Pocaterra Cirque ahead.

Please note that this text is descriptive and not meant as a guide. One excellent hiking companion is Kathy and Craig Copeland's book, Where Locals Hike in the Canadian Rockies.

In the next photo, the trail is heading onward on the far left. The cirque is nestled below the barren high ridgeline on the left, while the greener mountain in the center is the start of Pocaterra Ridge. The valley to the right of the ridge goes down to the highway. One scenic hike is to climb to the top of Pocaterra Ridge and follow it north, up and down intermediate peaks, until the trail mutates from "unmaintained" to "suggested route" and you pick your way a final 2 km down the ridge and through the woods to the road. Our GemTrek map -- and I cannot praise these maps enough, they are the gold standard for hiking maps, and the waterproof ones are worth every penny -- has the notation "Enjoy bushwhacking here!". We did not intend to do this.

A while later on the trail, there is a meadow split by Pocaterra Creek as it runs down from the cirque. This picture looks back the way we had come.

Passing by a side trail up to Grizzy Col (8550'), we arrived at the cirque, and chose to go up towards Little Highwood Pass, rather than climbing directly up the side of the ridge. Here is the view from shortly after making that decision, looking back down to Highwood Pass. If you click on the photo to enlarge it, you might see the direct trail climbing out of the creek bed.

The vegetation vanished as we walked up the draw towards the pass. Widely scattered snowbanks still persisted up here, at about 8000', despite the intense sunlight.

And then, although we were at Pocaterra Cirque, not Ptarmigan Cirque, Joan almost stepped on a ptarmigan. This is not a colorful turn of speech, for she almost stepped on the ptarmigan. She did not spook or startle (the ptarmigan, that is. Joan, however, was quite surprised).

She called out to her babies, telling them to stay still where they were, partially hidden and protected by the rocks.

This pika paused in his foraging to observe the tableau.

We lunched short of the pass, which is at 8348'. We considered this a good escalation of altitude -- our Grotto Canyon walk reached perhaps 5400', and the Barrier Lake Fire Lookout hike the next day reached 6600'. Reaching 8000' was a good workout for a pair from Ohio. In some other year we plan to climb to the top of that ridge and float in the view.

Coming down, we encountered ptarmigan again. Some were the ones we had seen before, but there was one youngster who had stubby wings and a lot of baby down.

Then we made our way back down to Highwood Pass, and drove to Mount Engadine Lodge. We have stayed at this lodge,  an excellent base of operations for exploring the Kananaskis Country, several times before, as I wrote about here and here.

One important factor in choosing hikes out of Engadine at this time (end of August 2011) was the prescribed burns in the area, ignited an attempt to limit the damage caused by pine beetles. The lodge itself was close to the Buller Pass and Rummel Lake burns:

The map comes from the Government of Alberta website linked to by "prescribed burns" above. You can see how close the lodge is!

The fire professionals had prepared the lodge and cabins against any blowing sparks. In need, a pump would bring water up from the creek, and sprinklers were on the roof of each building. You would be right to expect me to have pictures of this, after two years of blogging, and you will be right to be disappointed that I did not. However, there is this picture of the lodge in the late evening:

I was out in the driveway to see if I could get a decent picture of the fire. It was not the wall of flame that you might expect, particularly because it was towards the end of the operation. Occasionally a tree would ignite and flare up like a piece of paper, burning brightly for a moment or two and then guttering out. The fire, perhaps not as hot as an uncontrolled burn, seemed to strip the trees of leaves, needles, and small branches, but not consume them entirely. (There is one photo of this in the middle of this blog entry I found on the web.) Here is my best picture of one of the candle trees.

Another factor was bears. The always-popular Chester Lake trail was closed due to bear activity. Just across the road from the Chester Lake trailhead parking is the Burstall Pass trailhead parking, as can be seen at the bottom of the burn map, and that's where we were going the next day. With our bear spray, as always.

Burstall Pass, to which we had been only once before, years ago, was our "must do" destination for this segment of our trip. We had three days of training behind us, and the weather forecast for tomorrow was good.