On the 13th Day of Hiking (Buller Pass)

Joan and I awakened on Sept. 18th to an unknown object blazing in the sky, illuminating mountains and casting shadows.

It must be the sun!

After many days of snow, what a sight. But, excuse me, breakfast beckons here at Mount Engadine Lodge.

There are rumors of possible afternoon precipitation, which wouldn't surprise us, but we're not going to be deterred. Today we're heading for Buller Pass, which we last hiked six years ago. After scraping ice off the car's windshield we drove up to the Buller Day Use Area and parked at the red circle on the left. (Click on the image to enlarge.)

There we met "Okotoks," a man nicknamed after the town in Alberta. He was assembling his gear and waiting for his meet-up group to assemble, and very friendly. Joan and I advised him that although we were setting off first, he and his group were bound to pass us at some point.

We crossed the road and hit the intersection of the Buller Pass and High Rockies trails.

Soon after the signposts we worked up the first climb, which led to one of the areas hit by the prescribed burn in 2011.

For a while we were gently ascending the valley of Buller Creek.

Then a refreshing stretch of greener forest.

Beyond the forest and a creek crossing was another major uphill. At one point I took this photo looking back the way we'd come.

Getting higher, but there's still a long way to go.

Eventually we were rewarded with this waterfall and pool.

The path splits soon thereafter, going to either side of the mountain in the photo. To the left, a less-traveled route to North Buller Pass, and to the right, a well-used trail to South Buller Pass, our destination. One tongue of the burn took that trail.

Joan and I heard a pika and kinglets, and saw a pair of Clark's nutcrackers. We also spotted fireweed, aster, dwarf dogwood, cinquefoil, pearly everlasting, and other such plants.

The trees shrank and petered out. The resultant meadow was pockmarked with bear diggings, where they had been uprooting tasty tubers. Not so long ago.

In the distance, the low point is the pass.

We went a bit further and then decided to have first lunch before tackling the steep and narrow final climb. The meet-up gang caught up to us and paused just beyond our sit-spot. We set out towards the pass, getting in front of the group again, and trudged up to the snow zone.

I paused when I encountered a high drift across the trail. I'd never experienced this kind of hiking obstacle before, where I had no idea what direction the trail headed once I entered the drift. Fortunately someone had been there already today, so I followed in those footsteps. This photo was taken on the way back down, after many people had come across.

The stronger hikers in the meet-up group reached us, and finally we all reached the pass. This photo is looking east, down to Ribbon Lake. The low spot to the right of the ramparts guarding the lake is Guinn's Pass. 

More of the meet-up group arrived,

and we all lingered for a while, admiring the sights.

Zooming in on Ribbon Lake. You can hike there from the other side, Highway 40, but it's a strenuous hike that includes a cliff face with chains.

This was the view looking back the way we'd come. You can tell we've gained 670m / 2200 ft.

Getting cloudy, but no precipitation today.

Joan and I gingerly descended the steep pass, and stopped for second lunch not far from where we'd consumed first lunch. The meet-up group re-formed and passed by; we'd not see them again.

We continued down the valley.

It was a quicker march down than up, but the round trip took us seven hours. Although tired Joan and I were pleased at our success, at the weather holding, and at all that we had seen. And we cleaned our plates at dinner! Unfortunately there were again no moose; rumor was that the construction clamor kept them away.

That evening the downstairs gathering was still noisy at 10:00, so I put on my bathrobe and put in an appearance, explaining that they were right below us. One guy (staff?) said, "Don't worry, we'll take care of it." I mentioned that I understood that the proceedings were supposed to move to the next room by this time, and he repeated, "Don't worry, we'll take care of it." It soon became clear that no one had budged from in front of the fire, and the noise level diminished only to 9 from a 10. But at least they broke up earlier than last night.

Joan mentioned the failure to observe the quiet hour when checking out the next morning, and the manager seemed surprised. He also did not make any mention of a gratuity for the staff, which we overhead him making to other guests. (Side note: based on our experience in other places and times, the glamping tents could prove to be particularly noisy if you have rowdy neighbors.) We won't book the Owl Room again. In fact, when we decided to shorten our 2019 visit by a couple of days, what we omitted in our planning was Mt. Engadine. Joan and I will try this wonderful lodge again, but not next year.

We loaded our stuff into Corey, our rental Corolla, eased past the glamping construction, and headed for Upper Kananasksis Lake. That's for the next post.

CR2012: Arrival

Our 2012 trip to the Canadian Rockies began, as usual, with flying to Calgary. A moose waited for us in the arrivals hall.

We walked over to the rental car building and got in line for Hertz, with whom we had a reservation of many months standing. There was only one person ahead of us in line, which we thought was good, but things were moving slowly. When we reached the counter, there weren't any cars available in our reserved category (full-size). It all depends on when people bring their cars in, we were told; apparently, Hertz expects the drop-offs to happen sooner than the pick-ups, and when they inevitably don't, you wait. We emphasized to the guys at the counter that we wanted a vehicle with a trunk, to keep our luggage secure, which is why we reserved a 'full-size' vehicle oh-so-many months ago. And then we waited. For a bit over an hour, at which time they offered us ... an SUV. Trunkless. Without even a privacy screen to pull over the cargo area. We expressed our displeasure, only to learn that Hertz expects most customers to request an "upgrade" to an SUV. We didn't. We were told that there was no telling how long it would take for a full-size car with a trunk to be available. We said we'd wait, and our frame of mind was not the best. Something always goes awry with the rental car companies at the Calgary airport -- we've tried at least three over the years. We learned to avoid the queueing hell of the Calgary Stampede, or the Labor Day weekend. We had arrived by 11:30am. But nothing helps. An hour and a half into this visit we were fuming at the futility and gullibility of making a vehicle choice when reserving a car. Ten minutes later Gary (praise to him) ran in with the keys to a real car, a Dodge Avenger who we promptly named Mr. Steed. We left and headed south for Okotoks.

At Okotoks we headed west on Highway 7, to reach the Okotoks Erratic, a glacial erratic:

View Larger Map

From the ground, you can appreciate how out of place the rocks are.

And closer up, you see how massive these boulders are.

These quartzite pieces are hundreds of miles out of place, having fallen atop a glacier near Jasper during the last Ice Age. They were slowly carried by the glacier to this point, by which time the glacier had stopped growing and then melted. There are several informative signs along the trail.

Then we drove further down Highway 7 to the small town of Black Diamond, and Marv's Classic Soda Shop. We had stopped here last year, and by this time desperately needed another chocolate malted with chocolate ice cream and chocolate syrup. We've received recommendations for Marv's carbonated ice cream, but it's impossible for us to pass up the chocolate malted.

We then turned north, headed towards the Trans-Canada Highway by a route we'd never taken before. We arrived at the Canadian Artisans Bed and Breakfast in Canmore, our choice for the last three years, and were greeted by our hosts Bob and Val. Canadian Artisans, besides being comfortable and offering astonishingly good breakfasts, has an ideal location within walking distance of both the downtown area and riverside trails. Our pigs (Dr. Maybe, Babelet, and Ruth) got along very well with the host bear in our room.

We ambled down to the Valhalla Pure store to pick up bear spray (not for the cuddly one above), had dinner at the Rocky Mountain Flatbread Company, an excellent place for an informal dinner, and then crashed. It had been a long day, and tomorrow was our first hike.