CR2012: Buller Pass After the Burn

August 4th dawned with a cloudless sky. The view of Tent Ridge from the deck of Mount Engadine Lodge was promising.

The Alberta FireNet repeater station on top was clearly visible, especially through binoculars.

Joan and I had put Tent Ridge near the top of our list of hikes near Mount Engadine Lodge, but the previous two drizzly days meant that we had time for only our #1 item, Buller Pass, which had undergone a prescribed burn last year. I mentioned the burn and observing the flames last year at the bottom of this post. We were intensely curious how the hike looked now, having had an astonishing post-burn surprise in 2009 at Hawk Creek, which is documented briefly here.

We were eager to tackle Buller Pass, even on a transit day, which meant extra driving time. We dashed out of the lodge without saying proper good-byes, and were on the trail early. It starts with a footbridge and several signs.

Of particular interest are the burn notice sign ...

and the distances. Because of all the climbing, 2200 feet of elevation gain, it's more effort than you would think.

The early section of the trail is gentle and unburnt.

Notice the spiderweb in the sun, in the upper right corner? Here is a closeup.

Just before the rebuilt bridge that ends the gentle stretch, there was another novelty, a wildlife observation camera.

Then we crossed the bridge, reconstructed after the burn, and began to climb.

We entered into the burned zones, which were fascinating and raised many questions. The burned areas were hit or miss, interspersed with unaffected woods. How would a prescribed burn differ from an uncontrolled one? We guessed that a prescribed burn would not be as hot, and wouldn't be started on a windy day, so it would be less likely to jump ravines and watercourses. There were at least three kinds of trees: burned trees (charcoal on the outside, foliage all gone), crisped trees (foliage all brown, but little charring), and normal trees.

In this photo there are many 'crisped' trees, but also some untouched low bushes.

Here, there are crisped and charcoaled trees.

The wildflowers love the sunlight, and burst with color against charred logs. Note, too, the unburnt pine needles on the ground.

In places where tree roots had grown into mounds of organic detritus -- moss, needles, bark -- the charred roots were now hanging in the air.

Looking across the valley of Buller Creek, you can see how the prescribed burn formed a variety of shapes. It was not a uniform holocaust.

Lest you form the wrong impression, I'll note that long segments of the trail were still lush:

Then we came to a bridge recrossing Buller Creek. To me, this bridge is an ominous milestone; the switchbacks after this bridge form the second-hardest climb on the trail. The toughest is the slog to the top of the pass itself.

Twenty or so minutes later on there is a well-known waterfall and pool, larger than it looks in this photo.

The trail comes to a meadow, where the valley splits into two arms, north and south. Here we found a tree that was two-faced, part singed and part green.

The north trail, much less used, goes to North Buller Pass, while the southern trail goes to Buller Pass. Joan and I once tried to hike to North Buller Pass, but were defeated by the steep, pathless scree slope at the end. The trail split happens just after this bridge, where Joan points left, towards the otherwise easy to miss north trail.

The next picture is looking back towards the area of the trail junction, just one minute after the above photo.

By the time of the junction the trees have been thinning, and the trend continues as you continue to climb towards the pass.

That doesn't mean that there aren't spectacular patches of wildflowers along the way, such as here, with paintbrush, columbine, and several white species.

The trail leads higher and further into the valley, with the pass almost visible at the end. The trees become more scattered.

Even up here, there are columbine, as shown above, and spectacular alpine forget-me-nots (also the state flower of Alaska).

As the valley rises and narrows the trail gradually steepens; in a couple of spots there were modest patches of snow (August 4th). Joan and I heard some peeping, and after several minutes of scanning with our binoculars, we saw a baby ptarmigan on the other side of the ravine and rivulet that run down the center of the valley. Then the real climbing began.

It was the kind of trail where most of us would walk a short while and then pause to catch our breath, and drink in the view back down the valley whence we had come. Mount Assiniboine slid into view.

Getting closer to the top.

The pass is a funnel for the wind, and no-one stops at the exact top for long. Most move slightly beyond for their lunching, photography, or just resting.

Here is the view down the far side, taken from where Joan and I sat for lunch.

Ribbon Lake is in the center. Ribbon Creek leaves the lake and goes down to Kananaskis Village on Highway 40. At right is Guinn's Pass, which most hikers reach by the Galatea Lakes trail, on the other side of the mountains behind Ribbon Lake. That is a hike Joan and I want to make some day, but it requires being in good shape; it's a long hike, and the last mile of the climb is steeper than Buller Pass.

Some of the other hikers climbed from the pass up the north ridge to a small promontory. Joan and I didn't.

The view from the pass as we began our return journey. The trail seems to plunge off the side of the mountain.

There is something about the return path that emphasizes the ramparts on the south wall of the valley. Even this photo shows only some of them.

My final picture for this hike shows the view a few minutes before we reach the junction of the north and south valleys, on our way back.

After returning to the car, tired but cheered by our success, we drove south along the Smith-Dorrien Spray Trail until we reached Highway 40, and then north again to reach Kananaskis Village, where we would be staying at the Delta Lodge. This would be our base of operations for the remaining hikes of our trip.

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.