It took four gals three days of calling with over 800 phone calls each day to get us our four days of hiking, five days of fun, but also smoke, in Canada’s Lake O’Hara in Yoho National Park. We were able to get 12 spots, three short of our hoped-for 15. (Thanks to Jo Ann, Gail, Susan, Mary for all your persistence)

So 12 of us took off Aug. 12 and returned Aug. 16 for an adventure in the Canadian Rockies.

Day One
It all started at 6:45 a.m. as we crowded 12 of us and our 50 pounds each of gear into two vans, with Catherine and Deb driving. Thank goodness for these vans, which were full, luggage even at our feet.

Our first night would be spent in Canmore, a seven-hour drive, with a quick hike to the Grassi lakes, two emerald green gems with a wonderful waterfall along the way. We did the loop hike and followed the easy road-like trail to the top and then the steeper rock-stepped trail with railing back to the parking lot. This hike was a great leg warmer for our future harder hikes to come in Yoho.

We had a nice dinner at Wood, a sports bar type restaurant, and then a few stopped to get some libations and fresh food (we weren’t allowed to take fresh fruit or much alcohol over the border) for our first day in camp. Then we had Roni’s homemade Scotcheroos for dessert.

Our rooms at the Silver Creek Lodge were very nice: two bedrooms, two baths with a somewhat uncomfortable pull-out sofa to sleep six each (expensive at almost $500 per room per night). One of the baths had a weird shower that dropped a steady, hard stream directly from the ceiling, and one of the rooms had a non-functioning air conditioning, which was difficult to manage since the smoke was too thick outside to open the windows. But we survived the one night.

Day Two
It was up early for our drive to the shuttle stop, which would take us into the Lake O’Hara campground, our base camp for the next four days. The shuttle for which we had tickets was the 10:30 a.m. one. We arrived at the parking lot at 9:45, just time to purchase our park pass, unload and then park the cars and visit the pit toilet before boarding our shuttle.

The Lake O’Hara Lodge bus and shuttle to the Elizabeth Parker Hut came before the campground one, but we were ready. The driver gave us each a green plastic token that we had to keep for our return trip. And despite prior years, the driver did not weigh or even pay too much attention to our bags that we had carefully checked to make sure we weren’t overweight.

After a very bumpy bus ride, we arrived at the campground and had a few of our gals claim our sites while the others unloaded and watched over the gear. The ranger gave us a talk about leave no trace, how to use the wash basins to catch our grey water and put it down the toilet and about using only biodegradable camp soap to wash. She also explained about putting all food items, toiletries or anything smelly into the bear-proof lockers and then placing the rest of our items, including poles, boots and packs, inside our tents. Anything else could be placed inside the storage area by the lockers.
Then the ranger told us about a closet that housed extras: extra sleeping bags, pads, emergency blankets, tarps, etc. These are items donated or left behind by other campers for all to use. These would come in handy later for us.

The day was gorgeous, without smoke, since it had rained the night before. We also thought we were a bit north of the fires and hoped the north wind would keep the smoke blowing to our south.

After we set up our tents, we took a hike to Linda Lake and the Morning Glory Lakes, a hike Katie had never been on, but which on the map looked fairly flat with just a few hundred feet of elevation gain. The hike was beautiful, wandering through what we called a gnome forest with gorgeous green underbrush, ferns, mushroom (especially red-capped russula) and many lichens. Then Linda lake was very pretty with the surrounding mountains and lovely meadows, full of paintbrush, showy asters, arnica, fringed grass of Parnassus, and western/seedhead anemone, aka hippy on a stick.

Then we continued to the Morning Glory lakes, but this section was steeper and longer than expected and not as pretty. It did, however, take us on a loop hike instead of an up and back. At the end, it passed by the Elizabeth Parker Hut, a backcountry hut run by the Alpine Club of Canada, the sister club of the U.S’s Sierra Club.

Then in another quarter mile, we hit the road and stopped at the Le Relais shelter for fudge bars and sodas before heading back to the campground to fire up our JetBoils to make our supper of dehydrated meals.

After dinner, four of us (Karen, Susan, Roni, Katie) took a two-mile stroll around the lake, visiting the Seven Veil Waterfall, admiring the cabins (Katie’s favorite is number 6) and getting gorgeous photos of the orange-pink alpine glow on the mountains and their reflections in Lake O’Hara as the sun set.

At the camp, we talked to some of the other people to hear their hiking tales; Katie met two Italians, both from northern Italy, one from a town near her relatives. Everyone was very friendly.

Then we faced a very cold night that got down to 35 degrees. Our breath was visible as we got up to watch for the Persied meteor shower, but no one saw even one shooting star, unfortunately. Several got cold, so we visited the closet with the “extras,” using two sleeping bags and two mats. Catherine needed two extra bags plus an emergency blanket. Katie’s new mat went flat so she used one of the mats (but it wasn’t comfy so she slept on top of her clothes); Jeanne used a second matt to keep warm.

Day Three
Today was a big hike day for both groups: those doing part of the alpine circuit and those who planned to hike to the lake and maybe meet up with the alpine circuit group to tackle the Yukness ledges. Katie was leading the alpine group, while Gail led the lake hikers. 

The alpine group had to make its way up the insanely steep Wiwaxy Gap, which travels 1600 feet in just over a mile. Some of us realized that we weren’t in shape for the task, saying, “I’m done with uphill.” “I didn’t sign up for this.” “This is harder than anything I have ever done.” “Oh gosh, I don’t think I can make it.”  Toward the top, we were taking 30 steps and then resting for 30 seconds, and some were eating one Honey Stinger every 30 minutes for more energy. Susan encouraged everyone by saying, “We got this, Girls.”  We all did make it, the views were spectacular, but this ended hopes of doing more of the alpine circuit as it had taken us over three hours to do one mile. Sidenote: the purple saw wort flowers were almost dead, an unusual flower we do not have in Montana.

Those doing the high trail also faced some “scary” sections on the Huber Ledges as we descended.  Several of the ledges were narrow with steep drop offs, so Kuntzie, Roni and Katie led showing where to place feet and hands and checking out best routes for the others. By the time we reached Lake Oesa, most had had enough, so Katie made the decision that we would not do the Yukness Ledges part of the trail and instead call it a day and head back along the Lake Oesa trail.
We had hoped to meet the other group at Lake Oesa, but we didn’t see them. At one point, Katie thought she spied them sitting at the lake as we looked down from above, but once we got to the lake, they weren’t there. We wondered if they had made it to the lake.

On our way back to the campground, we didn’t’ see the other group, but we did enjoy Victoria Falls, Victoria Lake, Yukness lake and Lefroy lake. However, the smoke really set in. We could no longer see the surrounding mountains, and a haze set in over the lake. We arrived in camp after a stop for ice cream and cokes at Le Relais by 4:30.

As we were preparing dinner around 5:30, we started to get a bit concerned about our other group since they weren’t back, and we hadn’t seen them on the trail, so Katie started asking incoming hikers if they had seen three gals on the trail. No one coming from Lake Oesa had but two couples were pretty sure they had seen our gals on the Yukness Ledges. They said they were moving slowly but all was well and that the gals were having a great time.  We weren’t convinced that the three were Gail, Karen and Jeanne, but we were encouraged a bit.

Then the ranger came with the last shuttle of the day at 6:15. Katie and Kuntzie thought we better tell her about our gals not being back yet. The ranger told us that she has seen our gals and that they had done the ledges! She was surprised that they weren’t in camp yet. We were so happy and amazed that they had gone on this tough route.  Then Katie and Susan thought the gals had probably stopped at Le Relais for ice cream, so they started down the road to meet them, which they did. The gals had stopped to soak their feet in the lake.

They looked great and had stories to tell about the ledges, being a bit scared but glad to have done them. We all hugged them as they entered camp, so happy they were safe and so proud that they had done the Yukness ledges when the rest of us hadn’t. Gail said they almost ran out of water but that they met a hiker “Jean Pierre,” and he had given them iodine pills just in case. Jeanne said that she now knew what scrambling and bouldering meant.

After they fixed their food, Roni got out the rest of her Scotcheroos and some cookie bars! What a treat these homemade desserts were. A few of us played the dice game “Greedy,” a variation of Farkle or 10,000.

Katie said goodbye to her Italian friends as they only had one day in the park (they got in on a cancellation).

That night, several of us went to the Le Relais shelter to hear a talk about bats; however, it was a bit elementary and relied on audience participation.  No one was cold this night as the smoke has warmed the air. We noticed when we got back that the clientele had changed from mostly older hikers to young families. We were in for a “no sleep” night with screaming kids and crying babies. The kids were really running around the camp too. And when we asked the parents about their hikes, they explained that they had gone off-trail climbing Mount Schaffer and Wiwaxy, class three and four scrambling that required roping the children while the babies were strapped to the parents’ backs. We were a bit horrified by the description.
Funny exchange during the hike as we made our way along the ledges: “Watch out for the rock.” “Which rock?” “The green one.” “They’re all green.”

Sidenote: Susan accidentally dumped her meal on the ground; several of us shared our meal.

Day Four
By now, Katie knew that no one would be up for another alpine hike (the original plan was to get up very early and try for the Oderay Overlook); the smoke would hinder the view anyway, so we planned to hike together to Lake McArthur, the most beautiful lake in the park.

We still got up a bit early in hopes that the cool evening had damped down the fire a bit. But the smoke was still thick. We were happy to get out early anyway as we beat the other hikers to the lake and had it to ourselves for a while. But it was too bad that we couldn't really see the glaciers or the gorgeous sky blue of the lake.

​s we had lunch, everyone was bugging Brenda to try more things: she sampled an apple, mango and a few other items that had not passed her lips before as she is our meat-potatoes-pasta gal. 

Along the way, we saw many, many western/seedhead anemones, many that were pulled up with roots exposed along the trail. We wondered if kids had picked them or if an animal had been munching the roots and pulling them up.

This hike has a couple of challenges that require using hands to get through the rocks, which everyone handled like experts both coming and going. The surprise on the trail was a pika that came out from a rock right by several of the gals feet. And he didn’t disappear under rocks like pika usually do; he/she stayed visible running along the rocks and stopping so we could get good pictures.  Maybe this was the culprit making a meal of western anemone roots? We added speedwell to the list of flowers we saw.

Anyway, we arrived a Le Relais for another fudge bar/ice cream snack at 2:30. Then it was back to camp for a rousing game of Greedy (Kuntzie came from behind, then Roni passed her and then finally Catherine nailed the win with five ones/aces—Wow! Our laughing caught the attention of other campers, who commented they hoped they would be having as much fun as we when they get to “our age.” Hah!

We had a quiet evening of visiting and coming up with “trail names” for those on this adventure and for the others in our group. (See our website for our names). Katie gave out information on what we had to do to be ready for tomorrow morning’s 9:30 shuttle as we prepared to leave our Yoho trip.

Then a few of us headed to Le Relais one for time for the night program, which was on the artists of the Canadian Rockies. However, even though the gal was enthusiastic and knowledgeable, the projector didn’t work so we couldn’t’ see well and many of us were tired. The program ran over on time, so we lost interest. Too bad as her presentation had such potential. It did spur some of us to do further research on these artists once we returned home.

Day Five
We got up around 6:30 a.m., took down our tents, put away our borrowed gear and had breakfast, putting our bags “in line” at the shuttle stop by 9 a.m. as requested by the rangers. We said our goodbyes to Lake O’Hara with several of us taking one last half-mile walk down to the lake (Katie, Susan, Roni, Deb). We knew we would have a long 8.5 hours of driving. Susan and later Katie talked to the author from the night before, who told us about her favorite restaurants in Canmore in case we wanted to eat lunch there.

After arriving back at the parking lot, we sent the drivers to bring the cars around, packed them up, used the facilities and were on the road by 10:30 a.m. We decided to eat in Canmore after a brief look at Lake Louise as several had never seen it (a mistake as we couldn’t even see anything due to traffic and smoke. We drove in to be turned around by security and pointed back to the highway as all lots were full.)

The author-recommended restaurant Blake turned out to be a wonderful stop, with excellent and interesting food (or were we just sick of dehydrated food so anything tasted good?)

Then it was back home with a few stops for gas/breaks and snacks in Shelby. No one was hungry in Lethbridge, so we just scooted on home, making it in by 8:30, a full 10 hours (which included a long lunch) of travel time.

Some of the silliest things we brought: make up, eyelash curler, gin, rum, wine coolers, melatonin, sleeping pills, foundation, mascara, ear plugs, mattress pad that had a hole in it, lipstick, battery charger, way too much food

Good deeds we did: gave out two maps to those who had none; gave coffee packets to others, gave dessert to family who had kids, left emergency blankets for the “extra” closet, talked to others about how scary/not scary Wiwaxy was; found a man’s missing glasses

Who went (by tent): Susan, Katie, Catherine; Sue, Kuntzie, Mary N; Jeanne, Gail, Karen; Brenda, Deb, Roni

WoW—The Women of Wonder were sure wonderful on the trip to Mount Robson, a provincial park just out of Jasper and just barely in British Columbia. Mary S and Katie headed to Mountain View, Alberta, to stay with Laura, who co-leads the Canadian hiking group WoW. It took us about four hours of driving to arrive at her place to stay the night before our big adventure started.

That evening, we repacked our packs, questioning every single thing that we were taking, trying to get our weight under 30 pounds. Katie, Mary and Laura managed to do so (26, 27 and 29), but most of the others were carrying between 30 and 40 pounds. Some of the crazy things we felt were essential at the beginning of the trip but would probably should have left behind: camp chairs, glasses cleaner, full tubes of lotion and sunscreen, mirrors, glow sticks, sewing kits, hammers, mirrors, hairspray, swimsuits, umbrellas, just to name a few!
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Then it was up early the next morning to take our last shower before our six days without a bath. We left at 6:45 a.m. for the 10-hour drive to the Visitor Center and camp ground for our first night of roughing it. We had a day of trying our patience—waiting in line for a park pass; waiting in line to use bathrooms at Lake Louise, waiting in line for construction until we finally arrived at Mount Robson provincial park.  But the drive was drop-dead gorgeous along the icefields parkway even though the Columbia icefield had receded so much; the aqua-blue lakes, the jagged peaks. We were in awe. We also saw a bear and an elk (the rangers were set up on either side of the road slowing people so no one would hit him, we surmised).

After we arrived, we had to stop at the VC (we arrived at 3:30, which was actually 4:30 our time) to pick up our permits (again, we had to wait)  and have our mandatory orientation about pack-it-in, pack-it-out protocol as well as other rules of the park. Then we headed to the campground to try out our tents for night number one and enjoy a dehydrated meal for supper.

The next day, we were on trail by 8:30 after a quick breakfast of oatmeal and nuts plus the last of our fresh food, such as bananas and yogurt from our coolers. Some of us also picked a few handfuls of wild Saskatoons/Service berries as well as thimble berries to complement our meal too.

The trail was a temperate rain forest with ferns and moss galore. We saw fringed grass of Parnassus, devil’s club, pipsissewa/prince’s pine, bane berry, wood nymph, hare bells, twisted stalk, false Solomon seal, mountain dryads/avens (but yellow, not white) as we followed the milky waters of Robson River to Kinney Lake (4 k up the trail). Harlequin ducks reside in this lake although we didn’t see any. It reminded us of the hike along McDonald Creek in West Glacier in the spring, the water rushing so hard, due to the rapid melting of the surrounding glaciers in the August heat.

The heat affected some of us, slowing us down; one gal took a tumble too, but she was okay. We were surprised at the traffic on the trail: day hikers, runners, bikers, and people walking dogs. We were very tired and hot by the time we pulled into our camping place at Whitehorn at 4:30 p.m., in the Valley of a Thousand Water Falls.  Unfortunately, many camp sites had already been claimed, so we didn’t find spots close to each other. Then we walked to the stream and disinfected our water and prepared our meals of dehydrated lasagna, turkey with dressing, and stroganoff.

The picnic shelter was quite nice, providing tables and a cover for us as it spit rain a precursor of a very raining night. We also had a wash station and bear lockers for our food and toiletries.

By morning, Katie and Mary were pretty soaked, especially Katie who only had a three-quarter sleeping pad, so her feet end of the sleeping bag was sopping. But there wasn’t time to dry anything as we had to set out hiking. Everyone used her garbage bag to pack the wet items before putting the items back into our packs, hoping we would have time—and good weather—to hang our wet items before dark set in. We were up by 5 a.m. but we weren’t on trail until 9:15, partly due to some sleeping in and partly due wet gear.

Tuesday was our tough day: 1700 feet of gain over a few kilometers, but the gorgeous “thousand” falls, in particular White falls and Emperor Falls gave us some eye candy to help with the uphill battle. Joan, in particular as she had an injury from Muddy Creek Falls hike, toughed it out over ankle-twisting rocks on the glacial moraine. This area gave us our first look at the glaciers feeding Berg Lake as they calved into the water below. The sound was like thunder or gun shots before the ice and snow came tumbling down. One time, we saw what we thought was a waterfall, but it was really a calving that fell in a narrow crevice making it appear as a stream.

Some of us had our gear strapped to our packs to help dry; however, about half way through our hike, the rain came again. When we arrived at Berg Lake campground, we quickly set up our tents in the drizzle (the late arrivers had all out rain) before heading to the shelter to put out gear to dry. The shelter even had a drying rack that could be lowered via a pulley system and then raised to the rafters. Katie and Mary had a dilemma with two solutions. Plan A—dry out their sleeping bags and mats  Plan B—sleep in tents with some of the gals who had three-person tents. Luckily, their items dried out sufficiently to try another night in the rain in their own tent.

Flowers we saw on day two were yellow saxifrage, yellow/red columbine, pink pyrola (wintergreen), and many fungi.  The lakes and ponds throughout our backpack so far were pure white with glacial till or flour.

Thursday was our lay-in day—no tents to pack up, no heavy backpacks. We had time to continue to dry things in the shelter as well as drop some of our gear and go light on our packs as we hiked to Adolphus lake in Jasper (we saw the border line between the two parks and provinces) and then on the Snowbird pass route to get an up-close look at Robson Glacier and the bergs in its lake. We stopped at the sign indicating the toe of the glacier in 1911, a sign now about a half mile from the toe due to the glacier melting 52 feet a year, which saddened us, but also made us realize how lucky we were to be in such a special place.

The day was drizzly again, but it was not cold, so the temp was perfect for hiking. We had no issue with putting on rain gear and heading out to see more sights. Some gals climbed a small knoll to gain a view into the lake and see the icebergs from above. We were also able to see about four more glaciers, all coming right down to ground level, flowing down the mountains like rivers.

The alpine fireweed, sweetvetch, yellow saxifrage and mountain avens/dryads were everywhere in this area. Fringed grass of Parnassus and pink pyrola too.

After our evening meal, we realized that Joan’s ankle was really sore. WE had to decide: should Joan take the helicopter out or should we divide her gear and have her just carry and empty backpack? With her advice, we decided the latter and decided that we would get on trail even earlier so she could go at a very slow pace to keep from injuring her foot even more.

After that, we had fun playing some card and dice games, thanks to Loural for bringing them. For some, it was hard to sleep that night with the glaciers making their calving noises.
 
On Friday, we were all up around 5 a.m. and tried to take Joan’s gear but she kept hiding items from us, but Lorna outed her and kept and eye. It was so hard for her to let us help her; she was the strongest of us all in this decision; she didn’t’ realize how much we wanted to help and how little effort this help took on our part.
 
This day was the worst day yet for rain, the trail turning into a river on the steep downhill section. We had to watch our step over slippery roots and mud; but fortunately, the rocks weren’t slippery. In fact, we stepped on them on purpose to keep our grip. In the rain, the orange of the iron oxide in the rocks really stood out in striped patterns.

Since it was Friday, we heard the helicopters flying in and out (they come M/F), taking in people who had paid $250 for the ride in and $200 for the ride out. We found out this information from the German Ranger gals, who was quite friendly and happy to answer our questions about the park.

We did a good deed today: a hiking party of young women stopped us and asked if we had any extra toilet paper as they were out. One of our gals handed them almost a full roll. They were so happy when she said they could keep the whole thing since we were on our way out. We helped even more people today. Mary had a map and helped several people with directions and mileage to various places.

We really moved down the trail on this day, arriving at Whitehorn by just after 1 p.m. Joan was able to walk at a good clip without all of the extra weight; however, she was limping.

 We had another issue too: Due to the rain, Mary’s feet got wet and as a result, her core got cold. We had to use hand warmers to get her body temperature back to normal.

After our usual routine of water filtering and heating water for dinner, we had time to dry out our soaked gear. Then we relaxed and played games (one dice game was fun: Greedy). We did notice that some of our items that we hung out had slugs on them as well as our tents. The rain had brought them and the mosquitoes out to torture us.
Down at the river, someone had set up “rock” lounge chairs, fashioned from slabs of rock and embedded into the river stones. They were actually quite comfortable.

The next and last day, we booked it out, Joan doing well on her now very sore ankle, the rest of us still helping to carry her gear.  The rain had stopped, and the crowds were back on this stretch, even more so as it was a Saturday of a long weekend. We arrived at the visitor center around 2 p.m. to have a nice lunch and ice cream cones before we split up for the long drive home

We reminisced on what “simple pleasures: we missed while backpacking: Chinese food, pillows,hamburgers.

When we were a few hours from home, we learned one of the cars had lost keys and had to go back to Jasper to rent a car to drive home. We were all so sorry that we didn’t have service to get this message so that we could have picked them up. We didn't know any other details from the text, which said it was a LOOOONG story.
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We arrived home at midnight, losing an hour when we crossed into Alberta from BC. Mary and Katie overnighted at Larua's and then made it to Great Falls around 2 p.m. the next day.
 
Our favorites: waterfalls, glaciers, mountains, trees, bridges, rocks, making it the whole way, calving, the cute German ranger, camaraderie, fungi, resilience, working together to solve issues, moss.

What we could have lived without: slugs, mud, so much rain/wet, the weight of backpack, flies/mosquitoes, toboggan falls trail being closed,

Surprises: how big and how many glaciers, Robson lake had more glaciers than Berg lake, how we got used to the pack, how good we felt on day five, the call of the varied thrush sounded like a whistle, more flowers than expected, how many trees had fallen down, how many people were on the trail