Third Back Country Hike – Egypt Lake

So, after thinking i wasn’t able to do 1 back country hike… I was now on number 3. This is the most beautiful back country hike out of the 3. Egypt Lake. I was hiking with a lovely couple, Clare and George and not forgetting K2 the beautiful and lovely husky. We did the hike in 3 days, hiked approximately 60 km, followed wolf tracks, camped, stayed in a cabin and collected 15 cameras along they way.

The gang

As always, i was feeling a tad nervous about this back country hike. Like the last one the 4 day hike was chopped to 3 days (always a little worrying), but after some well needed encouragement from Clare i was raring to go. On the upside, on the fist night we were staying at the Egypt Lake cabin, which was approximately 15km from the start. Hiking up to the cabin wasn’t quite as bad as expected, although the trail was a little icy and there was still a lot of snow on the ground. There was some quite tedious uphill sections which are most definitely not my strong point. And we even missed a camera along the way which Clare and George offered to back for while me and K2 waited with the bags!

But then we reached the top of the pass, and boy was all that work worth it. The view in every direction was spectacular.

Panoramic view from the top

Gorgeous view

More lovely views

Once we reached this point we collected a camera and took a well deserve rest stop and a bite to eat before facing the next stage of the hike…

Snack time

Once we had some food in us we started off again to make our way to the cabin. I was elated when we got there! Was so nice to have a cabin to sleep in only if it is only for 2 night.

The cabin

The cabin was basic, with wooden shelf like beds raised off the floor (to keep you away from the mice!), there were 2 ‘bedrooms’ and a common area with tables, benches and a wood burner. We were sharing with cabin with another 5 people which was lovely, we had the fire going so was all nice and cosy. Once we had eaten, it was off to bed ready for another jam packed day.

On the second day we were hiking over Whistling Pass. This is the hardest pass i have ever hike, i thought i was actually going to pass out. It was a good job i had help from K2 or else i don’t think i would have made it up.

A helping hand

After the ‘big climb’ to Whistling Pass, it was lovely and flat for a while. Again the views were pretty spectacular. Not as clear as the day before as it was drizzling, but amazing all the same.

Whistling Pass

We made it!

Then it was all downhill. Which you would think would like like heaven after that tedious uphill… You think wrong. It was relentless downhill for a long time on scree. Not the best when you have tired legs in the first place. But after a while it started to flatten out. We were hiking around 25km today to our campsite which was a few km’s past Shadow Lake.

We had a few stops along the way, was a very long day. But to make the hike more exciting… It seemed like we may have been following wolf tracks…

Wolf tracks

Wolf tracks Vs K2 tracks

We followed these tracks all the way to the campsite, which was a little unnerving! After retrieving the majority of the cameras on route we arrived at Shadow Lake, and what i beautiful lake it was.

Shadow Lake

By the time we reached camp we set up and it was beginning to get dark. We prepared our food on the porch of one of the cabins near by, ate then off to bed.

Dinner on the porch

I woke up the next day, tired and sore and wondering how on earth i was going to finish this hike. We had another god know how many km’s to hike to get back to the car. This last part of the hike was the worst. I was feeling it and the trail had become a big wide open fire trail so there wasn’t really much to see.

After what seemed like an eternity, we reached the parking lot. Another back country hike over. We checked to make sure we had all the kit, packed our stuff in the car and were ready for home.

The all important kit check

Happy to be finished

I was so happy and exhausted…. but i wasn’t the only one….

Exhausted puppy

September Snow

So as you may have noticed form my last blog post, we had some freak snow in September. It started the day that we were hiking out of Baker Creek and lasted for around 3 days after.

I was supposed to be driving to Jasper for surveys the day after the back country hike, but with the snow the way it was going there was no chance I was driving in it!

No snow/snow

Don’t get me wrong, the snow was beautiful and i loved witnessing it while in Canada. But for me, coming from a place that pretty much shuts down if there is any kind of snow i didn’t feel up to the drive.

Beautiful snow

After the 1st day of heavy snow it had pretty much stopped. The roads were cleared really well by the snow plough’s and off i went on my trip to Jasper in the winter wonderland.

Second back country hike to Brewster Creek

So it has been a while since i posted my last blog. I have been super busy. But i am now going to get myself up to date starting with my second back country hike to Brewster Creek.

So with this being my second back country hike i was feeling a little more prepared but still pretty scared. This back country hike was 3 days and we collected 7 cameras along the way. Brewster creek is more of a horse trail with groups trecking to the beautiful lodges that are located along the way. With this being said, horses only mean one thing…. muddy trails! Another factor that made this hike particularly challenging is that most of the bridges that cross the may creeks along the trail had been washed away from last years floods.

First day was a 15km hike into camp. I was hiking with a girl called Erika, she was a great person to go on this hike with. Great conversation the entire time and she also pushed me to keep going… A LOT!

Me and Erika

It was a beautiful day when we started, the sun was shining and it was lovely and warm. And it was a good job, because the first thing we had to do was ford a creek, a creek that was knee deep! This was our choice as crossing this creek cut out approx 6km from the hike. And with the hike being cut from 4 days to 3 we needed all the help we could get. But this wasnt the only creek we had to cross, I lost count of how many we crossed along the way but i assure you it was a lot. And not only that but the water was so unbelievably cold. All the water in the creeks are glacial melt, so im sure you can imagine just how cold it was.

Creek crossing

Like a pro

So off we went, first creek crossed, and navigated our way to the trail as it was pretty much destroyed from the floods. But it didnt take us long to get on track and we were on the way to the campsite. It took us around 4-5 hours to get to camp. Once we were there we set up the tent and figured out where to hang food/prepare meals as the food area had been washed away by the floods.

The camp

So as i just said we had to hang our food, we have to do this to keep it out of bears reach. We needed to find a location that was far away from the tent and had a good tree that we could hang our things on. Nor Erika or I had ever had to hang food ourselves before (normally in the flood area there is a food pole already there). We headed down to the creek and found a good place for us to prepare food, right next to the creek where we could also filter the water to drink/cook with.

Food prep by the creek

Then we went in search for a tree! After a while we found the perfect place, so it was now time to text it. We had some rope that was lent to us. We tied a rock to one end of the rope to make it easier to throw it and i had to put my foot on the other end, so the whole rope didn’t end up in the tree. So off i went, it took 3 attempts but I did it eventually.

Getting ready…

Fingers crossed…

Done it 🙂

Once the rope was over, Erika pulled it from the other side where there was a good tree to anchor it. We created a loop at the end of the rope, attached out bags and hauled it up into the tree. It was a success. First tree we found and we has sussed it.

Success

We made ourselves a well severed meal then off to bed ready for the long day a head of us. On the second day we needed to cover approx 24km. It was a long, very challenging day. This is where we collected the majority of the cameras.

Collecting cameras

On the way we say some cool sights.

We even found a quite fresh looking bear track, which was a little scary but pretty cool too 🙂 Luckily it was going in the opposite direction so we weren’t following it!!

Bear track

Pretty big!

Once the majority of cameras were collected, we started to make our way back to camp. It was a really long day and the last camera of the day came down at around 7.30pm. It was starting to get dark but luckily it was only 1km from camp.

Last camera of the day

We had a quite bite to eat then off to bed to rest for the hike out. We woke up to the sound of rain. This isn’t what we had banked on, but at least it was the last day! We headed out to collect 2 cameras on a trail off the campsite, this didn’t take long thankfully. When we got back we had breakfast, packed out things up and then hit the road back. the weather was still pretty rubbish. It was drizzling the entire morning. Then, it started to hail…. Then it started to snow! I couldn’t believe it. I knew that it was forecast to snow but i didn’t think it would that day. It was very gradual but by the time we had nearly reached the end it was pretty much covered.

Snow!

I was so happy that it was snowing, it made the hike out a little more bearable. Until we reached the last creek which was now higher and im sure colder than the first time we crossed it. We didn’t think, we just went for it. Knowing that the car was on the other side made it easier.

The last creek

The car

But it was over. Thank goodness for that. That hike was a challenge. The distance, the time we had, the creek crossings, the trails, the snow!

HAPPY

Another back country hike under my belt 🙂

My first back country experience – McArthur Creek/Otter Trail

So the nerves were building for my first back country hike. I was feeling so unprepared it was scary. I was hiking with a very capable hiker, Mary, but I don’t know if this made me feel any better!

I headed into town for a few last minute items… food… What food are you supposed to take on a back country hike? Well anything light! So i headed to the local outdoor shop, Valhalla, in Canmore and purchased some dehydrated food (BBQ rice with chicken and lasagna).

Now i am ready…

• Tent – check
• Rucksack – check
• Food – check
• Waterproofs – check
• Spare dry clothes – check
• Stove and cooking utensils – check
• Torch – check
• Water – check
• Bear spray – check
• Cameras – check
• Confidence and sanity – not quite sure where they had gone!

Everything else that we needed, Mary was going to bring. I was a mix of excited and a feeling of pure dread. I knew that this was not going to be an easy couple of days by any stretch. I was just hoping that i was not going to pass out before the end.

So we decided to meet in Canmore at 7am. We drove to Banff to pick up the camera kit and the 6 cameras we were to be setting up around the area. Then off we went to Yoho National Park to start our hike. Now this hike was supposed to be done over 4 days, but due to the weather forecast for the last 2 days, Mary and I decided to hike for as much as we could over the first 2 days so we wouldn’t get caught out in the rain.

We arrived at the trailhead and sorted out all of our kit, leaving behind anything that wasn’t needed that just added unnecessary weight. I will say that even so, the packs were still heavy! Then we began. It was a 15km hike to the camp ground. The hike wasn’t so bad, it was a gradual uphill climb and in the end took us around just over 4 hours to reach the camp, even with a 10 minute stop to set up the 1st camera. By this time it was around 2pm, we had some lunch and then set up camp.

After camp was set up, we hung all our food/smelly stuff on the bear hand (a big metal pole with a winch to keep you food away from the bears!) and off we went to Otter Falls and Good Sir Pass to place 3 of the cameras. It didn’t take us too long to set up the cameras according to the maps that we had. Along the way there was a lot of bear and wolf scat which was exciting/scary. We ended up getting back to camp at around 6.30pm.

Then it was tea time. We headed down to the creek where we had a delicious meal of soup (for starter) then salmon pasta (for main). It was just what we needed after the 20+km we had hiked. After washing up, it was time for bed.

The second day was painful. I was sore from all the hiking the day before and from sleeping in a tent (never comfortable), and we still had to put 2 cameras along McAurther Pass, which was an un-maintained trail. With the last nights rain still looming on the trees it was a very wet hike through bushes to get the 2 cameras up. But we got there, 3km in and 3km back out again. Then it was time to hit the road and head the 15km back to the car.

Those 15km were the most painful 15km I have ever hiked. My feet were wet and sore and my legs were aching from the weight of the pack and all the hiking. I cant say how long it took to get down but I can say that it took longer than on the way.

At last we made it to the car. The journey was over, I had won! 40+km over 2 days, brilliant. I was so happy. And what made me even more happy was the thought of a bath and my own bed for the night.

(sorry for the lack of photographs on this blog entry, the weather wasn’t great and the thought of carrying my massive camera as well as everything else was too much!)

Cascade Ponds – Camera set-up

The Cascade Ponds camera set up was great fun. I was working with Julie again, and thank god for her. If she wasn’t with me I don’t think I would have know any of the locations for the cameras!

Luckily Julie had helped out with the previous Cascade Ponds Camera take-down and with Sarah wanting the cameras to go up around the same area she knew all the places we needed to go.

There were 7 cameras being set up in the Cascade Ponds area which meant a lot of driving around to different locations to set up the cameras.

It was a really great day, we had no issues with setting the cameras up in similar locations to the last set up.

The one area that takes up the most time on a camera set up is picking the right location. You want to find a spot that will capture both a hiking and wildlife trail. So the first thing you need to do is be looking out for signs of wildlife trails, once you find one, you then have to see whether there is a suitable place to put the camera (trust me, sometimes you have the perfect trail and no tree which is very frustrating). If you are lucky enough to find a great spot with a tree in a good place to put the camera, you then need to take a few practice shots to make sure the camera is going to capture what you want it to. This involves myself or Julie slumping over to make ourselves ‘bear like’ to see if the camera will capture us. This is great fun and a a great laugh. This needs to be done with each camera to be sure you will get some decent images.

Julie working on the camera set-up

The weather was beautiful and I had great company.

Emerald Lake – Surveys and tourist day!

I was lucky enough to conduct surveys at Emerald Lake in Yoho National Park. This place is absolutely stunning. Unfortunately i never got a photo of the Lake, so am uploading one from the internet so you can see how beautiful it was!

Emerald Lake – Wow i wish i have taken a photo like that!

Me and Grace working hard

Emerald Lake is extremely busy, due to the beauty of it. There were people arriving by the bus load (literally) to come and see the lake. For surveys we needed to situate ourselves in such a place as to catch people that were hiking either around the lake or hiking one of the trials off the lake as we didn’t want to survey people that were just stepping off the bus to look at the lake!

The spot we chose was perfect and we had a very success 5 days of surveying here. As usual we did get a number of refusals for varied reasons but all in all it was extremely successful. Thanks to Grace, Margaret and Peggy who helped out with surveys at Emerald Lake.

On the first day of surveys I was accompanied by Grace and her boyfriend Rob. Grace and I conducted surveys for the morning while Rob fished in the lake.

We decided to make a day out of this trip to Yoho so not only did we walk around the lake. We also visited the Natural Bridge which was pretty impressive…

The Natural Bridge

We also stopped of at Takakkaw Falls. The biggest waterfall I have seen in my life. And we were able to walk right up to it which only took around 10 minutes. Well worth it.

Takakkaw Falls

The waterfall

Getting closer….

Maybe a bit too close (soaked)

After the falls we needed to stop off at the Tramline Trail in Lake Louise to pick up the track stick drop box. While in Lake Louise we deiced to go to Moraine Lake, I was told it was a beautiful lake but its something else when you actually see it in person.

Moraine Lake

We spent the rest of the afternoon here, Grace and Rob fished while i sat and watched in the sun. Great afternoon. Great day in general. Feeling very lucky to be here and being able to visit all these wonderful places.

Ball Pass Camera take-down

The camera take-down for Ball Pass was a bit of a challenge for me. As a lot of you know, I am not the fittest person in the world (although I am trying to improve) and Ball Pass was a mixture of climbing under and over fallen trees and hiking uphill… A LOT!

I worked with a volunteer called Julie who was very patient with me. And even though it was tough, we had a lovely day out.

Ball Pass

The weather was blistering hot, I don’t think i have ever sweated so much in my life! Every chance we got along the way we doused ourselves with the water running down from the mountains. But even so there was still snow in some places!

Icey cold water – great on a hot day

Snow!

There were only 2 cameras situated on this route. One not so far from the trail head, the other seems like an infinity away! But with great directions form the volunteers who set up the cameras, there was no problems finding them.

Along the way, as always, there was a lot of beautiful sights to take your breath away. One being the ginormous waterfall that was cascading off the mountain……

Beautiful waterfall

The other being the bridge over the creek which was so incredibly loud but stunning….

Bridge over creek

I also made a friend on out lunch break…!

Butterfly friend

The hike was around 15km in total. It was a success day and I sure slept that night!!

First Camera Set-Up

So my first camera set up was at Sulphur Mountain, Banff National Park. It was a nice easy day with only 2 cameras to put up along the trail. I was working with Breda, a volunteer from Ireland.

The day didn’t start off as planned when I got a message from Sarah, who had set off earlier for her camera set-up, saying that the camera kit wasn’t there. I emailed the ladies who had done the previous set up to see if they had got it but no reply.

By this point it is 9am and i was meant to be meeting Breda in Banff at 8.30am. So I made the decision of heading into town to meet her. By now it was 9.30am, i met Breda and we decided to head over to the coffee shop and use the WiFi to see if the ladies had replied. The coffee shop we chose had terrible WiFi so checking emails didn’t happen. After all this i decided to go home and check my emails, and to my surprise i had a reply. I went to fetch the kit and off we went, back to Banff to start out set-up.

By the time we started it must have been going on 11pm. It didn’t take us long till we reached the spot the first camera was going to be placed, ~600m from the trail head.

Breda setting up the first camera

View of first camera

To set up the cameras we needed to find a good tree to tie it too which would get the best view of the hiking trail and any wildlife trails in sight. All the settings are good to go on the camera other than the camera name and time&date which was changed just before we put up the camera. We then had to mark the GPS location in the GPS unit (so that whoever is collecting the cameras know where it is) and also to write all the details in the field guide; trail name, camera name, GPS location number, which side of the track, distance from the trail head, and any other comments that will help with the camera collection.

Was a beautiful but hard walk as the mosquitoes where out in force that day. Every time we stopped we were surrounded!!

The next camera was get up approximately 3km from the first camera. As we were getting closer the the 3km mark, the trees were getting more and more scarce!! We managed to find a tree good enough to put the camera on so we set it up and off we went back down the trail.

Here are some of the beautiful views on the trail….

 

All in all it was a very successful day 🙂

 

Jasper Part 4 – The journey home

I wasn’t going to include this in my blog but it was a pretty big deal so couldn’t really leave it out!…

After a long week of practically sleeping on the floor in a pretty small tent, 5 days of surveys and lots of early starts it was over and our journey home had begun.

I’m not gonna lie I was a little tired, but the journey was going well. We stopped for a loo break and some fresh air about 2 hours in then got back on the road.

Bearing in mind in the UK we have right hand drive and drive on the left, driving on the opposite side of the car and road is a little challenging. So driving along I try and avoid a MASSIVE pothole! Instead of avoiding it, I drove straight over it. I have never felt impact like it. Jen and I thought we had got away with it (wishful thinking) when the car started pulling to the right!

So I pull over and my worst nightmare had been confirmed. Not only did we have 1 flat tyre, but 2!! I couldn’t believe it, was in total shock. And to make matters worse we had no phone coverage to ring anyone.

Oops

After a couple of minutes of absolute panic we decided to flag down a car for help. A lovely couple, Liz and Jim, stopped to help us. He looked at the car and told us he would take us to Lake Louise to get help. So we bundled as much stuff as we could into their car and headed to Lake Louise, abandoning the car in a layby on the highway!!!

I called Sarah when we got the Lake Louise who came to pick us up and take us back to the car to pick up the rest of our belongings. It was a long drive home and was so shaken up by the whole ordeal!

It ended OK, Sarah was understanding and we got a replacement car within a few day. Relief!!

Jasper Part 3 – Recreational activities

Although we were in Jasper primarily to work, we took some time to explore the town and partake in a few recreational activities!

Surveys are a half day, finishing at 1. So once they were done and we had finished everything else that needed to (emails and data entry) we treated ourselves to something really touristy!!

On the first day we went horse riding. It was great fun! That was one of the thing I really wanted to do in Canada 🙂 My horse, Chip, was lovey and just plodded along at the back taking his time whereas Jen’s horse, Lucky, was a little temperamental to say the least. Was a great trip out though and our guide was lovely and told us lots of stories about the area and the wildlife he had encountered on his excursions.

Me and Chip

Chip

Jen and Lucky

On Tuesday June 10th we went on a small hike to the Valley of 5 Lakes. Was so beautiful there and some of the lakes were amazing!!  We missed the first one as we chose to do the smaller route due to time restraints. The first 2 lakes that we saw were very low/dirty looking but the last 2 were amazing and well worth the wait/.

Lake number 2

Lake number 3

Lake number 4

Selfie!!

Lake number 5

On the same day we also treated ourselves to the Jasper hot springs which was well needed after the horse riding and hike…

There were 4 pools in total. The first one was 38 degrees, the second 40 degrees and then there were too smaller really cold pools (which i avoided). Was a great way to relax and had a great view to boot.

On Wednesday June 11th we decided to go up on the Jasper Skytram. It was late in the day so there would have been no hope of us climbing the mountain and boy was it worth it. We started off at 1304 meters above sea level.

At the start

Then took the 7 minute ride in the tram up to a whopping 2277 meters above sea level to the top of Whistler’s mountain.

On the way up

At the top

Great view

On Thursday June 12th, after surveys we took a quick drive out to Pyramid Lake. It was so incredibly beautiful. But to our horror when we arrived there was a wedding party getting sorted for a wedding later that day. No one said no to go on to the island so we strolled on for a few photographs then scarpered before the ceremony!! Here are a couple of photos from the lake…

The wedding set up. Oops

Pyramid Lake

❤

And i was even able to get a photo of this amazing yellow butterfly that had been flying round us the whole time we were there…

Big yellow butterfly

On our last night we treated ourselves to a private room in Hi Hostels which was situated half way up the mountain to the Jasper Sky tram. It was great. We had a lovely room, it was gorgeous weather and it was so nice to sleep on a bed!!

Hi Hostel

And we also got to meet this little beauty….

Echo

On the last afternoon after surveys we went to seek out some of the wild flowers that were growing next to the river at sixth bridge that one of our previous survey candidates had told me about. They were so beautiful, hard to find but worth it in the end.

Globeflower (Trollius albiflorus)

Martensia/bluebell (Mertensia paniculata)

Lady’s-slipper Orchid (Cypripedium calceolus)

Beautiful

So all in all we fitted a lot into a week, but had an incredible time and saw some amazing things. Cant wait to go back.