I've been to the Canadian Rockies (Banff, Jasper, Yoho, Kootney, Assiniboine, Mt. Robson) at least 5 times both summer and winter. I've also been to some several of the other western Canadian mountain ranges such as the Selkirks (Glacier and Revelstoke) and the coast ranges. Most of my pictures are slides, but I have few photos which are worth sharing. These are all tourist accessible places.
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Malign Lake (left) and The Valley of the 10 Peaks (right). World famous Lake Louise below Victoria glacier and the continental divide (below).
During my 1989 visit to the Canadian Rockies, several friends and I arrived in June and were the first people across several snow covered passes that year. One particularly eventful trip was a four day backpacking trip into Mt. Assiniboine. Since we had 2 vehicles, I drove my 4WD pickup up a 4WD road from Cranbrook to a trail head south of Assiniboine. While I was doing this (and then hiking back out) my 3 friends were getting back country permits. The rangers told them 4 times that they couldn't stop us from going in, but it was too early in the season, the passes were covered with snow, and that if we didn't come out, they weren't going in looking for us. Well, I always maintained that rangers are wimps. So we started from the Sunshine ski area parking lift area and headed up toward the continental divide. The area was covered with snow, so we couldn't even find the trail. However, we headed up and eventually ended up standing on a survey marker - we knew exactly where we were, but we still couldn't find the trail! About an hour later we finally found the trail and headed up over a snow filled pass. I was sinking in up to my waist in the snow - tough going! We dropped down the other side and camped near a small lake. I remember laying out on my sleeping bag with my feet in a snow bank, my face in some wild flowers, and the sun on my back.
Sometime during the night another couple arrived at our campsite. The next morning, 2 of my 3 friends decided that the going was too rough and decided to turn back. My remaining friend, Bill, and I talked with the 2 new arrivals, J-P and Sylvie. They had driven up from Calgary the day before, pretty much on a lark and completely ill-prepared. They spent the little money they had to buy some hot dogs and a bit of other food, and set out to do the same 4 day trip we were doing. They didn't have a spare set of clothes, they had one good sleeping bag and one very poor one, and they were wearing dockers for footwear (Hey, I know, I hike in sandals most of the time, but with this much snow even I was in hiking boots).
We set out, crossed another mountain pass and near the end of the day got caught in a pretty heavy rain storm. Bill & I got our ponchos on and stayed relatively dry. J-P & Sylvie were somewhat slower and ended up pretty wet. When we got to camp it was quite cold (upper 30's). They were shivering pretty hard and said they were just going to go to bed. Bill and I said "no way" and gave them some try clothes and cooked their dogs for them. Once they had eaten and warmed up in dry clothes we let them sack out and we enjoyed the scenery for a bit. However, it was cold and overcast, so we decided to get ready for the night.
Now we were about 20 miles into the backcountry at this point, in a back country campsite. There was a large bear pole the park service had installed to hang food in, out of reach of bears - except it had been knocked over. Hm-m-m. We commented that when they have problems with bears in the tourist areas, they move the bears to the backcountry, to places like this. And it was spring when the bears are waking up - Hungry! Ah well, we hung our food up in a tree and left our packs a little way from the tent and went to bed. Then in the middle of the night I hear something scratching at the tent right by my head. The scratching continuous, fairly determined, and we hear something scratching at our packs. Dang, we don't need this. Finally we open the tent door and ... find ourselves staring at 2 pretty ugly porcupines. They back off from the tent put continue gnawing at our packs (we later learned for the salt from our sweat). Bill threw a rock and hit one of them. They retreated for a few minutes but returned. Next I threw a rock - and missed. My next image is of Bill walking around the tent in his underwear swinging my ice axe. He couldn't really see what he was doing, and as he said, he was just hoping he didn't hit something "Big". I have had bears around my tent on several occasions, but fortunately I've never been bothered by them the way I was by these porcupines.
The next morning we woke up and had trouble getting the tent zipper open - we had about an inch of snow on the ground and the zipper was frozen. However it was a beautiful day! We continued on to Mt. Assiniboine which was spectacular. From there we headed out toward my pickup. We made our planned camp area by about 2 PM and the bugs were ferocious, so we decided to press on. We ended up doing 18 miles with full packs that day and making it to the pickup. It helps that it is still light in June in that area until at least 10:30 PM.
While the coastal ranges are not part of the Canadian Rockies by any stretch of the imagination, one of the most spectacular hikes I have ever done is near Mt. Garibaldi in the coast ranges of British Columbia (near Whistler ski area). The hike is to the top of the Black Tusk, a volcanic neck. The last 1/2 mile is up the cinder scree slope and the views open up with every step. I have seen a lot of spectacular scenery but the views here absolutely overwhelmed me. This view shows Mt. Garibaldi from the top of the Black Tusk.
