Walls of Stone Part 4 – The Upper Elbow

Rae Lake

We decided to take a side trip to Rae Lake. Don had never visited before and it had been years since I had been there. Cotton grass lined the shore near the outflow from the lake. Last time I was at the lake, a beaver dam blocked the mouth of Rae Creek – raising the water level. The dam was gone, perhaps washed away by the 2013 downpour. There are signs of that historic storm almost everywhere in Kananaskis country these days.

Don has a degree in entomology, but botany seems to be his passion now he has retired from teaching. He spent some time shooting stills of the many and varied flowers near the lakeshore. I took some video of the lake backed by the Palliser Limestone cliffs of Mount Rae. There had been a couple of goldeneye ducks at Tombstone Lakes and there were more at Rae Lake. I tried to sneak closer to the waterfowl to get some footage. I had left my strongest zoom lens at home…

We returned to get our packs and food at Tombstone Creek, and journeyed west into the upper Elbow River valley. We both knew this mountain valley well and enjoyed walking the rocky trail and recounting stories of the numerous times we had each hiked this high country. The upper valley is open, grassy country, dotted with wildflowers and pockets of willow and krumholtz. The fledgling Elbow River cuts through limestone outcrops and splashes over rapids and small waterfalls. Off the trail, there is a hidden marshland frequented by moose. I have never visited the Highlands of Scotland, but it is how I imagine they might be.

Piper Creek Valley

The most spectacular views are the ones to the north of the river and up Piper Creek. The valley is bracketed by Mount Elpoca to the west and Tombstone Mountain to the east. Mount Jerram is visible at the northern head of the valley and I could see the valley’s alpine meadows in the distance. At certain points, the pass we had planned to take across from the West Fork was visible – a dip to the right of a mass of softer reddish Kootenay limestone. This beautiful valley is named for Norma Piper – Calgary music teacher and would-be opera diva and wife of George Poceterra. George was the owner of the Buffalo Head Ranch in the early days of the Twentieth Century. In those days the upper Highwood valley was his backyard and most of Kananaskis Country was his wild Alberta kingdom. Along with Nakoda Indian; Paul Amos (Spotted Wolf), German Adolf Baumgart and Englishman Raymond Patterson he explored, hunted and fished his way all around this country and into what is now the Elk Lakes and Height of the Rockies Parks in British Columbia.

We made our way across the ice-cold waters that flow from the ever diminishing Rae Glacier and then crossed the small footbridge that crosses the infant river just as it flows from its source; Elbow Lake. The campground next to the lake is the busiest backcountry campground in Kananaskis Country and I recommend booking well ahead if you are planning a stay. The lake is at Elbow Pass, situated between Mount Rae (the most northern peak of the Misty Range) and Mount Elpoca (the most southerly mountain in the Opal Range).

Looking across Elbow Lake and back down the Elbow Valley

After we made camp, it began to rain again and was quite cool, so we sat by the fire and chatted with a young woman from Calgary and her Czech boyfriend. We saw them both again the next morning, before we set off down the mountain to highway 40. They were heading out into the open high country that we had just traversed. We gave the novices a bit of advice about the realm we knew so well. I recalled how it felt to be so young and arrive in that lovely high country for the first time and I envied them both.

Walls of Stone Part 3 – Tombstone

We had been looking forward (perhaps with some trepidation) to the second day out. I had planned on taking the West Arm of the little Elbow and crossing Piper Pass into spectacular Piper Creek (one of Don’s and my favorite valleys). It was so warm when we set off that I never expected that we would need to take our alternate route across Tombstone pass. The clouds were low on the peaks and the rain continued to fall that morning, so we decided the alternate route was our best option. Piper Pass from the north can be tricky even in good weather; though I am sure it is a viable option.

Upper Tombstone Lake

The road toward Tombstone Pass was steeper than I expected, but the going was easy. Just before the pass, we branched off onto a trail that took us to Tombstone Lakes. This was our first visit to the subalpine zone and we found ourselves walking among one of the largest alpine larch forests in Kananaskis Country. I have often thought that it would be well worth a visit in the autumn. We emerged at the upper of the two lakes and talked to some would be fishermen who were trying their luck. It appeared that the fish in that lake had been winter-killed, because there was no sign of strikes on the lake at all. I have heard this is often the case in the Tombstone Lakes and they sometimes need to be restocked (once with golden trout, I believe). 

Slabs of limestone give the mountain its name

Both upper and lower lakes are tucked under the jagged cliffs of Tombstone Mountain. The mountain gets its name from the limestone slabs at its summit, which are visible from the other side. I recalled the last time I visited, half a lifetime ago. It is probably just a little too far from the highway to do as a day hike and I never expected to revisit this spot, but here we were. Don had been to nearby Piper Creek many times, but had never been to these pretty lakes. As I found out, it was difficult to find many places in the Rockies that he hadn’t been…

Between the two lakes we passed through a “rock garden” of sorts, which was populated by three of my favorite alpine flowers. The limestone was dotted with yellow columbine, blue alpine forget-me-nots and pink moss campion. At the lower lake, we saw the fishermen again and this time they were busy catching pretty cutthroat trout. 

Lower Tombstone Lake

The trail descended a ridge into the Elbow valley and we made camp at Tombstone Creek backcountry campground. This site is on the western edge of the Elbow River Headwaters Group of mountains. The Big Elbow and Little Elbow trails rejoin and can be hiked as a loop trip. It is an excellent place for some of the base-camp type backpacking that I used to enjoy and there are many interesting trails and scrambles that radiate from this location in every direction. Many “Canada Days” weekends ago my future wife and I landed at this spot to find that there was a conflagration of hundreds of backpackers, all looking to make camp. The next morning they had almost all departed except for two other young couples, who put on a spectacular (if not ill-advised) Sunday night fireworks display.

The clouds had cleared off by the time Don and I got to camp and we had plenty of time to relax and enjoy the environs of the Upper Elbow valley. We were in the midst of a wide montane vista, adjacent to the large willow flats surrounding the river. I could see Tombstone and Elpoca Mountains to the north and west, Mount Rae to the southwest, Cougar Mountain to the southeast and the backside of Mount Cornwall to the east. Several mule deer hung around the camp and we watched a robin defend its territory from a red squirrel. We both were surprised by the ferociousness of the robin’s repeated attacks. This was something I had never before observed, but I had read that the mortality of snowshoe hare young is due almost entirely to squirrel predation - so the confrontation did make sense. 

 

We had the campground to ourselves again that night, so it would have been a quiet night except for the fact that we were under the western flightpath of the Calgary airport. As we lay in our sleeping bags, there was an almost constant roar of jets overhead.

Walls of Stone Part 2 – Little Elbow

The City of Calgary is built at the confluence of two rivers – the Bow and the Elbow. Most non- Calgarians are more familiar with the Bow River, which follows the TransCanada Highway west and stretches back into the main ranges of the Rocky Mountains, through world famous Banff National Park. The Elbow is the lesser known of the two, but as a kid we used to go on drives with my parents out to Elbow Falls and the Moose Mountain ice caves. As teens we would have rowdy, random camping trips on the May Long Weekend along the nearby Elbow Valley. I remember camping below the ice caves and watching a long torch light procession of kids climbing up the mountainside to the caves. This was all before the establishment of Kananaskis Country. Calgary has grown a great deal and there are many more facilities and regulations in the Elbow valley these days.

Elbow Headwaters Group in Center of image - bracketed by the Elbow(on the left) and Little Elbow(on the right)   Google Earth

 

 

 

Southwest of the outlier of Moose Mountain, the Little Elbow meets the Elbow River. The confluence of these two rivers is at the eastern foot of the spectacular “Elbow Headwaters Group”. Visible from Calgary, these mountains include Banded and Outlaw Peaks, Mount Cornwall and the striking pyramid and bowl of Mount Glasgow. The Big Elbow trail follows the Elbow River around the south of this massive collection of limestone peaks. We were following the Little Elbow River around the north of Mount Glasgow.

There was nothing difficult about this preliminary hike into the mountains. We traveled westward along the old road, which has long been closed to vehicles. Many people day hike from the Little Elbow campground up onto nearby Nihahi Ridge. We were quickly past the turn off to Nihahi Creek - a dry rocky valley which branches north and far back into the Fisher Range. The outflow from an ancient extinct glacier has carved an interesting canyon through the limestone headwall not far from the trailhead and is worth a visit.

The only real question mark was the crossing of the Little Elbow about halfway to camp. It was an icy, but easy crossing on that July 11^th day. The bridge had been washed away in the catastrophe of the 2013 floods, which did so much damage downstream that year. We removed our boots and put on our sandals to make the crossing. While we were preparing ourselves, a mild rain shower began. It had been a very dry, hot summer up to that point. A smoky haze due to forest fires in British Columbia and Northern Saskatchewan hung over Alberta for weeks. I had prepared myself for a possibly sweltering backpack trip by walking to the bottom of the Red Deer River valley and climbing back out again several times a week on the hot days of June and July. Both Don and I had braced ourselves for the heat, but now after only an hour or two it was cooling and beginning to rain.

We talked to a mountain biker who knew the trail quite well at the crossing. We found it amusing to count the many different machetes and buck knives the well-bearded individual was carrying. He became “knife-man” whenever we talk about our journeys. 

Mounts Romulus and Remus

As we made our way west, I could see my first close-up views of the limestone cliffs of Mounts Romulus and Remus. It was exciting to see the eastern face of the familiar and magnificent Opal Range looming above the West Fork. I had never before seen the backside of Mount Blane and “The Blade” – its west face is well-known to those familiar with King Creek Canyon and Ridge off of Alberta’s Highway 40.

The backcountry campground at Mount Romulus was officially closed (due to flood damage), but we found there were actually quite a few camping pads available. The bear-proof food bins were still intact. Clouds were billowing east over the Opals toward us, as we set up camp. I shot some time-lapse footage of Don raising his lightweight “MSR Hubba-Hubba” two man tent. We strung up my silicone tarp above the picnic table. That turned out to be a good thing as rain began to pour down almost immediately. This was a complete surprise. The temperatures were in the 80’s when we set out and it had cooled considerably. 

It rained that night and well into the next morning. What we didn’t know was that this was a turning point in the weather pattern. Almost the entire trip took place in cool, wet conditions. There was at least some rain almost every day after that. Many of the nights were extremely cool, especially at high altitudes. This took away from the pleasure of our journeys, but one should always be prepared for any eventuality when traveling the mountains. That said, we were already enjoying ourselves.

We both appreciated the beauty of this quiet front-range valley. I was delighted to be back in the Rockies!

Walls of Stone – Across the Rocky Mountains - Part 1

"One journey ends where another begins."

Prologue

It has taken some time to finally sit down and begin writing about my backpack trip across one of the great mountain ranges of the world – the Canadian Rockies. It always takes a while to get my head around something so momentous. I return home from my adventures and a numbness sets in. Most of my normal life is spent trying to block out all of the distractions around me and concentrate on the task at hand. I then find it challenging to transition to a mode where I want to take everything in. When we bare ourselves to the terrible beauty of nature, it can be overwhelming. The world is immense and we are insignificant in comparison.

Part 1- The Story So Far

“The mountains are calling and I must go.”

 John Muir

This was the second great journey of my life. The first one was over ten years ago, when I traveled solo along the length of Alberta’s Red Deer River. One journey ends where another begins. The last trip concluded with a back injury, so I decided that my backpacking career was at an end. That is what later got me interested in ultralight-weight backpacking, which inspired me to give it one last try. 

At the end point of my Red Deer River journey - looking down on the forks from the "Bull's Forehead"

I began to pore over maps and spend hours staring at “Google Earth” and I found what I thought might be a way to traverse the entire Rocky Mountains, from east to west. The goal was to stay in the backcountry as much as possible, with a minimum of road walking. My route followed established trails. Not much was undiscovered country – I had just put it all together into one long backpack trip. I shared my ideas with experienced hiker, kayaker, skier and mountain guide Don Wales and he agreed that my plans seemed reasonable. Later he decided to come along.

One of my daily walks - frozen Hummock Lake in the background.

The first substantial thing that I did was in the winter and spring of 2014. I lost 30 pounds. I don’t have any secrets to share about how I managed that – I just ate less food and weighed myself every day. It was a necessary first step. I did as many day hikes as possible that summer and fall in Kananaskis Country and Waterton Lakes National Park. Once daylight savings time arrived in the spring of 2015, I began to walk daily. I am lucky to live in the countryside and I ambled around the pretty knob and kettle parkland that is my home, with its hills and hummocky terrain. 

 

 By July all my bookings were made, my gear was bought and I packed my backpack. I was aiming for it to be around 30 pounds and I weighed myself with the pack on and came to a strange realization. The scales read 215 pounds, which seemed like a familiar number. I quickly realized that this was my former size (sans backpack) when I first began my endeavors. I took the pack off and looked at it. Thirty pounds! Seeing it in front of me really brought home how much that really is and how far I had already come. I was in the best shape that I had been in for a dozen years – maybe longer. I hoped that it would be enough.

On July Tenth 2015, Don, my wife Bev and I drove to Boulton Campground, in Peter Lougheed Provincial Park. We set up our base camp. The next day Bev drove Don and I to Little Elbow Campground, at the eastern front of the Rocky Mountains. There was no time for ceremony. We bent the rules (something we would have to do again later) and drove through the campground to the Little Elbow trailhead. We hurriedly disembarked from the truck and said our goodbyes. It was a strange, surreal feeling. After years of planning and preparation, there we were! The mountains were ahead of us, with all their promise of beauty, adventure, hard work and danger.

We began to walk…