September 2007

Martin!

Seeing Martin after such a long time was great! I instantly recognized him at the airport (the guy with the red mountaineering boots) and I think he's still the old Martin (don't know what he's thinking about me though!). But Martin seemed to be quite happy here with us (except maybe that he was a little bit afraid of starving at the beginning ;).

We did some planning at home to find out where we were going to go and also did some mountain biking. It paid out to have two bikes, so we really had a lot of fun! And I think Martin is a little bit jealous of my backyard... Even though Martin doesn't seem to go biking too often at home any more (he says his friends there would be soooooo lazy!), he still knows how to master the trails!

Rockies

A few days later we were on our way to the rockies. We were planning to do the Rockwall hike in the Kootenay National Park. After some 850km of driving we arrived just in time to buy our camping permits so that we could start hiking on the next day itself. Driving eastwards here is quite tricky, once you reach the national parks you enter the next time zone and the park office closes one hour earlier than you thought it would!

The Rockwall

Some more information including a satellite image and GPS waypoint information for the Rockwall is available.

On the next morning we started hiking through a former area of forest fire (I think in 2003). It was quite the experience, an amazing landscape with it's very own beauty. All trees still stood there with silvery and black wood. The ground was covered with violet blooming flowers and the sky was deep blue. The 'forest' was quite dense, but without shadow it was very hot. We took it easy (well... relatively) because our first campground was only 10km away at Floe Lake. Floe Lake is amazing, it's just underneath the 900m high Rockwall (a 50km long wall of rock). In ancient times (10 years ago) the glacier there must have been big enough to produce lots of small ice bergs that were then floating on the lake. Some people who came from the other direction snatched away the best (and our) campsite, the only one with lake view. We spent the whole afternoon on a sunny rock (I had a nightmarish dream - we missed the sunrise to take photos!), filtered some water and took some photos. Throughout the night we could hear rockslides over at the wall. On the next day we got up for sunrise to see the lake together with the shining red rockwall. The water was calm and gave a nice reflection. After taking a whole slew of photos with amazing light I found out that I switched of the auto focus on the camera. It was set to infinity but still somewhat off, so please don't zoom too far into these photos. We were planning to hike the whole tour in 4 days but we both took a huge amount of cereals with us for breakfast. We decided that it doesn't make sense to carry it back out again so took about one third of our pack every day for breakfast. It was really difficult to finish it - surely the biggest breakfast we ever had on a hiking trip! Martin seemed to be happy with it (even though there was no ham or salami for breakfast, we didn't take that sort of stuff out into the grizzly terrain here).

click the slide show to get to the photo album.

The trail continued up to the first pass from where we could get a glimpse of the extent of the rockwall. The scenery was amazing, the trail went through larch forest and over beautiful meadows higher up until we could see Floe Lake down in the forest. The pass itself was barren scree with a very smooth surface, I guess a heavy snow load is molding it every winter. The trail switchbacked down through a now incredible forest (no fires here) into a steep and deep valley. We had a lunch break at the Numa campground which we skipped, there is really nothing making a stay worthwhile anyways. From far away we already spotted the slope on which we had to climb up to the next pass - it was an avalanche slope with no forest but only 3m high shrubs that were overgrowing the trail. Not so nice, but what can you do :) We were rewarded after the last steep passages though, a very nice plateau opened up and we could see Tumbling Glacier high up on the rockwall (and how the trail climbs up higher after crossing the plateau). From the highest point we had a great view over the glacier and the moraines that it once carved out. We also knew that the campground was not too far any more. That day's stage was quite long and involved a fair bit of elevation gain and loss so that we were glad to reach the campground and have our well deserved dinner including mousse au chocolat. The campground is situated at the edge of a nice meadow from where you have an excellent view of the first sun rays hitting the rockwall and giving the glacier an amazing red glow. It was absolutely worthwhile to carry my 1kg tripod up there!

On the third day we crossed out the last pass on the trip, Wolverine Pass. The pass is more of an amazing high plateau with a nicely situated ranger station. In a big dry puddle we tried to identify all the traces in the mud and concluded that there must have been humans with boots, some deer/moose like animals but also a grizzly bear. People we met on the day before told us that they have seen a wolverine, a moose and a grizzly on that plain. We didn't see anything except a ton of Columbia Ground Squirrels (somewhat smaller marmots, they were always shouting at us). But it is really a strange feeling feeling to know that there's a bear around, just that you don't see it, but it sees you. Further along the trail we encountered a very dusty section. Everything was covered in white dust. We had no other idea than that there must have been a recent rockslide on the rockwall, which was still towering high above us. Later on the campground we've seen that a huge section of the wall appeared to be shiny, light gray rock instead of the surrounding dark rock. Some people on the campground then told us that they've met some other hikers earlier who showed them photos of the rockslide and the huge dust plume. Cool... I guess one can get quite the panic if you hike right underneath a rock fall!

Helmet falls was visible from our campsite. It is one of the highest waterfalls in the rocky mountains and looks quite impressive. The creek had a lot of water and went over it's banks. Is just the usual, hot summer weather or global warming causing this? Something's gooooooin' oooooon there (just to quote Al Gore here...)!

The next day was very hazy and many of the surrounding mountains were only dimly visible. Didn't matter to us since we had to hike out through the valley and the forest didn't give us a lot of chances to see the mountains anyways. After about 15km we reached the ochre pots, a few pools that are filled with ochre-water through underground sources. The soil is all red colored. While it did look quite nice it also meant that we were back in civilization and surrounded by motor home tourists.

After finishing the hike in Kootenay NP we drove to Banff, refilled our groceries, took a shower, had a stroll in this major tourist hub (worse than Neuschwanstein) with it's beautiful construction right on the main street. The next day we drove to Lake Louise where we reserved our next trip's campgrounds in the Skoki area. We had a look at the awfully crowded Lake Louise and Moraine Lake - shocking!

Skoki

Some GPS waypoint data for Skoki is available.

After having only sunshine during the previous hike the weather now turned against us und presented us a foggy, gray sky. The trail starts close to the Lake Louise Ski area. Unfortunately you first have to hike up a fairly long service road to reach the real hiking trail. But once you cross the first pass and see Ptarmigan Lake in front of you the landscape really rewards you. The mountains are different than what we've seen in the Kootenay park, they look more like what you expect to see in the Canadian Rockies. We went along Ptarmigan Lake to Baker lake. Shortly before we arrived there it started raining really badly so we just pitched the tent and ate 250g of salami with some bagels (not an easy task, but we didn't want to keep it). Early in the night it was so quiet there that you could almost get scared... no wind, no rain, no creek, no falling rock, nothing except some howls that Martin tried to tell me were just some birds. I think it must have been a pride of wolves:) Later it started raining and it was quite windy, too.

In the morning some sunrays came through the cloud and made for some really nice photos. The mountain tops were covered in fresh snow - it looked great! Through a beautiful valley where the flowers were not blooming any more (unlike at the Rockwall) we hiked around Fossil Mountain to reach the Skoki Lodge, a place that did not look appealing to us at all, even though it has a really high price tag. We went on to Merlin Lake on a nice trail along the scree slope and on the opposite side of the valley back to the Skoki campground. It was really cold at Merlin Lake but it is a nice place! At the camp we met Dennis, he was camping along and he had put a tarp over a fireplace. We invited ourselves to his warming (and stinky) fire and had a nice chat with him.

On the next day we headed back out towards Ptarmigan Lake. We reached Deception Pass in a light shower of sleet. Our plan was to scramble up Fossil Mountain from here. Fossil Mountain's peak was visible from time to time, but often hidden in clouds. I had a hard time to convince Martin of doing it anyways... So we hid our backpacks behind a big rock and started to climb up a small trail. It was pretty easy and we reached the top pretty quickly, it's only 500m up! The ground was frozen in the upper part and my fingers were freezing badly! On the top we got great views, some directions were more, some less cloudy and we always had the feeling that we could just reach out and touch the clouds that were racing above our heads. The backside of the mountain has a really steep cliff and we didn't dare to come to close to it, it was too windy for that sort of view. On the same day we hiked back to the car.

We thought Martin should also see what normal tourists get to see in the rockies, so we drove the Icefields Parkway up towards Jasper. The weather was so-so. On the way we stopped to see the impressive Saskatchewan Glacier and Mt Edith Cavell. It's a nice drive even on the third time...

After reaching home on the next day my 'room mate' was really happy! We spent some days in Vancouver, went hiking on Mt Seymour, made Semmelknoedel and had Dim Sum. We also planned our next trip to Mt Adams. We thought it would be a short drive down in Washington but it turned out to be more than 650km - stupid continent...

Mt Adams

Some more information including a satellite image and GPS waypoint information for Mt Adams is available.

Mt Adams is a volcano in Washington, is part of the chain of volcanoes along the pacific coast like Mt Shasta, Crater Lake, Mt Hood, Mt St Helens, Mt. Rainier, Mt Baker etc. It is 3742m high and the second highest mountain in Washington (after Mt. Rainier). Unlike Rainier or Baker it has a glacier free south side and is thus easy to climb. It was going to be our second highest climb after Thorung La in Nepal and certainly a lot higher than most things that you could simply hike up in the Alps. Our plan for Mt Adams was to start hiking up right after arrival there. After only 3 hours we would reach the 'Lunch Counter' area to camp overnight and then climb the peak on the next day. Unfortunately we arrived at the parking lot at about 7pm after getting our permits in in Trout Lake. We changed the plan to do a one day trip. We read that this is possible for 'experienced' hikers and even though we count us in this group (of course!) it sounded scary to climb 2000m altitude in only 10km distance, especially to come down all that again!

After packing everything we would need for one day - it was still a lot - we went to sleep early. We packed a massive amount of food, 3l of water each, a water filter to get fresh water on the way down (no water source at the parking lot/campground) and sweater+softshell+hardshell, crampons, sunscreen, goggles, camera etc. Our alarm rang at about 5am, we had a big Safeway cookie for breakfast and started to hike with our headlamps in total darkness just after 5.30am. We've reached the tree line by the time the sun rose and had some great views over to Mt Hood and Mt St Helens how they were red glowing in the distance. We could also see the shadow that Mt Adams cast over it's foothills. We reached the first campsites after less than 3 hours of hiking and found later that there are many more campsites once you crossed the first glacier and reached what looks like a plain from above.

So far we haven't seen anybody else, only two people really high up, but when we reached the first steep ice fields we've started to see people in front of us, they must have started on the lunch counter. I put on my mini crampons and felt a bit lost as compared to Martin's ice climbing ready killer crampons. The snow surface was still very hard and it was relatively easy to walk on it with the crampons, way easier than on the loose volcanic rock. The bright sun made the surface melt pretty quickly though and I had to watch out and place my steps carefully to not slip on the steep slope (while Martin didn't feel a big difference). Once we reached the upper end of the steep ice field we had to continue on the scree. It was one of the worst climbs I did so far, worse than any sand dune. The small and sharp rocks are mixed with fine sand and everything is sliding... Fortunately it was not too far until we reached the snow patch just below false summit, the one with the big trail cutting across it when seen from the base camp. At this point we met the first people on their way down. We thought the channel in the snowfield was too steep to go up and tried to go to the right. The better way would have been to pass the snow patch on it's left (western) side though. From here on we could finally see the real peak of Mt Adams. We expected it to be about one hour away. After the flat section we had to cross a flat glacier (no problems there) and then climb up a very steep and sandy slope. The only thing you can think of really is how much fun this section is going to be on the way down!

Finally we reached the peak at pretty much exactly 12 noon! Just about 6 hours for the way up is probably not too bad. We had an excellent view on the peak, we've seen all the way up to Mt Baker (means we could see all the way home to Vancouver, BC!!), Mt Hood and the three Sisters in the south and most prominently Mt Rainier and Mt St Helens right beside 'our' mountain. With not a single cloud and only 2 other people on the peak we seemed to have picked the perfect day! After taking a number of photos on the real peak we went over to that old fire lookout shed to have some protection against the strong wind. It turned out that I did only drink about one liter of water on the whole way up - how is that possible? I tried to make good for this deficit and finished the rest half way down, but started to have some headache already on the peak. I am more tending to think it was dehydration and not altitude sickness (even though in Nepal we only did 500m altitude a day to get used to the thin air). It wasn't too bad at all and the reward to be up on this peak makes you forget such things anyways. After about one hour we started the descend. The way down was pretty easy. Once we reached the snow fields we put on our rain pants and used one of the many chutes to glissade down. At this point an ice axe would probably be helpful to control the speed, but we found a way to do that with a hiking pole. The snow was really soft and heavy and we felt pretty safe. You wouldn't want to get too fast though - a scary thought. But walking all the way down wouldn't be fun either... Somewhere on the last glacier we stopped to refill our water, we needed some for immediate consumption and for dinner - we carried meltwater almost 1000m down! As usual the last few kilometers of the trail in the forest just didn't want to end, it felt soo much longer than in the morning. But we reached the base camp/parking lot at 6, about 5 hours after we started on the peak. The whole trip took us about 12 hours. After a few minutes rest we started cooking our dinner and crawled into our well deserved sleeping bags.

On the next morning Mt. Adams' peak was covered with a thick layer of clouds - lucky us! We drove along the Columbia River gorge back to I-5. We went to see Mt St Helens from the Johnson Ridge lookout. We continued north and drove along the Olympic Peninsula where we stayed over night. We had a nice view of cloud covered Mt Rainier at sunset. The ferry brought us to Seattle on the next morning from where we drove home to Vancouver.

Vancouver

Back there we tried to get as many cool things done as possible, it was a long weekend. But the weather reminded us that we're on the pacific coast and it was mostly raining, as it was going to do for the whole next week. Yet we managed to hike on Mt Seymour and we also went indoor climbing. Martin is a real expert in this! I got a cold during the week but was fit again for the weekend (yay!) where we first hiked on Lynn Mountain and then on the Lion starting in Lion's Bay. On both days the weather was fantastic. During the week I went to university a couple times and we also did some more mountain biking on the north shore mountains. On Martin's last weekend in Vancouver we drove up to Whistler and rode the Kill Me Thrill Me and the Comfortably Numb trails. Both trails are really great but Comfortably Numb is the better experience. It is endlessly long, it takes you hours to finish it, it is far away from everywhere, it's in a beautiful landscape/forest, it is pretty much completely rideable etc... We had a great sunny day there and we were really really tired after that. I was glad that I had a bike, I couldn't have walked on the last few sections of the trail any more :)

Martin's Visit

Come again Martin! (I still haven't been in Alaska)