A Look Back: Backpacking in Banff, the Prettiest Lake Ever, and the Town of Jasper, AB

In the last "A Look Back" Post, we'd survived an "encounter" with an elk and were on our way out of Jasper National Park and into Banff. We found, thanks to a friendly Parks Canada Ranger, an amazing backpacking route and stunning scenery.

Our destination in Banff National Park.

Instead of staying in another relatively tame campground, we opted to stop at the Columbia Icefield Visitors Centre to investigate overnight backcountry trips. It took us at least ten minutes to convince the friendly Parks Canada ranger of our desire to see the real Banff National Park and our willingness to walk more than one kilometer uphill. After he decided we were worthy of real advice, he pointed out Glacier Lake on a large map, describing views of one of the most beautiful, pristine spots within a day’s reach of the Icefields Parkway. More than convinced that this was our trip, we secured a backcountry camping permit and were on our way.

A Look Back: Matters of Pride, Camping with an Elk in Jasper National Park and the Columbia Icefields

Warm and wonderful in Jasper National Park.

In the most recent "A Look Back" post, I'd shared a journal excerpt from the first day of my journey from Denali National Park, Alaska to a new job in Philadelphia, over 4,500 miles away. After driving along the rest of the Alcan, through the Yukon, Liard Hot Springs and part of British Columbia, we stopped to camp in Jasper National Park. The journal excerpts continue with an account of our unexpected early morning visitor and moving on from Jasper into the Columbia Icefields for some of the most incredible terrain I'd ever seen.

I awoke feeling restless at 5:30am with an urge to use the facilities. I spend a good length of time arguing internally about whether or not extracting myself from the warm sleeping bag was worth it, or if I could manage a little more sleep until the sun rose and warmed the tent. It's one of those impossibly constant cool weather camping problems; one I was glad to have. Dan and I had switched sleeping bags on account of his being warmer and my body's inability to regulate its own temperature. I'd warmed sufficiently by that point to have shed my very top insulating layer, which included my big, marshmallowy Cornell Athletics sweatpants. (To the Athletics Office: I'm not sorry I didn't return them after graduation. After surviving four years of college swimming, I deserve them.) I'd shoved them to the bottom of the sleeping bag and a walk to the bathroom meant retrieving them. Ah, well.

Dan and the fire I finally managed to make!

I finally decided it couldn't wait and was off to the facilities in our Jasper National Park campground, complete with indoor plumbing. I made a silly comment to Dan about how we were roughing it. He gently reminded me that, despite our outdoor sleeping quarters, the bathroom was a shorter walk from our tent than it had been from my employee housing room in Denali just a week earlier. (I lived in one of a handful of beautiful A-frame housing units in Denali without indoor plumbing. If I wanted to pee in the middle of the night, I had to get dressed and head to the nearest bathroom, a relatively short walk away. Good times!)

I'd wanted to make a fire in the morning and was determined to do so before Dan got up. I collected an armful of dead spruce branches and thought I'd have a roaring blaze in no time. Wrong. After crouching near the kindling and fiddling with my lighter, all I'd managed to do was turn the pile of pine needles and bark from brown to black. I was about to surrender when I heard Dan stir in the tent. It had become a matter of pride. I must get the fire started! I must!! I flicked the lighter one last time and managed to ignite the bundle of wet sticks. Victory! It was almost as difficult to keep the little flame lit, but I managed to avoid embarrassment and ridicule by doing so...barely.

our early morning campsite guest in Jasper National Park.

We missed the 11am checkout time because a bull elk parked himself right next to our tent while we'd gone on a little jaunt into town and couldn't get near the tent to dismantle it without fear of being charged. Back into town we went for a wonderful breakfast of homemade bread and eggs. Aurora (my Toyota Corolla), even completely loaded down with all of our worldly possessions, is consistently getting 30-35 mpg. The elk still hadn't moved when we returned. I slowly and deliberately approached the tent and got close enough to unstake it. We moved it closer to the car, dismantled it, packed up and left, heading south toward Banff and the Columbia Icefields.

the beginning of the Columbia Icefields.

I thought I'd seen it all in Alaska, but I was remarkably mistaken. This section Canadian Rockies, save Mount McKinley, seems to be consistently taller than anything I've seen. The peaks are more jagged, the mountains more angry, and the landscape more intimidating the further we go. Instead of  relatively gentle rises from base to summit, these boast thousand foot sheer cliffs staggered from top to bottom like stairways for giants. The summits of each are extraordinarily obvious and the mountains exhibit obvious sedimentary layers. Most are over 3000m tall and as a result, each have their own little glaciers and ice fields. Most look unclimbable without a harness, lots of ropes, lots of people, and a certain level of disregard for self preservation. Small trees grow improbably in the smallest of flat spots. They stretch toward the heavens above deep blue lakes and rivers fed by the endless glaciers. It's just...inspiring. Do we have to leave?

In the next "A Look Back" post on May 13th, the journey continues through the Columbia Icefields and on a backpacking trip to one of the largest backcountry glacial lakes in Banff National Park!

A Look Back: Adventures on the Alcan

Sunset and Mt. McKinley on my last night in Denali. (2007)

I moved to Alaska in the summer of 2006 and lived there for a glorious 18 months. After taking a job back on the East Coast, the biggest decision I had to face was to choose between having my car and belongings shipped to Philadelphia, or to take some time off and drive the 4,500 miles cross country. I certainly didn't dream of selling the car.

And the decision was easy. At the end of the summer season in Denali National Park, I packed what would fit in my car, shipped the rest, and hopped in with my partner in crime for a two and a half week drive through some of the most awe-inspiring and boring parts of North America.. The last night in Denali and first day of driving were, at the very least, memorable. Road trips are the best.

Infamous John Allen, reading at Toklat. (2006)

We woke around 6am after a night of celebrations and bittersweet farewells at my favorite bar in Denali – The Spike. John Allen obliged my request for a hug, which might've been the best part of the evening. He's one of those people I really couldn't ever forget. The next morning, I was happily force fed my favorite biscuits, sans gravy at the EDR (employee dining room). Then we were on our way.

We hit Fairbanks around 10am and continued on to North Pole. Not the North Pole, just North Pole. The only thing differentiating it from any other town in the Middleofnowhere, Alaska is the fact that all of the utility poles are painted like candy canes. We drove around small roads in town just to see what the fuss was about, but couldn't figure it out.

The fall colors were absolutely delicious – a feast for the eyes. None of the photos I took did the birch trees and painted tundra justice by any sense of the imagination. It's times like this I wish I'd taken the time to buy a fancy camera and learn how to use it. Around each corner a new hill, sparkling gold, would jump out, framed by mountain ranges in the distance.

Somewhere in Northeast Alaska. (2006)

Aurora (my Toyota Corolla) was riding low, and still is. It'll be hard to find a mechanic shop that treated her as well as the shop in Denali. The entire length of the Alcan is subject to some of the largest temperature variations I've seen and was built on some of the most volatile, angry land in North America. The entire highway through central Alaska and the Yukon is littered with frost heaves. Some are marked with pink flags, others with small signs. It's as if the road crews surrendered to Mother Nature after she chided us humans for building a road where it doesn't belong. Even slowing to 40mph couldn't prevent me from being lofted slightly into the air more than once.

Dinner was brought to us by my MSR Whisperlite stove and a couple of packages of Lipton side dishes. We'd stopped somewhere along the Alcan after crossing into the Yukon near a river. As we noshed on our very artificial dinner, a native family ferried sections of a moose carcass across the swiftly flowing water in a small boat. The animal's chest cavity, both thighs, and two men fit in the boat, but barely. One of the young men stopped to chat, and I couldn't help but ask a million naïve questions. He explained how big of a task it was to call the moose out in the morning, how many shots it took to bring it down, and how long it took to skin and clean. The entire family waited in a big red pickup for them, and we politely declined when they offered us a look at the carcass.

Kluane Lake, Yukon Territory. (2006)

Evening descended as we passed Burwash Landing and Destruction Bay on Kluane Lake. Dan skipped stones on the lake while I couldn't do anything but sit in a pile of leaves and pick my jaw up off the ground. Stunning. There were no words.

We spent the night in Haines Junction. The inn wasn't anything special, and Aurora looked so small among all the giant trucks in the parking lot. I certainly wasn't expecting much for under $100 at the end of their tourist season. Hell of a view out the window, though.

The first day of a road trip like this is always the best. You're awake, excited, and haven't gone stir crazy from sitting in the car yet. This first day was the beginning of a beautiful journey, one I think everyone should take at some point in their lives. And I had friends in Alaska who did the drive every year as the seasons changed! Keep reading the A Look Back series for more Alcan adventures!

A Look Back: The Accidental Adirondack Ascent

Evening descends on Lake Colden.

The old adage says that hindsight is always 20/20, right? It's easy to look back and laugh and mishaps, but some part of you wishes you'd foreseen the result of your decisions and made slightly different ones. One of the most entertaining things about reading old trip reports is picking out all of the things I'd do differently, especially when trip partners make an easily avoidable mistake. 

This post is a journal excerpt from the summer of 2006. I'd just graduated from college and was in the midst of packing to move to Alaska. A last-minute decision took us up to the Adirondacks for a few days and led to one of the most entraining blunders I've made in my short outdoor career!

Dan and I spent this past Sunday through Wednesday in the High Peaks region of the Adirondacks thanks to my Uncle Bill, trip planner extraordinaire. Our mission was to visit Mount Colden via the Flowed Lands and do as much exploring as well wanted. Even with his route advice, I didn't feel as prepared going into the trip as I wanted to. (We left the hot cocoa behind - tragic!) Everything felt rushed, which could have had something to do with my college graduation last week. But I'm leaving for Alaska in two days, and couldn't bear the thought of doing so without one last Upstate New York hurrah.

Our little home the first night. The sun came up in the morning!

After taking off from Ithaca on Sunday, we zipped up north and arrived in Newcomb in good time. The High Peaks were as beautiful as they've ever been. The mountains were cloaked in green, life exploding everywhere I looked. Making good time meant we were on the trail early, which is always a good thing with an impending thunder storm headed your way. The only problem was, we were on the wrong trail.

We followed the driving directions to Upper Works Road, a lonely secondary road that takes hikers deep into the western High Peaks. Instead of following it to its terminus and parking there, we parked in another small lot just south of it and set off. I knew it wasn't the trail we wanted, (the blazes were yellow, our trail should have been blazed red), and I'm not sure why I just went with it, but I did.

Mother Nature dumped buckets of cold rain on us, I was soaked and grumpy, I can think of a million reasons why I didn't question our route decision. We knew we were supposed to go up, and we were going up. "So we're fine," I kept telling myself. The trail ascended gradually at first, then steepened significantly. We climbed up and up, crawling on hands and knees over giant rock piles, boulders, waterfalls and fallen trees. At one point, we stopped because I couldn't figure out where we were on the map. I handed it to Dan. He looked at it quizzically, flipped it around a few times, smiled and said, "I think I figured out where we are, and you're not going to like it."

Arriving at the Flowed Lands lean-to, finally!

I laughed the kind of laugh crazy people laugh. This was a ridiculously tough climb, we'd done it in the rain with all of our gear, and I was fucking exhausted. Whatever he was about to tell me, I wasn't ready to hear it. It was supposed to be a leisurely stroll to Calamity Brook where we'd set up the tent and wait out the storm. But no. On the first day of our trip, in a monsoon, we'd climbed, (1800' in 1.6 miles I'd later learned), up an unmaintained trail to the top of Mount Adams. At just over 3,500' tall, it's not even one of the 46ers. Dan figured out where we were because of the fire tower, indicated on the map by a teeny weeny triangle. The views from the top of were minimal, not that I was in any frame of mind to enjoy them. We sucked it up, climbed back down, and spent the night in a little shack on the trail that likely used to be outpost of some sort. Having a roof was a blessing; we decorated the shack with our wet gear and got set up without getting more soaked. Unfortunately, the air was wet enough that nothing dried.

Monday was better. We put on our wet clothes, hiked back to the car and drove to the right parking lot at the end of the road to our intended starting point. The steady uphill hike to Calamity Pond and the Flowed Lands was tough, my body protesting from the day before. We stomped through ankle deep puddles of mud and hopped along giant rocks. It was great fun, minus the growing blisters on my heels and the extra 30 pounds on my back. The Flowed Lands lean-to came into view mid afternoon at which point the decision was made to pack it in for the day. A park ranger stopped in for a visit that night and brought great advice for the next day.

A beautiful day on Lake Colden. Mt Colden in the background.

Tuesday involved a leisurely, pack-free lap around Lake Colden with me nursing my blistered feet. They'd grown to the size of silver dollars, and I was grateful for the fact that all we had to do Wednesday was get back to the car. On the drive home, I couldn't help thinking I'd held Dan back the entire trip. I was tired, sore, blistered, and battling the stress that comes with an impending 5,000 mile move. It wasn't the send-off I'd hoped for, but it was a send-off nonetheless. Adirondacks, please forgive me. I'll be back to do it right someday.

So we climbed the wrong mountain. Meh. I can laugh about it now, but you can bet I wasn't laughing about it then! It turns out the fire tower on top of Mount Adams is a pretty neat structure with a lot of history. I've been back to the Flowed Lands area since, but still haven't been to the top of Mt. Colden. Anyone want to do it with me?

A Look Back: Alone With My Thoughts in Denali

This post in the "A Look Back" series takes me back to one of my most vivid memories of the two years I lived in Alaska - the day before what I planned to be an epic-at-the-time adventure. I was an outdoor n00b living in an outdoor adventurer's paradise, Denali National Park in the summer, and planned to take full advantage. This is an excerpt from the journal I kept while I was there.

sunset on the Healy Range, Denali National Park, 2006.

this place. this wonderful place. this wide expanse of enthralling beauty, so much beauty i could cry, so much beauty i can hardly believe it truly exists. i'd seen the pictures just like everyone else, but i never anticipated this feeling of wonder and excitement just from gazing out my window as the slightly setting sun hits distant ridges i might be lucky enough to stand on. despite the sun that never sets, snow stays unmelted on the highest peaks and in rock crevices that never feel its warmth. i want to see it all. and it's all mine. it's my own giant playground.

i'm waking up, stretching my legs, and realizing the world as i knew it has changed. it's surreal. this place is altering my consciousness every minute of every day. i'm going out into the wilderness alone tomorrow for the first time, my first solo camping trip, and i'm so scared-excited. i'm going out on my own because i can. because it's there. because i want to experience silence.

the sun's turned Mount Healy an impossibly fluorescent shade of pink. an Alaskan sunset - the absence of the actual disappearance of the sun over the horizon, but rather defined by the vibrant colors and shadows it brings while the larger inhabited part of this hemisphere is dark. it's almost midnight and i can still see every tree, clear as day, clear as i will seven hours from now when i pull myself out of bed for my little adventure. Sanctuary Creek, where i'm headed, we'll see if it's actually a sanctuary. it sure looks like one. and sounds like one.

a self portrait on the Denali Park Road at Sactuary Creek, 2006.

i fit a tent, sleeping bag, food, a map, two nalgenes and other mini-essentials into the North Face Slingshot backpack i used to take to class every day. tent pegs and extra clothes are tied to my unbelievably heavy mountain bike frame. i'm hoping i'll actually be able to pedal. i'll catch a camper bus to mile 22 on the park road, set up my little tent, and just be. for a day, a night, and another day.

tomorrow, i'll leave it all behind. i will just be. i will exist, Denali will exist, and that will be enough.

Embarrassing as this is to admit, my not-so-badass self and I didn't spend the night out in Denali National Park. I set up the tent as planned, went on a hike and came back to make dinner. At that point, I realized I was alone, and lonely. At 22, being alone with my thoughts was a little much. I wasn't scared, just lonely. Time passed so slowly, and I realize now I just wasn't ready to be completely alone with myself, yet. I packed up my 30 pounds of gear after seven or eight hours out there, saddled up and biked the 22 miles back to the park entrance. I'd never biked that far in my life. The park road is hilly, long, and mostly gravel. I made it back in the middle of the night, sore and slightly defeated, but optimistic. I look back at this and smile because that trip seems so small and silly now, but it was such a big deal then!

A Look Back: My First Backcountry "Orienteering" Trip, Massasauga Provincial Park

Dan and I planned a four-day trek along a 30km orienteering trail in Massasauga Provincial Park. The park is accessible only by water and stretches along the Georgian Bay in Ontario. It was my first real extended backcountry trip. Who cares if I didn't know what orienteering meant?  I couldn't wait to just get away, but had no idea what I was getting into. My borrowed backpack was stuffed full of things I didn't need, and it didn't matter that my trip buddy laughed when he saw how neatly folded all my clothes were. It was adventure time.

at the end of one portage section, Massasauga Provincial Park

We hopped in the car and spent six hours touring the middle of nowhere between London, ON and our destination. After predictably missing our 2pm water taxi, we opted to rent a canoe from a little paddling center called White Squall. We could handle getting to our island in the Massasauga without a captained boat, right? After wandering around in the outfitters, I almost wanted to drop my Cornell degree track for a life spent canoeing and kayaking.  Colorful vessels lay stacked all around me, just waiting their turn.

It really was spectacular, except for the black flies. There were hundreds, no millions of them! Everywhere! My skin prickled for days after we got home in anticipation of microscopic teeth sinking in. The shop owner smiled and informed me you just get used to them gnawing on your flesh after a while.

Bug Hats, Portages and...Cabins?
We bid farewell to the car at the top of Canoe Lake in the Massasauga around dinnertime. A few locals watched us swatting flies while we unpacked, and they approached us to ask us if we'd brought mosquito netting. We looked at them quizzically, and they insisted we take a pair of what Dan and I affectionately dubbed Bug Hats. They're simple cylinders of mosquito netting with elastic at one end and camouflage fabric to hold it together at the other. Who knew we'd need them?

Dan and I with our Bug Hats...and bugs.

The first leg of the trip was a half hour cane from one edge of the lake to another where we picked up a portage trail. After the portage, we dropped the canoe back into the water and paddled toward an island that would be our home for the weekend; an island connecting Spider Lake with Canoe Lake. I couldn't believe we were able to discern the difference between one little island and another.

After what seemed like a million extra miles of paddling, we finally found the island and an unmarked trail as the sun was setting. We hiked up the portage trail with the canoe and ran into a makeshift house with all the comforts of home, though it looked as if no one had been there for months. It was made entirely of decaying fiberboard and sat on rickety stilts. The 50's era refrigerator sitting outside became our bear-proof storage facility at night. I couldn't fathom how they could have electricity to run it in the first place.

Where's the Trail? Eh, Who Cares?
We initially planned on hiking the 30km North Arm Trail, but orienteering trails with no markers at all are tough to navigate. Someone had put orange tape around some of the trees as markers, but the trail didn't look like a trail at all. We decide against getting hopelessly lost and easily passed the four days exploring the park from our base camp. We swam a little one of the days and discovered my lungs don't work in water that cold.

The view from our camp, Massasauga Provincial Park

The waterways wound around like an ancient maze of scratched cliffs and small outcroppings with windswept trees clinging to them. Each little bay and inlet invited us in. We explored Spider Lake by canoe and found several very small islands, even a few large boulders popping up in the middle of the lake. During our four day stay there, we saw less than ten people, and only when we left our little island.

We couldn't have asked for better weather, or a better site. Our tent was nestled into a bed of pine needles and a little rock outcropping nearby was perfect for sunset viewing. I'll definitely make a mental list, or an actual list, of all of the things I learned before I forget. But I believe I've forgotten some of them already...

This post is a journal excerpt from 2005. In reality, we didn't have a prayer of finding the orienteering trail. I was secretly glad when Dan agreed to take little side trips from base camp rather than getting completely lost in the woods. I came home with hundreds of black fly bites and a clear understanding of what orienteering means!

New Post Series: A Look Back

On a hike near the Toklat River in Denali National Park, 2006.

I've kept some sort of journal for as long as I can remember. I was obsessed with recording every little detail if for no other reason than to make sure I didn't forget anything. My greatest fear was losing important little memories over time. I'll open to a page I filled in high school with descriptions of my daily routine, what swim practice was like that night and what member of the male species had captured my attention. It makes me laugh, but it also reminds me how much I've changed, learned and grown over the years.

It's as important to look back at where you came from as it is to look forward. Our pasts can teach us so much about who we are. Opening old journals and reading old trip reports from my first outdoor adventures both made me laugh and made me appreciate how I've changed. I sure had a lot to learn back then, and I still do!

In my "A Look Back" series, I'll share an trip report or excerpt from the journals I've kept. Stories will include everything from my first backcountry adventure in Canada to a then-epic attempted solo overnight in Denali National Park, and from learning what a compression sack was to learning that pump filtering water from a muddy pond won't work. The stories won't be in any particular order, and the series will post on Friday every three weeks beginning on January 28th. Enjoy!