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!

Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour Recap

Image courtesy of  the Philadelphia Rock Gyms.

This year, I took my wonderful mother and brother to the Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour. The past two years, I've attended with members of TerraMar Adventures and reveled in the fact that I'm in an auditorium filled with my people - outdoors people. But this year, Mom was in town and it seemed a perfect way to spend an evening as a family. This would have been true had one of the films not featured a guy my age who threw himself over a 186-foot waterfall in a whitewater kayak after telling his mother he was just out for a paddle!

The Banff Mountain Film Festival flicks and road warrior spent two nights in Malvern, Pennsylvania for the 16th year, thanks to the Philadelphia Rock Gyms. The World Tour gives viewers all across the country a chance to see award winning, inspirational, informative, and beautiful outdoor films. Friday night's showing brought laughter, tears, and plenty of "omigod how do they DO that?!" gasps. I wish they'd stayed in Malvern for the entire day and shown all 28 films that made the tour this year. But alas, I only saw six of them, and would love to hear what others who went to showings in their towns got to see!

Tibet: Murder in the Snow (51 minutes)
I cried during and after this film. It's 51 minutes of atrocities, heartbreaks and how those who survived both managed to do so. In 2006, Chinese border patrol guards opened fire on a group of Tibetan refugees making a pilgrimage to India over the Nangpa Pass. A young nun was killed. Director Mark Gould tells the story through witness interviews, including mountain guides and one daring filmmaker in various camps on Cho Oyu at the time.

Luis Benitez, reputable Himalayan mountain guide, was the first to break the story after returning from a higher camp on Cho Oyu to find no one had said a word to the outside world. Luis and filmmaker Sergiu Matei, who released footage he secretly filmed of the incident, risked their lives in hostile territory to make sure the story was heard. In a region where ties with China determine whether or not guiding outfits get permits to climb, others were reluctant to say anything about what they'd seen. Of course, the most difficult part was listening to refugee accounts of their lives before the choice to flee and surviving the attack. Their voices were so full of hope, but laced with a sadness I could hardly bear. Read more about the film. 

Kranked Kids - Just Down the Road (4 minutes)
This four minute flick got more laughs out of the crowd than any other four minutes of the festival did. It's tough to tell if it's supposed to be a parody, or if it's really a film about bada$$ elementary school aged boys "borrowing" a truck, going for a joyride, and taking on beautiful mountain biking trails I would think twice about riding. Though it's supposed to be silly, it's tough not to notice how talented the kids are! Watch a clip of the film. 

Eastern Rises (38 minutes)
This, my friends, is a 38-minute film about fishing. Yes, fishing. And it won the "Best Film on Mountain Sports" award at the Banff Mountain Film Festival. Somehow, director Ben Knight managed not only to keep me interested and laughing the entire film, he directed my favorite film of the evening. The film takes us on a journey to the Kamchatka Peninsula through unexplored rivers deep in the eastern part of Russia only accessible by decommissioned Cold War era helicopters. We're shown a passion for fishing in pristine places and the sarcasm that comes with being eaten alive by giant mosquitoes for weeks on end. Bigfoot makes a few appearances as well! More about the film. Vimeo Clip.

The Swiss Machine (20 minutes)
This film profiles Ueli Steck, possibly the greatest speed climber ever. He regales us with tales of speed ascents in the Alps, shows us what climbing The Nose on El Cap two days in a row in the time it would take most of us to climb three pitches looks like, and takes us on two record breaking speed ascents of the Eiger. The footage in the film is absolutely breathtaking, including of Ueli taking a 75-foot whipper on El Cap. Though I have to say, this is one film I wish my mother hadn't seen! More about the film. 

Chimaera (7 minutes)
Shot with a special camera system, this film is definitely more artistic than adrenaline-filled. It's certainly not a typical extreme skiing film, which was refreshing. I found it beautiful, but forgettable. More about the film.

Dream Result (17 minutes)
This is another one I wish my mother hadn't seen! A passionate group of whitewater kayakers set afloat on rivers in both North and South America to find the biggest waterfalls they can. Their ultimate goal is to see just how far the human body can be pushed. The limit they find is Palouse Falls in Washington. At 186 feet, it's still the tallest waterfall kayaked, and the fall took Tyler Bradt 3.7 seconds. Kayaking looks like a good time, but this is an entirely new level. More about the film.