If I were to plan this trip again, I’d take at least four days for it; it is really too bad to visit such a spectacular area and not have enough time to savor the beauty. I must say though, it is amazing how much more strenuous this trip has become after a lapse of just 29 years! I doubt I’ll be up for it again in 2038... Four of us headed up the Exshaw Pass trail on a sunny Friday morning. The weather quickly went from ‘beautiful’ to just boiling hot, and we stopped any time we found a bit of shade. Near the top of the pass, hidden in a treed area, we found a messy site with two log frames which could be tarped in for shelter. Nearby there was a piece of heavy cable for slinging and a huge but short sawn log – clearly not something grown there. We suspect that it was brought in by helicopter and that someone is doing a commercial ski operation in the area. There is no water so melting snow would be the only way people could stay there. Once over the pass, my recollection from many years ago was that we could find the hunter’s trail down by staying right; however, there was a good trail visible on the left and we allowed ourselves to be lured into it. When it petered out, we went into the creek, which provided reasonable going for a while but started to canyon out. It was late and we were tired from the heat, so we just made camp up where we found some more or less flat ground on the side, had a quick dinner and went to bed. The next morning we went uphill a bit and traversed until we met the hunter’s trail, which was in good condition and led us quickly to the camp in the valley floor. Then off we set up towards the scenic “second day”. We made a bit of a wrong turn by following the route I had placed on my map from when I did this trip with Peter McGill and a large RMRA group in May 1980. We climbed too early (though on a good trail), but realized that the current route description in Daffern’s guide said to stay low til after a side valley. So we retraced our steps, on the theory that we had messed up by leaving the trail on the day before and did not want to bushwack again, especially as it was another hot, hot day. We regained another good trail and followed it up to the Banff Park Boundary ridge. It was a delight, as we spent ages walking along above 8000 feet, feeling that we were just so lucky to be there. There is a lot of elevation on this route (5600 ft over the first two days) – we worked hard for these views and it would have been nice to have a day to spend just looking around.

On the descent into Cougar Creek, we stopped and camped just ten minutes before the good campsite. Rats. Oh well, our feet were tired (along with the rest of our bodies) and we did not know we were that close. Christine had a plane to catch on Sunday and we had already decided to get up early, so it wasn’t as if we were going to lounge around camp in the morning. We rose at 6:30 a.m. and were on the trail within the hour; a side benefit of this was that we did most of our hiking before the afternoon heat. We noted many well-used unofficial campsites in both Exshaw and Cougar creeks; except for one or two places, the area was surprisingly clean of garbage. The only people we met until we got far down Cougar Creek on Sunday were some military cadets spending four days coming through with a guide. Their second night was spent at Stenton Lake, which we admired from above on our second day.

Colin (new member) was our photographer and will post some photos. He also was able to identify any and every flower we saw for the whole three days – what a bonus! Thanks to Dee, who kept trucking without complaint while suffering from major blisters, and to Christine, who found the best trail to the final col on Saturday. Carmie, C/S