A slide show of photos can be found at:
http://gallery.me.com/vonmirbach/100268
Day One:
We met in town at 7:30 and headed out to Floe Lake. Seven then started up to the lake while three drivers placed two cars at Lake O'Hara. Fresh bear scat was encountered a couple of times on the Floe Lake trail (but not again on the whole trip). The weather was close to perfect for hiking, temperature in the low teens and mixed sun and cloud. The last two km of the hike seemed to go on forever with our packs laden with 5 days' provisions. But we were all at one of the most spectacular back-country campgrounds in the Rocky Mtn National Parks before 4pm. We lollygagged around for a while, washed up prepared and ate our various dinners and were all tucked into our sleeping bags by 9 pm. But one of our tents was still pretty noisy for a little while after that. A porcupine was seen by Christine and made himself a pest by chewing one Rambler's hiking pole handle pretty badly.
Day Two:
This was our "Big Day" going over two passes and having to cover 20 km and climb almost 1000 m, with packs still pretty heavy. We were on the trail by 9 and at Numa Pass around 10. The two peak baggers in the group were too close to Numa Peak to pass up the opportunity. And so they spent a little over two hours (sans backpacks) on a side trip up to Numa Peak. The others headed down to Numa Creek and then up to Tumbling Pass. The two caught up to the eight at Tumbling Pass at around 4:30 and we all headed down to the Tumbling Creek campground together. We had a few drops of rain while preparing dinner, and it rained heavily overnight. But that was the only rain that we were to experience and most of us never used our rain gear (or our mitts) all trip. Once again all were in their sleeping bags by 9.
Day Three:
The rain had stopped before we got up but a few things had to dry before we packed up. This was an easier day, even though it took us over three passes and so we got going a little before 10. After climbing out of the Tumbling Creek valley, we were once again above tree line for most of the hike visiting Wolverine and Rockwall Passes and Limestone summit. Again the weather was close to ideal other than that it was a little windy at times. We arrived at the Hemet Falls campground around 3, set up tents and then walked up to Helmet Falls. On a previous trip Ramblers had observed mountain goats playing around in the area, but we could only see lots of white rocks that looked like they might be goats. So probably the biggest disappointment about the whole trip was that we didn't see any bigger animals. The following night was the coldest of the trip with the temperature dropping enough to partially freeze water bottles left in the food storage lockers.
Day Four:
After spending some time getting rid of the ice on our tents we were off again around 9:30. Just below Helmet Falls we veered off the "normal" Rockwall route (exiting at the Paint Pots) and headed up to Goodsir Pass. There was some deadfall on this trail which was removed the following day by the wardens that we would meet in the evening. But the trail is very nicely graded all the way from Helmet Creek to Ottertail River. Goodsir Pass was a real delight, nice to see the Goodsirs that we frequently use as indicators form so far away, from really close. After a break at the meadows most of the group climbed to the summit to the east of the pass for really excellent views in all directions. We arrived at the McArthur Creek camground around 4, set up camp and a few doubled back to see Ottertail Falls. In the meantime two park wardens arrived at the cabin. They were on their way along the Rockwall to clear deadfall. They allowed us to have dinner and chat at their picnic table with great views (and more sun than the campground dining area). Most again went to bed by 9, this scribe stayed up chatting with the wardens until 10.
Day Five:
This day held most of the unknown elements of the trip. The McArthur Creek trail has not been maintained in over a decade, it is closed to the public until August 15th and then only two groups per week are allowed through. So we knew that we would have some deadfall and bushwhacking to deal with. And what a lot there was! Initially the trail was fine with stepover deadfall every few hundred meters but eventually we ran into massive avalanche and spring flood slopes with rocks and trees and willow all over the place. We ventured up and down trying to find the "trail" but were unsuccessful until quite close to the Lake O'Hara trails. It probably took us over three hours to cover 2 km with 500 m of climb. In the end, we were at McArthur Pass at around 3 with plenty of time to descend to Le Relais and catch the 4:30 bus out. We then loaded all ten into two cars and drove to Lake Louise for a well deserved dinner at the Outpost. After dinner we continued on to Castle Junction with one car returning directly home and the other heading up to Floe Lake parking to fetch our other car. Back in town around 9:30.
Thank you so very much to Ivan for putting the trip together which involved getting to Parks Canada as soon as the very restricted bookings for McArthur Creek opened, booking campsites, figuring out car pools and tent sharing, managing cancellations and replacements. Unfortunately Ivan had to cancel at the last minute which was fortunate for this scribe (Carl) who was happy to have an opportunity to go. The other beneficiaries of Ivan's organization were: Alicja, Christine, Ginger, Mayumi, Yoko, Susan, Bill, Damian, and John.
From Damian, the stats for the trip:
Day 1 to Floe Lake; 11 km, 720m in 4.75 hours.
Day 2 to Tumbling Creek; 19 km, 960m in 8.5 hours, add 4km and 540m for those who did Numa Pk
Day3 to Helmet falls; 13km, 560m in 5.7 hours, plus the hike to waterfall
Day 4 to McArthur Creek; 15km, 480 meters in 6.5 hours, add 2.7km, 260m for the summit east of Goodsir Pass. add 3.8km, 60m for those who went to the waterfall
Day 5 to Lake O'Hara; 13.4km, 740m in 7.3 hours
Thank you Damian.