Outdoor Video Magazine

Distance: 21km to Berg Lake, one way.
Elevation: 862m - 1646m.
Effort: Medium-high to get to Berg Lake in one day.
Maps: NTS 83 E/3, Mt Robson Park 1:125,000
Rating: 9.5/10 If you include trip to Robson and Mist Glacier.

A stunning trail featuring close-up glacier action, the Canadian Rockies Highest Peak (a staggering 2.5 vertical kilometres above the trail), blue-blue lakes, and more than one fantastic waterfall. Also some pretty forest in the lower sections.

Well finally, I’m ready to write about my latest backpacking trip, done May Long Weekend. I went to Mt Robson Provincial Park, just over the border in BC with Lucas and Rob (from NAIT Outdoors Club). The plan was to do the Berg Lake trail, despite rumours of trail closure due to rockfall and deep snow (in MAY? yeah, I know). Forecast was for rain all over all parts of the Rockies. Oh well.

We left Edmonton after work on the Friday, and made it to the trail head for around 11pm. We decided to hot-foot it to Kinney Lake, the first campground, under cover of darkness. We made the 7km in around an hour and twenty mins, its a mostly flat easy trail. The rain held off just about the whole way there.

Day 1

The next morning I awoke to a gorgeous view of Kinney Lake, the first time I’ve been here. Despite the grey clouds and threatening rain, the lake was still a lovely colour. We had a lesiurely 10am start on the trail, intending to take it easy on our way to Berg Lake that day. We checked out some areas for potential climbing on the way (I didn’t like the look of the rock though). At the start of the Valley of a Thousand Falls (12km) the trail was closed. Apparently it was just closed for when they were actually working though, it didn’t look like anyone was. So we naughtily jumped the sign. Falls of the Pool were first on our list. Wow. They are gorgeous. The sun even came out for the first time while we checked them out. A short 10min detour of the trail, across a rather loose scree slope (see video!).

We then continued up the very steep and long switch backs of the notoriously aerobic part of the trail. It wasn’t really that bad though. 500 vertical metres in 4.5km to give you an idea. Nearing the top of the climb you come across the impressive Emperor Falls. I prefer the Falls of the Pool for aesthetics though. We hit our first snow around here, and it wasn’t long before we got the snowshoes out.

Continuing on we had our first view of a shoulder of Mt Robson as the cloud cleared up, and we broke into the broad, flat, New Zealand-esque valley of the upper-robson river. We soon had fantastic views of Mist Glacier, the closest glacier just before Berg Lake. Berg Glacier quickly followed into view. Both these superb glaciers (the scary Mist and the pretty Berg) come RIGHT down to the valley bottom, and Mist Glacier was begging to be explored.

We detoured of trail and had a CHILLY ford of the Robson River (in Crocs, see video). We then hiked right along the ridge of glacial morraine, enjoying stunning vistas of the frozen Berg Lake, and the two glaciers. Awesome. We then had to return to the trail, via another even colder ford. This time the rain had returned, with a strong icy wind and an ambient temperature of 0C. Not a time to be getting your feet wet in a river that has chunks of ice floating down. I will remember this as one of the least enjoyable of the trip (hence the lack of video footage) as I quickly lost feeling in my fingers and toes…for a good 45mins.

We hurried our freezing extremities the last few kilometres to Hargreaves Shelter, a beautifully situated cabin (no beds, and not for sleeping). We quickly got a fire going, and soon discovered the stunning view had from the deck of the shelter. The clouds all but cleared the summit of Mt Robson, and wow was it amazing.

Day 2
We had another leisurely start (12) as we waited for the minor blizzard to cease, and the few inches of snow to start melting. Today we had it in mind to go as far as possible on the Snowbird Pass trail.

After an hour and a half or so of easy hiking, the toe of Robson Glacier came into view, and we descended from the trail to investigate (safely!). As you can see from the video, it makes for some impressive footage.

Carrying on up the valley, we now stuck to the very edge of the glacier for easier hiking. But the snow-covered nature of the glacier, and the avalanche risk from above meant we were unable to get all the way to Snowbird. We did have the fortune of a beautiful day opening up, treating us to a virtually cloudless sky for the whole afternoon. Lucas discovered that suncream really IS necessary when on a glacier in the sun.

By the time we made it back to Berg Lake, Mt Robson was COMPLETELY clear of any sort of cloud, a rare occurrence i’m told. It remained clear the rest of the night AND the following day until we had actually driven out of sight of it. How lucky. We, however, ran out of SLR batteries, video camera batteries, and compact camera batteries!!! Major error. We did capture some footage though. Oh and I almost forgot, we also got great shots of a HUGE massive avalanche of the side of Rearguard Mountain.

Day 3
We headed home, and made it back to the car from Berg Lake in around 6 hours. Including all stops (one for nearly an hour). So it really is possible to do this trail, with a nice day for side trips, in a 3-day weekend. From Edmonton.

This one is just a quick video-type post. I was out doing a crevasse rescue course as part of the ACC Edmonton section’s Summer in the Mountains course last weekend. We stayed at Rampart Creek and went and practiced under Parker Ridge. It was amazing weather, and although I regularly applied suncream to my face I forgot my ears, lips and hands. DOH! The result is some painful sunburn…but at least I know how to rescue someone from a crevasse now!

When I have my stuff sorted I will post more pics and info about this course. But in the mean time here are some videos I found online about how to build some different sorts of snow anchors. Interestingly it looks like it was also filmed at Parker Ridge though, from what I can tell.

The snow picket video here talks about how they’re not great in the Canadian Rockies, but we had some success with these burying them horizontally in t-slot fashion. I would not recommend trying to play them vertically. Looks dodgy to me!

Just another quickie for now..this is an awesome promotional video for the Radical Reels section of the 2007 Banff Mountain Film Festival (which is at the end of October). The category is geared towards short movies of high-adrenalin sports (read “short clips of crazy people doing crazy things where they might die or get seriously injured”). It sure makes for great watching! I particularly like the ice climbing moment (yikes) and the back-flipping kayaker (I had no idea that was possible).

Here is an earlier trailer, for the 2005 Banff Mountain Film Festival. This has a bit more of a wildlife aspect…but still features a tonne of great footage of mountain biking, climbing, kayaking and sports you didn’t even know existed (flying in a kayak for example?).

And finally, here’s another trailer. This time for the FULL 2007 festival…not just the adrenalin sports. By now you’ll be sick of that song! There is cross-over in footage between all of these videos..but they are different. I could watch them all day anyway…

Well I’ve found another good collection of climbing videos to post. The first one is Dean Potter making it solo from bottom to top of El Cap in Yosemite in under 4 hours. A mix of free-climbing and protected climbing…it all looks pretty crazy to me.

While we’re on the subject of Dean Potter, I thought I would mention the controversy surrounding his semi-legal climb of the Delicate Arch in Utah. Here is an article that explains in detail what happened during and since the news caused a stir in the climbing community.

This next video isn’t too good in terms of the climbing, a little repetitive, and he’s top roping, but the rock formations are worth seeing. Really unusual, and would make for a cool climb I think. It is somewhere in Washington I believe….

Sticking with the theme of crazy rock formations…here is a great crack climb (5.12) called Anunnaki, located in Indian Creek, Utah.

Having just started running (training for the death race in fact) I know that a half-marathon is a fairly long way. Not too bad though. OK….so do one with a 50lb pack (that’s 23kg). Well it’s still not THAT bad, because now we’re talking about hiking. Hmmm…well how about one of them (or longer) every day, for 50 days, in the mountains, still with that 50lb pack on. Ouch. Now that is endurance.

This is what Lucas Poznanski has planned for this autumn. He is going to hike the 1200km-long Great Divide Trail to raise $50,000 for the search for a cure for cancer. You can check out his pretty snazzy promotional video for it below, and also check out his trip website here:

The Great Divide trail runs from close to the US border, up through the Canadian Rockies, crossing the Continental Divide 80 times or so…finishing 1200km later at a town in North-Eastern BC. This website has some details about the trail, including a trailer for a film made about the trail. Their trip report/blog can be found here.

Good luck Lucas!

This video shows Patagonia climbing ambassador Dean Potter free-soloing Heaven (5.12d/13a), a 40-foot overhanging crack that starts over 2,500 feet above the Yosemite Valley floor. It’s a really good quality video. Kind of erie because of the lack of any sort of sound..makes it very atmospheric though.

Heaven was first freed by Ron Kauk in the mid-90s. Another of Potter’s free-solos is Dog’s Roof (5.12b). When asked about this climb, Dean recalled his late friend Jose who he used to climb finger cracks with, “Somehow soloing Dog’s Roof brought me closer to Jose. We had the same size paws [Jose and I]. He always thought I’d enjoy Dog’s Roof. I could hear his sarcastic laugh and brutal honesty while I trained on it.” Besides rekindling the memory of his friend, Dean felt an attraction to the route. “I was drawn to solo it and could barely slow myself down, resisting the temptation to solo it before I was ready. This solo scared me because near the top it has a finger lock where sometimes my fingers would just pop out.”

Here’s a nice compilation video showing a number of different free-soloing routes from Dan Osman. That means no ropes by the way.

Dan Osman trying his hand at some rather late-season ice-climbing. I.e. he’s in a goggles with a snorkle climbing up a very flowing (very cold?) waterfall.