Outdoor Video Magazine

Part I of this trip report of my Mt President mountaineering trip can be found here.

So from the saddle between Mt President and the Vice-President, it is around another 40mins up steep snow slopes with some rock to get to the summit. The route is not particularly exposed, with the ridge being fairly wide, but the snow is steep and there is a large cornice on climber’s right that needs to be avoided. I was a little freaked out at this point, but I am bad with heights and it was my first mountaineering trip. From the summit, the views are fantastic. Great views of Yoho Valley and parts of the Iceline trail can be seen. Numerous peaks can be spotted and identified if you know your stuff, and you can still see the gorgeous Emerald Lake waaaaaay below. When I was there the true summit was considerably lower than a huge ridge of snow that provided the real highest (if not solid) point. You can see some braver souls than I venturing along this ridge, where a fall really would have been bad news.

Our descent was long and tedious, especially when we got back on the rock/scree. We belayed down the one really bad section, which greatly elongated our descent time, and dark was descending as we crossed the streams and got back into the forest. My feet were really feeling the pain of being soaking wet from sweat in plastic mountaineering boots for 17 hours at this point! We finally made it back to the cars in total darkness just after midnight, putting our total trip time at just under 20 hours. Wow.

The food and beer tasted AMAZING when we got back to camp! Needless to say we slept in late the next day, and all ideas of a short scramble were thrown out of the window, and we headed straight back to Edmonton. Luckily we got back just in time for me to go climbing at the wall at the University! woohoo! A good way to end a fantastic weekend.

Length: ~18-20km
Height gain: ~1800m
Effort: Very high
Hazards: Rock fall on loose scree, glacier travel, some steep snow, rock/ice fall from above.

I think I mentioned that I took the Summer in the Mountains course with the Edmonton section of the ACC (Alpine Club of Canada) recently. Well, I immediately signed up for my first mountaineering trip with the ACC, an intermediate excursion up Mt. President (3123m) in Yoho National Park via the not so often travelled Emerald Basin approach. The peak is more often summit-ed from the Stanley Mitchel ACC Hut, which is much shorter and offers much less elevation gain. However, the leader of our party had an attempt from that side foiled by a cornice earlier in the year, and felt our route had a better chance of success.

Leaving from Edmonton after work on Friday night, we arrived at a full Kicking Horse campground just outside Field, at around 9pm. We found space on the overflow campsite however. We pitched tents and had a last bit of sustenance as the last golden rays of sun caught the mountains across the (loud) highway from us before crashing at around 11pm, ready for our alpine start the next morning.

Up bright and early at 3.30am we were all raring to go. OK, so we were actually all dead tired and not in the mood after a night of traffic and trains thundering down the valley. We made the short drive to Emerald Lake,, and hit the trail at 4.40am as the sun was starting to light the sky. An easy stroll along the trail to the end of the lake, we then took a path at the second junction you encounter, putting us on the Emerald Basin trail. This quickly started to rise steeply through trees until it flattened out and gave us the first views of our approach. Dropping down through thick brush into the head of the valley, we forded the many small (-ish) that flow down into Emerald Lake. Some rough boulder-hopping later we ready to embark on the more technical part of our climb. Deciding to fore-go the narrow snow gully on the left due to potential rock-fall hazard we ambled up steep, hard scree and took a loose rock gully on the right. After a few slips and some nasty rock-dodging we roped up for a short, steep section where fall consequences could have been dire. This slowed things up considerably as we were belayed up one at a time.

Through more rock and scree on steep slopes, we slogged on towards the glacier where we roped up into two teams and put our crampons on. It was then a long, slow trudge through some BEAUTIFUL scenery of blue ice-walls, airy waterfalls and huge rock-walls with the backdrop of Emerald Lake glowing green behind us. The going was on not-so steep snow slopes, with no exposure or real danger other than crevasses.

We reached the saddle between the President and the Vice-President to find a couple of guys descending to Stanley Mitchel and another team just arriving from that direction, proving the route had been in OK condition. They had set off some FOUR hours later than us…proving the added length of the Emerald Basin approach!

And this post is way too long already, so go to Part 2 of Mt. President to read more!

I need to stop going to the mountains every weekend (8 of the last 9 weekends!!). I am generating a huge backlog of video to edit, photos to manage, trip reports to write and there’s always my real job to do too……

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So anyway, a few weeks ago(!) I went to Jasper for a climbing and scrambling trip with Katie and Mathieu. The plan: to leave Edmonton after I finished filming a wedding 11pm saturday evening, scramble sunday, and climb in the Hidden Valley on Monday.

We ended up leaving late, and arriving around 3am at a convenient little ‘campsite’ just outside the Park Boundary on Highway 16. It’s a down a 4WD road on the left, 100m before the gates. But ssssh don’t tell everyone. Wait, is this internet thing public? ooops.

It was also raining when we arrived, giving Matt the oppurtunity to tryout his ‘waterproof’ sleeping bag (nearly a bivy0bag, but not quite). Katie and I sensibly chose the tent.

Morning found it still raining, with cloud level at road level. Visibility zero. Brave, nature-boy Matt had retired to the car after his ‘waterproof’ bag got him very, very damp.

With the inclement weather, and the lack of dry bag for the next night, we headed into Hinton to find a laundry place for his bag. A few hours later we were ready to hike! And the weather was still terrible…oh well.

We could barely make out the looming shadow of Roche Miette through the clouds as we set off on the trail. With all the wetness I forgot the wise, wise words of my friend Jen who had explained how NOT to get lost on this hike. We happily followed the directions from the book for a few hours, trudging up steep ridges through misty forests until we finally made the tree-line just as the clouds cleared. Wrong damn place. Way too close to the big, steep scary rock face! Just like Jen had done before us, we had taken the climber trail to the huge cliff-face, not the route to the summit. Realising our error, we spotted the trail on the ridge opposite, and decided we had the energy to bushwack down an avalanche path to the valley below, and then scramble up the far side. It didn’t actually take more than 45mins.

Back on the correct trail, the weather suddenly co-operated and we found ourselves in blistering, hot sun under deep blue skies. Perseverance paid off. On yellow, rocky slopes we headed further up the mountain, taking a brief (pun intended!) rest when Ewen changed his pants to shorts and aired his boxers…giving rise to the brilliant idea of a naked photo shoot if we made the top (thanks Matt!).

Pressing on, the weather closed in again as we came to a gorgeous narrow bit of ridge, on route to the saddle that marks the start of the scramble. At this point we found a beer, full, kindly left by some previous hikers. Downing half, we carried on. Helmets in place. The scramble proved a bit trickier than it should as we veered off path (damn cloud and visibility zero). Eventually we spotted some pink ribbons and found the much, much easier route to the top. If you stay on the easy route the whole time, this would be an easy scramble. We were definitely more in the moderate to difficult area. The route is definitely not exposed in any way though, just steep and loose.

At the top, we did our naked photo shoot, with just boots and helmets allowed. Mucho fun, and caused havoc on facebook when the photos were posted! Unfortunately you only have the right to view mine on this site!

Overall, with the detour it took around 5 hours to make the summit. And another 3 to get down. We were going slow though.

This is an awesome hike, and I would definitely recommend it. Very fun all around, good scrambling, good hiking, nothing too scary, and nice and close to Edmonton (just a few km from the Jasper park boundary).

The only thing that marred the fun of the day was that Katie’s BRAND NEW tent had been stolen from our impromptu campground. There were tire tracks and empty beer cans, and our sleeping pads. But the tent was gone. Sorry Katie

So here is the video from my third day at Heart Creek. Three of stayed on for one more day of climbing. We tackled an easy 5.8 on First Rock (my first ever lead…and I only did half of it. Booo! haha). Matt also top-roped a fun 5.10 here. Then we moved onto Bunny Hill, which is some interesting part-normal/part-slab climbing. There are a lot of routes on this wall. We tackled a 10b and a 10c/d. Both very fun. This wall is probably a bit more different than Waterfall Wall, First Rock and Jupiter. It adds a bit more variety into the mix (plus you have to cross a river again!).

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So last weekend I had my second outdoor climbing trip, this to time to Heart Creek near Canmore, Alberta. This is a beautiful little area, featuring over 130 sport routes (plus a few trad I think) on 15 different walls. They are all single pitch, and vary from short to long with a nice variety of routes too. To get to Heart Creek from Calgary, take the Lac des Arcs turn off, around 20km east of Canmore, then immediately get BACK on Highway 1 heading to Calgary. There is a gravel pull off after a few hundred metres, just before a creek (which is actually Heart Creek). The first routes (First Rock) are around a 10min walk following the very obvious trail along the side of the creek. Expect this area to be busy, especially First Rock and Bunny Hill, and especially weekends.

We made this video while we were climbing for the weekend, it’s around 8mins long. Should give you a good idea about a few of the different walls and the sort of climbing to expect. And probably entice you to try it out. Heart and Sole, Jupiter, First Rock and Waterfall Wall are all featured.

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This website has details on a lot of the routes, and gives you an idea of the grades. Some more info can be found here and a local climbing gym put together a very useful pdf of all the routes available here.

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.