Outdoor Video Magazine

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