Kootenay Park – Part 4
Breakfast at Tumbling Creek in the coolness of the morning. This time we opted for a place in the sun, whereas the evening before we had been grateful for shade.
Kootenay National Park: Helmet Falls to Floe Lake
Thursday July 27th, 2017
We left Tumbling Creek campground at 9 AM. Tumbling Creek boiled beneath us as we crossed a bridge over a small canyon, and then we followed the trail upstream. We turned left and had a long steady climb to Tumbling Pass. The wildflowers were at their peak. The trail was flanked by yellow Arnica, many different varieties of Indian Paint Brush, and other flowers. Eventually we left the spruce forests, and entered the high altitude larch forests. Then these too disappeared, and we were on the high meadows.
Although we had a high pass to cross, we expected a relatively easy day, as it is only 7.7 kilometres from Tumbling Creek to Numa Creek, our destination for the day. This was in contrast to the 12.5 kilometres which we had done the previous day over Rockwall Pass between Helmet Falls and Tumbling Creek.
We had a very nice break across from the Tumbling Glacier, where we rested among the flowers in the bright sunshine. Then we began a long descent. We soon came to a fine little stream, where I was very glad to filter drinking water. I had learned my lesson on the hard climb up to Rockwall Pass, and had today kept weight to a minimum. I took very little water with us, so the appearance of this stream was very timely.
We descended further form the pass through wonderful flower displays until we came to a rocky ridge where we had our lunch. Below us were several kilometres of avalanche slopes.
After lunch our trail descended steadily for 3 or 4 kilometres to Numa Creek. Initially we went through incredibly lush avalanche slopes were shoulder high flowers and brush hemmed in the trail from both sides. The only breaks from this occurred where the trail crossed two large rocky creeks which were bringing down large amounts of water from glaciers high above that were out of sight beyond the high cliffs that hemmed in the valley.
At one of the creek crossings we met two female trail runners. They had left the trail head at the Floe Lake Parking lot early that morning, and planned to arrive back at the highway at the Paint pots. They were doing our whole 55 kilometre circuit in one day! There was some controversy later about the ages of these ambitious trail runners. To me, they looked about 35, whereas a young man we met later at the Numa Campground who had also met them thought they looked about 60. We will never know the truth, but we all agreed they looked very fit.
Eventually the endless avalanche slopes gave way to forest, and then we reached the Numa Creek campground, which sits at the confluence of two creeks. It was unusual in that the eating area and food lockers were on one side of the creek, and all the tent sites were across one of the creeks on the other side.
The good news was that the tent sites were well away from the eating area. The bad news was that the tent sites for the most part were quite close together. We picked a relatively private one, but nevertheless were later that evening kept awake for a time by loud French conversation in an adjacent tent.
We had a pleasant stay at Numa Creek, aside from the loud conversation in the next tent while we were trying to sleep in the evening. That evening, too, we had our only rain of the trip; a very minimal shower. It was enough, however, to make me put on my wet jacket as I bustled around doing camp chores. It was also enough to make a young man whom we met who was travelling with minimal gear (no tent and no tarp) bed down beneath the metal food storage lockers where he would have some shelter from the rain. It was perhaps a good thing we did not have a lightning storm!
In any case, after dinner and once things quieted down in the tent next door, we had a good night and were ready for the next morning.
This is the fine little stream that appeared to replenish our water supply as we descended from Tumbling Pass.
