Mount Robson Adventure Part 3
Adolphus Lake before the rain started.
Thursday, August 24, 2017
Today was to be a day of unsettled weather with showers, and indeed that is how it turned out. The day began innocently enough. We had breakfast at the only picnic table at Rearguard Campground, rain proofed our campsite, and began our hike to Adolphus Lake. We passed the Robson Pass Campground, and met a young couple who had just come back from Adolphus Lake. They were the last people we were to see for many hours.
Adolphus Lake was quite beautiful. After taking a few pictures, we moved on and came to a very nice stream where I filtered and filled our water bottles. Then it began to rain.
We walked on through a fine forest for several kilometers, explored a small primitive campground along the trail, and eventually came to more open country with fine views of rolling hills in the distance. They were partially obscured by the rain, and as the rain showed no signs of stopping, we decided to turn around and go back to our campsite.
On the way back we stopped at the Robson Pass Campground and had our lunch. Here there was at least a large canvass roof over some picnic tables, supported by long ropes from eight surrounding trees that provided some shelter from the incessant rain. The campground seemed quite deserted although there were some tents nearby. Later we learned that everyone in the area seemed to have taken shelter in the Hargreaves Shelter at Berg Lake.
Just as we finished lunch, the rain stopped for a while. We walked the kilometer back to our camp at Rearguard, and then the showers started again, so we took to our tent for an hour or two. Then, when there was a break in the rain, we took the opportunity to dry things out on our clothesline.
We were approached by a young man of oriental extraction who asked if we knew where the ranger was. He was a great divide trail hiker, and had come that day from Jasper National Park. Before that he had come from a park with an unusual name, Kakwa Wildland Park. Kakwa means “porcupine” in Cree. He had crossed Willmore Wilderness Park and part of Jasper National Park before reaching our campsite in Mount Robson Provincial Park. He was clearly a serious hiker. We had met the ranger earlier that day, and knew that he had left the park, and that his replacement would not be in until the next day. The young man wanted a place to camp, but did not have a permit. He went on his way, but later returned and camped without a permit at Rearguard. It ended up not being a problem. Due to the bad weather, some campers had obviously cancelled their trips, because the supposedly fully booked campground had several empty spaces overnight.
My hiking partner is contemplating the view along the shore of Berg Lake.
The suspension bridge at Whitehorn.
We went for a walk to Berg Lake Campground to enjoy the views, and then returned to have dinner. We learned that during the inclement weather while we were on the trail, the Hargreaves Shelter at Berg Lake had been packed with people who were trying to avoid the rain. Campers aren’t what they used to be! On our walk, we were also entertained by a family of ducks on the stream near Rearguard.
During our dinner at the unsheltered single picnic table at Rearguard, we had some light showers, but the weather was tolerable. Another camper who had camped at Whitehorn the night before regaled me with stories of mice running over the top of his tent. One mouse had even run up between the undersurface of his fly and the tent itself. He was concerned that the sharp little claws of the mice that ran over the top of his fly might have damaged it so that it would leak during the coming night. He attributed his bad luck with the mice to the fact that he was camped quite near the toilet at Whitehorn. We would be camping at Whitehorn the next day, and we made a mental note to find a campsite as far from the toilets as possible.
Rearguard was quite a sociable campground, perhaps because it was small and had only six campsites. That morning we had been entertained by a man from Hay River in the Northwest Territories who had worked for many years on barges on the Mackenzie River. He described hidden treasures like miles of white sand beaches on the shores of Great Slave Lake near Hay River. I also met a young woman who approached me because my water bottle had “American Headache Society” written on it. She had had very severe migraine for many years, but with a total change in lifestyle which included quitting her stressful information technology job, a total change in diet, and moving across the country, her headaches had largely resolved.
Friday, August 25th, 2017
It had rained during the night, but in the morning there was mixed sun and cloud during our breakfast. It was quite windy, and to our delight, even though the valley and Berg Lake were still covered in low cloud, Mount Robson showed its peak to us a second time. It was a beautiful sight with blue sky and just a little cloud around the peak of the huge mountain.
Our time at Rearguard was over, and if all went as planned, we would be spending the night at Whitehorn many miles down the trail. Our tent fly was still very wet and heavy, but we packed up and were on our way. As we walked towards Berg Lake, Mount Robson was still “out”, so we stopped and took pictures of each other in front of the famous peak. Then we walked on to the Berg Lake Campground, and as the mountain peak was still clear, we took some more.
We continued on beyond the Berg Lake Campground along the shore of Berg Lake, and then took a break at a very nicely positioned bench along the trail which had good views of the Berg Glacier and Mount Robson.
As we progressed further along the lakeshore, we came closer and closer to the Mist Glacier, the Siamese twin of Berg Glacier, as the two are joined together higher up the mountain. Mist Glacier looked more and more impressive, the closer we came to it. It had a remarkably narrow neck halfway up the mountain, which somehow fed the wider parts of the glacier below. The glacier terminated in its own little lake, which was out of sight from us as we continued down the trail as it lay behind the massive terminal moraine of Mist Glacier. We had however seen the lake from higher elevations a few days before.
We passed the bright blue end of Berg Lake, and walked across a huge gravelly alluvial plain through which the Robson River enthusiastically flowed on its way down the valley to eventually join the Fraser River far below. Then we walked on the scree slope across the valley from the Mist Glacier on a good trail which had obviously been built with some effort. A low rock wall on the uphill side protected the trail from the rocks above. On the way, we had more great views of the Mist Glacier.
We entered the forest and began to descend more steeply. At Emperor Falls Campground we found a very nice place for lunch between two campsites where a large stone slab served us as a table. The rushing Robson River was right beside us, and provided both auditory and visual stimulation. The campground was totally deserted at that time of day.
After lunch we proceeded on and soon came to the short side trail which led to Emperor Falls. We dropped our packs at the junction, as everyone else seemed to have done, and cautiously put on our rain jackets. We had heard that one can become quite wet watching Emperor Falls. Then it was on to the waterfall itself, which was quite magnificent and which lived up to its name. It did generate a lot of spray, but I chanced a few pictures. Luckily I had put my camera away when a sudden gust of wind drenched us. Our unprotected hiking pants were soaked and we retreated away from this very impressive waterfall, picked up our packs, and got back on the main trail.
The trail began to descend ever more steeply. We were not on gravel, but for the most part on glacier-scratched protrusions of solid rock. These were dry, so the footing was good. We passed “Falls of the Pool”, and White falls, both of which were quite impressive. The valley was aptly named the Valley of a Thousand Falls, as not only did the Robson River itself have many more small waterfalls, but there were also many high although much smaller waterfalls coming down the high canyon walls.
The steep walls of Robson Canyon also grew steadily more impressive as we descended. Eventually the trail crossed over to the left bank of the river, and flattened out as the valley widened. It was not long before we reached Whitehorn Campground.
It was still quite early in the afternoon when we reached Whitehorn, and the campground was largely empty. We picked the most isolated campground we could find, as Whitehorn has a reputation for being noisy. Hikers can easily reach it in one day from the trailhead, so not all who camp here are serious back packers. We set up our tent, and then crossed the Robson River on a fine suspension bridge, and filtered our drinking water from a clear side stream rather than from the silty Robson River itself. We had been careful to pick a campsite well away from the toilets because of the warnings of our fellow camper at Rearguard who had camped near them at Whitehorn and had experienced mice running over his tent.
We had some time to rest, wash, and get organized. Then we had an early dinner in the open shelter which had four tables in it.
After dinner, I worked on my journal in our tent. Many young voices were audible in the background, but fortunately they were some distance away. We have chosen our campsite well. I wrote in a sitting position with frequent breaks to rest my back, as my left shoulder blade was quite sore from writing in an awkward position in the tent the night before. I hoped that I would have no ill effects from my current journaling.
Tomorrow we would hike out, and drive home to Calgary. To this point, it had been a great five days at Mount Robson.