North Kananaskis Pass

There were several things to be apprehensive about, as we set off for our last backcountry camping trip of the season. The weather forecast was slightly foreboding, including terms such as "rain" and "snow". I had basically new boots and a history of blisters. But we piled everything in the car after work on Friday and headed out.

We got to the trail-head in good time, and strapped on our gear. There were a few clouds drifting pass, but we had sun as we set out. The boots performed well on the first leg into Forks campground, and I only had two small red spots that night -which I thought was fair, considering the old blisters hadn't 100% healed. The weather held until dusk, when we were in the forest valley and about an hour from the campground. We put on our headlamps and put up our umbrellas against the occasional drizzle of rain. Of course, once we got to the campground proper, the lightening, thunder and downpour began in earnest, but we got the tent up and crawled in to sleep still reasonably dry.

There was sun again when we got up around 9am the next morning. I was a bit stiff, since the pillow pumps had both developed leaks, but hey - that's what your clothing bags are for, right? We had breakfast and packed up the still slightly damp gear for the next leg. Last time we'd headed left, this time it was right, to Turbine Canyon campground and the North Kananaskis Pass.

I'm here to tell you, screw the guidebooks - it is 8-9km of up. Steep UP, gentle UP, stupid UP; but ALL UP! There are a few very short level or downhill bits, just to screw with your mind, but if you're going to do this, just be ready to climb. Having gotten that over with, there are some really lovely bits of scenery: down a valley that seems to go forever, Lawson Lake is gorgeous and you cross several water courses that are beautiful. Unfortunately, the camera battery died and the backup was run down, so I have no photos to prove it. You'll just have to do it yourself.

We got to Turbine around 3pm and it was still sunny, although the breeze was quite brisk. Once you get over the saddle, you can see the glacier where the Canadian Olympic ski team practices in summer (another couple walked over there and said they were quite friendly and happy to see visitors - offered them tea and everything.) We were the only ones there, so we had our choice of tent pads. We got all our gear set-up and set out for drying, then had a nap and a game of crib. Then it was time to start dinner and to put up the tarp, as chunks of frozen rain started to come down. It's hard to describe the stuff actually - too frozen to be rain, not frozen enough to be hail... kind of like little chunks of slushy. More people started to arrive at this point too, so by morning, the campground was fairly full.

We had another game or two of crib, then crawled into our sleeping bags. And I have to say that I am exceedingly pleased with the large amount of cash I laid out on my new bag, since (except for my nose) I was toasty warm all night. That's pretty impressive since the snow continued all night - we had to get up several times to shake it off the tent and when we got up in the morning it was 15-20cm deep. The thermometer said that the temperature bottomed out at 1C overnight, but with a nice level of cold snow around, it feels chillier!

We had planned to stay another night, but at this point we had to consider our options. We hadn't really packed for snow, so we had no shovel, I didn't have extra warm weather gear, the tent wasn't 4 season and it was sagging under the weight of the wet, heavy snow. Plus it's fine for sleeping in, but for two adults to pass the day in, it's pretty small. The clincher was considering our options for getting out - Monday could either see us with more snow overnight to slog through or it could warm up. The path was basically a rut, so if all that snow started melting, we'd be heading downhill wading through our own personal river.

We had breakfast and packed up the gear. Stuart upheld his claim on the "perfect boyfriend" title by taking even more than his share of the gear, so I could try and keep up a decent pace.

The whole mountain range was socked in, so even if I'd been up to the extra kms, we would have skipped hiking up to the pass - who needs a great view of a cloudbank? With the snow coverage, the world had basically become black & white - in a scene where someone had been messing with the settings, so that the white was almost blinding. The sun wasn't even a bright spot in the sky, but sunglasses were still a must. Every once in while, you'd pass a small yellow or purple flower that wasn't buried in snow, and the bit of color would make you feel like you were in some strange naturalist art film.

At one point, we were actually walking through a cloudbank, and it was a bit disappointing. No cushy, pillowiness - just more mist. Sigh. As we'd expected, the amount of snow diminished as we headed downhill and by the time we stopped at Forks for lunch, it was just a skiff here and there (what we'd expected up at Turbine.) We had a cold lunch, watching another couple trying to get a fire started and then continued on.

I had wee little blisters on each heel from the day before (did I mention it was ALL UPHILL?) but I was in much better shape than the last time coming out on this trail. Still, by the time we hit the car, I was dreaming of mechanical transport, potato chips and orange juice. Ironically, after getting on the road, we say the coolest wildlife - a moose in a mudpit and a black bear shambling along the cut-line. Awesome! Stuart is still two cubs up on me, but at least I wasn't bear-less for the summer.

Well, there's lots more I could talk about, but I don't even know if you've read this far. All in all, a pretty standard 'Stuart and Aerin' trip - nothing according to plan!