BONNET GLACIER

Back in the 1970's I spent a few summers and winters working in Lake Louise Alberta, in the heart of the Canadian Rockies. I started off doing the regular hikes along well-marked trails but over the seasons I gravitated to scrambling non-technical routes up mountains and doing off-trail backcountry hikes above treeline. The topographic map became my guidebook. This brought about the problem of finding partners. Occasionally, I would meet someone who was game for this sort of activity but our days off rarely matched.

I had been looking at a route that began at a well-known tourist attraction known as Johnson's Canyon, which is to be found half way between Lake Louise and Banff. The route ended in Skoki valley, which lies "behind" the Lake Louise ski area. The route followed a hiking trail up Johnson's creek and then turned off to the very seldom-visited Badger’s pass, whose summit is roughly 25 miles from the highway. From there the route descended the far side of the pass and left the trail, which turned south and wended its way 40 miles to the town of Banff. According to my map there would be a stiff climb up to a very large and broad, domelike area that was entirely glaciated. After crossing this flat glacier (Bonnet Glacier) the route ascended and followed a long bench that rose and fell over a series of cols to an exit point. The exit point was a pair of notches that led to the trail system in Skoki Valley, about 10 miles from the highway. It looked like about 50 miles total with close to 8000 feet of elevation gain and loss.

I took my maps down to the warden's office in Lake Louise Village and showed my proposed route to one of the wardens who had become a friend and who was a mountain rescue specialist at that time. Cliff (a good name for someone in his line of work) thought the route made sense for a solo trip because such a flat glacier would have no tension points and therefore, no crevices. That sealed it and on my next day off I stuck out my thumb and hitched a ride 30 miles from Lake Louise to Johnson's Canyon, a major tourist attraction. A very impressive canyon it turned out to be, too.  By the time I began my hike it was already noon and I had 25 miles of trail and 4000 feet of elevation gain in front of me.  So, I was in high gear as I passed through the canyon with its hand-railed walkways and I didn't stop to admire nature's handiwork.  Looking back nearly 30 years later I can see that I fairly flew up those 25 miles. My goal was to average 3.5 mph and to do this I ate as I hiked and left my footwear on for the numerous creek crossings. After 7 miles of hiking the entire Johnson's Creek valley was above timberline and bordered by big mountains. The weather was good and I hiked as fast as my legs would carry me.  Back then  I was in the kind of shape that I can only dream about now. I was in my early 20's and whenever I wasn't working in the Lake Louise Hotel I was out hiking.

As soon as I arrived at Badger's Pass I set up my tent, unrolled my sleeping bag and cooked a meal of macaroni and peanuts. Then I sat down and wrote a long letter home on the back of my topographic map. (I had completely forgotten about that letter until my mother recently handed it to me and asked me to put it in Word format.) It gets dark very late in the Rockies in July and when I turned in it was still light out. As I lay in my bag thinking about the big day coming I heard a noise, then another similar noise. It sounded like rocks bumping lightly into each other. The pass was at an elevation where nothing other than lichens grew. I unzipped the tent's door and stuck my head out. A deer was crossing the pass, had seen my tent and was proceeding to continue on its route but by detouring as far upslope and away from my tent as it could. We had a staring match and then I went back to bed.

I was up and on the trail before dawn and the sky was overcast and brooding. However, I was glad to note that the mountaintops were below the cloud ceiling. It only took a few minutes to descend the far side of the pass and then the “real” adventure began. The stiff climb up to the glacier proved to be easier than anticipated because there was still a lot of hardened snow and I was able to kick steps all the way to the rim. I was so excited as I approached the top of the slope. When I arrived the site of a very large ice field that stretched away in many directions greeted me. It appeared to be spilling over the edge of an inverted saucer, which is exactly what it was doing, albeit very, very slowly. It was a grey morning and a gentle but persistent breeze was blowing into my face. I felt nervous and my heart quickened. I got my map out from my pack and lay it out flat. I studied it and then proceeded to step onto the glacier. At first, every step frightened me. I would frequently sink suddenly an inch or two into the snow, which was frightening. I had to stop and calm myself down and convince myself that I wasn’t going to fall into a crevice.  Finally, I decided to dig down into the consolidated snow and I was so reassured by the thickness and solidity of what lay beneath my feet that I began to stride purposefully toward a tiny island of rock in the sea of snow covered ice.

Once there I had a problem. I was unable to determine where my proposed route lay. Nothing made sense. I sat there with my map oriented to north and could not relate what I saw around me to what was on my map. This was bad.  I did have one feature a way off in the distance, far below me: Douglas Lake. I looked from where I had come and that made sense too. Then I lined up my map route with what I was looking at and I had an AHA! moment. A wave of adrenaline juiced through me as I realized that in spite of what the map indicated my route was entirely glaciated and it climbed much more steeply than I had interpreted. Not only that but it was tilted obliquely as it followed the base of the rocky ramparts that towered above it. That was my bench and my proposed route. I was crestfallen. I remember sitting there for a long time in the early morning light with the breeze ruffling my hair as I weighed my options:
1-Turn around and go back from where I had come. Too depressing.
2- Head off the glacier toward Douglas Lake and whack through remote grizzly territory for 10 miles. No way.
3- Go back and hike the trail to Banff 40 miles. Yeah right.
4- Carry on with the planned route.

I sat and studied that route very, very carefully and came to the conclusion that it wasn't entirely glaciated and that there was minimal crevice risk. I got up off my little island and started walking again. Now the trip had taken on a whole new feel and I wondered if I was doing the right thing. The sun came out in full glory and baked me as I worked my way up to my bench. In spite of the stress my spirits soared because the most majestic beauty imaginable surrounded me and the going turned out to be relatively easy. I encountered some cracks in the glacier that were no more than 2 inches wide and the snow had melted back from them, exposing blue ice. I reasoned that any real crevices would be fully exposed. On my left there was a rock wall and to my right were the views down onto the Bonnet Glacier as it rolled away off of its inverted saucer. Beyond, in every direction were mountains. I crested the first col and was surprised to see that the next one seemed quite far away, much more so than I had predicted from looking at the map. There was nothing to do but keep going. When I got to the low point between the first two cols I had to detour around a large pool of water that had a wall of ice rising about 15 feet straight out of it. Gradually, I started to feel some mental strain but I was pretty sure I was going to get off the glacier and onto solid ground at the second col. I was really anxious to crest that next rise and step onto some rock. I was even doing a mental countdown. Then when I stood at the top all I could see was yet another snowfield that rose another 500 vertical feet to yet another col. Obviously, I had been doing some optimistic and extensive map bending. I was dismayed but then I quickly realized it was all in my head. If I had succeeded in walking this far there was no reason to anticipate problems on the next section. I plodded along as the sun beat down on me and crossed more heights of land, and dropped down to several more low points and patiently plodded up and over the next rise.  Finally, after what seemed like a very long time I reached the end of the bench and arrived at the exit notches.

A wave of relief flooded through me as I stood on solid rock. I had been on snow and ice for at least the previous 6 hours. The area was flat so I lay all my topo maps out and oriented them to North. I folded the edges under to form one continuous map and I placed stones at the corners to prevent the wind from blowing them away.  I had a field day identifying many, many peaks before heading for the first notch. When I got there I had to laugh. There was a big snow bowl that I had to descend and then climb out of in order to get to the second notch. This took 20 or 30 minutes to do and once I passed through the notch and could see the Skoki Valley region the trip, as far as I was concerned, was over. The sun was still very high and I estimated that it had taken me 8 hours to get from my camping spot to there.

I slowly picked my way down to the hiking trail with a very deep, satisfied sensation ballooning in my chest. What I had done wasn’t quite registering but I knew I had broken through some sort of mental barrier. The four-hour hike to the Lake Louise ski area went through beautiful Skoki Valley country, which is reputed to be one of the best hiking areas in the world.

When I arrived back in the village after solo-hiking these intense 80 kilometres with approximately 8000 feet of elevation gain I felt a hankering for a cold beer or three. I went into the bar, sat down and called out, "Waiter! Two beers!"