Backpacking to Canada’s Berg Lake

After breakfast in Field we began driving north on highway 93, the Ice Line Highway. This asphalt road passes a stunning sequence of mountains, glaciers and lakes. We stopped periodically to walk closer to the lakes, take snapshots and eat our lunch.

Numerous campgrounds are available along the road on a first come first served basis. Some are quite rustic. We chose one not too far south of Jasper with running water.

The next day we stopped in Jasper to walk around and for lunch. Then we drove to Mt Robson Provincial Park to confirm and pay for our campsite reservations at Berg Lake and Whitehorn campgrounds. We continued to Valemont which has lower cost motels than those available in Jasper. We walked around the streets next to our motel. The woman whose flower garden we were admiring worked for the local police department and mentioned that the jail population varied with the sheriff currently in office. This small town is a stop along the drug traffic routes to larger cites and has been affected by that traffic.

The Whitehorn Campground is nestled in the valley of 1000 waterfalls 11 kilometers from the Berg lake trail head. We decided to stop at this location because the 21 kilometers to Berg lake seemed like a stretch. But the elevation gain along the second half of the trail clenched the decision to spend two days hiking to Berg Lake. On the way the trail passes Kinney Lake, a pretty spot.

Metal lockers for food storage are available both at Whitehorn and Berg Lake campgrounds. The Whitehorn campground has a cooking area with a roof and open sides, a nice feature during wet weather.

The Berg Lake campground has a cabin shelter an even better feature during inclement weather. One camper used the wooden box under the cabin seats for food storage and fed the mice.
A group of friendly Canadians invited us to hike to Snowbird Pass with them.

Part way along the trail an inventory of my leg strength reserves suggest I would deplete them too much for the next days hike down if I continued. So I chose to turn around before hiking to the pass.

Mt Robson, the tallest mountain in the Canadian Rockies spawns the Mist, Berg and Robson glaciers. The Berg Lake Campground and trails close by provide nice views of these gems.

View Takaka Falls from the Iceline Trail

Our car rented in Calgary took us west on highway 1 toward Field. Just before arriving at this dot on the map, we took a right turn leading to the Kicking Horse Campground. The stream gurgling through the campground carries granite flour from glaciers above.

Rocky Mountain National Park a few snapshots

Our trip to the Canadian Rockies began with purchase of round trip airline tickets to Denver. Then we purchased round trip tickets from Denver to Calgary sandwiched between the Denver arrival and departure.

The snapshots below were taken during a hike to Sky Pond, one of my favorite hikes.

Julie at Loch Vale

Jim and Julie at Sky Pond

Bicycling Washington DC to Pittsburgh PA

Millard Julie and Grandson Troy the C&O Canal

We decided to take the lowest energy approach to biking between Pittsburgh and DC. That dictated we travel from DC to Pittsburgh and hire an outfitter to take us and our gear from Cumberland to Frostburg MD, an elevation gain of more than 1000 feet. The C&O canal from DC to Cumberland is essentially level, only briefly gaining elevation at the locks. Getting a ride from Cumberland to Frostburg leaves just a small elevation gain before it is “all down hill”.

Click on the link below to checkout the elevation profile.
elevationchart1

Purist who insist upon pedaling all the way might choose the other direction. They would encounter an increasingly steep grade as they approached the summit then a rapid descent of a thousand feet in 10 miles.

C&O Canal Lock Attendant House

We thought about taking the train from Pittsburgh to DC, but it is just too hard. One must package the bicycle in a box, requiring some dis assembly and costing $15. The train leaves at 4:30 AM.

C&O Canal Traffic

We rented a car one way from PIT to Dulles. We left our gear at our daughter’s house not too far from Dulles then she came to the airport to retrieve me.

Our daughter took us to Georgetown, the beginning of the C&O Canal with our gear. She and Grandson Troy accompanied us for a short distance along the trail. Campgrounds appear at less than 10 mile intervals. We biked 48 miles the first day, which Julie thought was too long. Then we biked 48 miles the second day. Our plan allocated 7 days of biking to cover the 320 miles, an average of 46 miles per day.

Camping along the trail provides nice flexibility. We watched the 7 day weather forecast and would have canceled the trip if rain or temperatures around 95 degrees dominated the forecast. Dirt supports a bike along most of the 184 miles of C&O Canal. Rain turns it into mud.

Crushed limestone surface on most of the Great Allegheny Passage trail stays reasonably firm when wet with rain. But the exceptions can cause sudden acrobatics from an unaware biker. This trail links Cumberland MD to McKeesport PA, near Pittsburgh. We parked our car in McKeesport, a location I would not choose again. The risk of vandalism is just too high.

Deer near Great Falls

Rapids near Harper's Ferry

Morning of day 3

We were a dozen miles from Hancock MD when Julie began falling behind. A wobble in the rear wheel causing it to rub on the fender every turn explained the problem. I removed the rear wheel and found a broken spoke. I began replacing it with a kevlar spoke, then began looking for more broken spokes. There were 5. I only carried three kevlar spokes. So I installed them around the center of brokeness. Tightening the kevlar spokes calmed the wobble so it no longer rubbed. I called the bike shop in Hancock and found they would be open when we arrived. With a new wheel on Julies bike we pedaled on to our next campground. Cell phone service only became available as we approached Hancock. It frequently is not available along the trail.

Noon day 4

The sky grew darker as we approached Cumberland. We called the outfitter and told him to pick us up in front of the donkey statue.

Day 5 near Cumberland

A few drops of rain fell just before the outfitter loaded our bikes and us. As we rode toward Frostburg it began to pour. After lunch at a restaurant the rain stopped. We decided to pedal through the mist, expecting more rain, but remained dry. We biked up hill though the Savage tunnel and continued up hill to the town of Deal where we started down hill to Meyersdale. Hotel names on a bulletin board caught our eye. We paid the outrageous price of $35 for a nice room on the third floor of Yoder’s Hotel. We liked the dinner at Missy’s Cafe enough to return for breakfast. The rain during the night sounded pleasant on the roof of the Hotel.

Salisbury Viaduct between Garrett and Meyersdale

The branches of the trees seemed to whiz by as the down hill grade propelled our bikes toward Pittsburgh.

Crossing the Casselman River uphill from Confluence

Thirty-one miles later we were too early to camp near the dam at Confluence. Forty-two miles later we still had some energy and did not want to pedal up hill to the campground by Ohiopyle. Sixty miles later as we passed through Connellsville we we ready to stop. My memory placed the River’s Edge campground close to Connellsville. But the trail seemed to stretch in front of us. Finally we unloaded our gear and set up camp.

Last Morning on the Great Allegehny Passage

We awoke the next morning to an enchanting layer of fog in the river valley. The last 40 miles to Mckeesport passed easily under our tires. There we retrieved our car to conclude our trip.

Back Packing Equipment Selections – a few words

We selected a Kelty Flight 2 tent advertised to weight 4lbs 8oz. It had the maximum width in its weight class and was reasonably priced. It is self supporting and has a single wall (no rain fly), a feature which saves weight.

Millard and Kelty Flight 2 Tent at Berg Lake

Two ThermoRest back-packing self inflating air mattresses added to the pile at check out along with dehydrated meals for 11 days. (Guys, buy the women’s pink version of the ThermoRest if you can tolerate the color. It cost the same and offers more padding).

A friend gave us a minimalists alcohol stove weighting a few ounces including a wind screen. A small aluminum pot extracted from a more complete camping kit, two sierra cups and other light weight utensils completed our cooking gear. The alcohol stove can bring a cup of water to boil with about a table spoon of ethyl alcohol (test your arrangement to see what it takes). So we limited our dehydrated selections to those just asking for boiling water.

My sleeping bag was essentially a polypropylene blanket sewn into a mummy bag. I included another polypropylene blanket for additional insulation. If that was not warm enough I would just don an insulating layer of clothing. Julie took her L. L. Bean sleeping bag insulated with Holofil. We thought about replacing it with a lighter weight down bag. But the Holofil tolerates wetness better we think. The bag’s weight did not seem excessive.

After looking for light backpacks I settled on a medium weight Kelty Santa Fe 4000, a sturdy looking roomy pack that accommodated our tent, cooking supplies, and my stuff. Julie bought a Mountainsmith Ascent backpack. We are happy with both. We were surprised that the dehydrated packets of food we purchased at REI were quite tasty. Oatmeal was breakfast augmented by almonds, roasted by Julie and a pinch of the ingredients from Costco’s big bag of dehydrated fruit. Two packs of three different Costco salamis, cheese and crackers became our lunch menu.

Should a couple eligible for medicare start back packing?

When Julie and I began thinking about backpacking my focus turned to the elapsed time since reaching the pinnacle of my mountain hiking days. Four decades ago the rim of the highest volcano in Mexico, Pico de Orizaba at 18,490 feet, lay under my boots. Tom Bowen and I had warmed up to this task by hiking to the tops of the 3rd and 2nd highest volcanoes, Ista (Iztaccihuatl and Popo (Popocatépetl). These two are at 17,158 and 17,802 feet, respectively. At that time I lived in Denver, Colorado and spent week ends hiking the mountains west of Denver.

A lot had changed since Denver. Running was no longer on the list of approved exercises, much less the 5 miles a day that preceded the Orizaba climb. The weight on my frame increased too, almost as much as the 50 lb pack needed to carry 7 days of food, a tent and cooking gear. So the obvious question arose. Should we even consider backpacking for the first time after both Julie and I qualified for social security benefits?

An inventory of the positive factors encouraged us. After Julie retired we drove west from Pittsburgh PA and skied in 14 different areas. Julie in the first few days acquired the name Iron Legs, in my mind. It took four skiing sessions for my legs to catch up with her. In the middle of our trip we chased Julie’s friends from Duluth MA down the slopes trying to keep them in sight. The skiing altimeter carried by one of the guys logged 25,000 vertical feet of descent that day.

We concluded that ski tour at Jackson Hole. The afternoon runs that day included skiing a double blue squares run that dropped 2,000 feet through powder snow that had been skied into light mashed potato consistency.

A mild resistance to motion had developed in my left hip that was a concern. But, it melted away after about a mile during walks around the neighborhood. After some discussion we decided it was rational to try backpacking in the Canadian Rockies. We decided to backpack into Berg Lake and Mount Assiniboine Provincial Park in Canada, treks of 12 and 18 miles respectively.