I have always loved the natural environment. I am uplifted and renewed whenever I surrounded myself with trees, mountains, or ocean. I enjoy walking and photographing those places little changed by my fellow man. And now the Cave was rushing toward one of the best of these unspoiled treasures.
My plan was to travel from north to south along three hundred miles of Canada’s most spectacular mountains. Starting at Jasper, in western Alberta and finishing at the world’s first International Peace Park, Waterton-Glacier that bridges the boarder between Alberta and Montana. I had planned to traverse this distance in three weeks, not nearly enough to fully understand this natural setting, but I hoped enough time to fill my spirit. My primary goal was to find scenes to photograph that could echo my love of the wild.
I stayed first in Jasper National Park at a campground a couple of miles outside of town. The campsites were laid out in broad circles within a forest of pine and spruce. Not ten minutes after my arrival I was delighted to see a mother elk and her offspring walk across behind the Cave, nibbling on the plants and grasses. It was as if nature herself was saying, “welcome”.
The town of Jasper is set in a wide valley through which the Canadian National Railroad crosses bringing vast amounts of cargo east and west each day. The Rockies are a formidable wall across Canada. Only in a few places can track and highway cross. As I moved among these mountains, I was always aware that I shared these passages with a very busy and robust rail system.
The main street in Jasper is wide and welcoming. The railroad’s switching yard occupies one side, allowing the other to cater to the traveler, with shops well designed to attract their attention. The feeling is very welcoming and friendly. It is easy to find lots of parking, both on and off street. Trees line the sidewalk and benches abound as do trash and recycling containers. The shop fronts are covered with copious pots and planters of brightly colored flowers. As I came here in July, the days were long, Jasper being about as far north as Goose Bay Labrador. The sun rose at five and it didn’t get dark until eleven. The shops would take advantage of these long hours, giving the evenings a festive atmosphere. For a tourist trap, I have to admit that Jasper got it right.
I towed my small Saturn wagon behind the Cave for this trip. I wanted to see if I could save on the cost of fuel by using the Cave for the long hauls while taking advantage of the Saturn’s much higher gas mileage as I traveled locally to photograph and sightsee. It proved to be a good decision. It only cost me an extra two miles per gallon to pull the car along the highways. But when disconnected, it provided me with a convenient and far less expensive way to survey the local area. I could keep my camera gear and other options like extra clothing for colder altitudes and hiking in the back, covered with a black tarp to keep nosey eyes away. The best part of this arrangement was not needing to break camp each time I wanted to venture out for a day trip or just a loaf of bread.
Starting at Jasper and heading south for a hundred and forty miles to Lake Louise is the Icefields Parkway, a well paved, two-lane road with lots of pullouts at key vistas and trailheads. This is by far one of the most beautiful roads in North America. It is difficult to convey the beauty of the scenery through which this road passes. Hundreds of miles of tall, jagged, and rugged mountains rise up on both sides. Vast slabs of bare vertical stone capped with snow and glaciers, which fill hanging valleys between peaks. The melt-water forms streams and waterfalls that fill blue-green lakes in the valleys below. I would set out before dawn and often not return until darkness had finally forced me to call it a day.
The north-south orientation of the mountains meant that I could capture beautiful morning sunrises, afternoon side-lit vistas with the predictable puffy summer mountain clouds and the golden alpenglow that lights up the highest peaks at sunset. The summer wildflowers lined the roads and provided a nice splash of color to the foreground. Mountain goats, elk and the occasional black bear could be seen along the road where the grazing is easy and the winter salt residue is a welcome treat.
I spent a glorious first week exploring the northern Icefields Parkway. Hiking into emerald lakes and, where the road allowed, climbing to the foot of glaciers, now sadly retreating as our inability to coexist with the natural order is warming our common home.
Then, promising myself to return, I mated the car to the back of the Cave and headed south.
Lake Louise was a surprise when I arrived. I had expected a town much like Jasper, if not larger, for was this not the quintessential Canadian mountain destination, attracting travelers from across the world for over a century? But I found only the barest skeleton of a town. Primarily a gas station, a couple of motels, restraurants and a small strip mall with a grocery, bakery, bookstore and little else. All of these were nestled into a narrow valley along the Bow River miles below the famous lake. I would later learn that Lake Louise was more of a day-trip destination for the tourists staying in Banff, forty miles to the south. That is except for those who came to be pampered and catered to at the Chateau Lake Louise, built over a century ago by the Canadian Pacific Railroad to entice the eastern wealthy who normally spent their summers in places like Newport, Bar Harbor, or Europe. Now completely renovated and expanded, it is a beacon of opulence along side this little mountain lake from which it takes its name. The lake is ringed with peaks that flank the cascading Victoria Glacier directly opposite the Chateau. A Canadian icon, Lake Louise is considered one of the seven wonders of the natural world.
I spent two days walking the manicured paths and trying to capture this beautiful scenery. All the while avoiding the hundreds of other tourists pouring from cars and busses; RVs, and taxies all with camera in hand as if they were given a solemn charge to record this small vista for posterity. And so too was the Chateau itself a destination. The hoards were snapping the opulent tapestry lined lobby and the lounges overlooking the lake, all the while wandering through the dozen or so shops filled with books, maps, cameras, hiking gear, and the apparel and jewelry desired by the well-healed guests residing on the floors above.
I then turned my attention to Moraine Lake in the next valley to the south. The guide books extolled its beauty while assuring that it was not as sought out by tourists and promised a more peaceful atmosphere. The road to Moraine Lake was a ten-mile climb with jaw-dropping overlooks into the Valley of the Ten Peaks and ending at a small parking lot at one end of the narrow lake. The mountains rise up in all directions. I scouted the area paying particular notice to the orientation of the lake and the mountains to the sun. As I looked down the lake, the sun would rise from the left and illuminate the peaks forming a golden backdrop, and with a little luck would reflect from the lake below.
Moraine Lake should be a river. Instead, a centuries old landslide damned most of its course causing the water to pool in the small valley before snaking around the obstruction thus forming the lake. The landslide was a conical pile of rocks that looked to be about fifty feet high each the size of a basketball, perhaps a bit larger. I noticed a couple of young adults climbing down its lower section after a trip atop to view the scene from its perfect position at the foot of the lake. It was obvious to me that this would be the best place to set up my tripod at dawn the next morning to catch the mountains bathed in the first rays of sunlight and reflected in the quiet water below.
So, at four o’clock the next morning I arose, made a pot of coffee, filled my insulated travel mug, ready to head up the long road toward my destiny with Moraine Lake. It was cold outside of the Cave. I opened the back of the Saturn and located a duffle containing my cold weather gear, packed for just such a situation. I put on a down-filled jacket and a navy blue knit watch cap embroidered with a smiling Mickey Mouse that I had picked up at Disneyworld one unexpectedly cold winter evening. I removed my long telephoto lens from my camera backpack and nestled the travel mug filled with hot coffee in the emptied recess. I would not need the long lens for this hike. I hung a strap from my tripod and slung it over my shoulder so that it rested next to the backpack. Realizing that as the sun rose higher I might prefer a cooler and more shaded hat, I swung my Tilly with the floppy brim and strap behind my neck. With bear-spray attached and at the ready, I headed off toward the rock pile as the first signs of morning light gave the sky a deep purple cast.
This was going to be great! Here I was back in a natural environment. Home again in my native setting. For wasn’t I descended from hardy Irish seamen and Scottish mountain people? Didn’t my very blood pulse through me with countless centuries of trial and triumph over the natural order by ancestors who were home in these settings? Didn’t I hold the legacy of people who tamed the land and sea for their purposes and passed that sense of achievement on to the generations who would follow. An easy scurry to the summit of this little pile of debris and I would be ready to capture nature’s beauty as I was destined.
I followed a trail that led from the parking lot, down a slope toward a small bridge that crossed the stream and ran alongside the base of the rock pile opposite from the lake. I located a flat section where I could exit the trail and begin my assent. Looking up I noticed that the rock pile seemed a bit taller from this angle. Well, I reassured myself, of course it would up close. I remembered watching rock-climbers ascend El Capitan, the mile-high vertical slab of granite in Yosemite. If they could do that, this rock pile was a piece of cake. Now, granted I had been “off the trail”, as it were for over a year. I knew that it would require a little effort to regain my “mountain legs”. But remember all that ancestral hardiness I had going for me… and for goodness sake, this was no Everest.
The first ten feet were over a well-worn path between the boulders that formed the base of the rock pile. I looked upward to choose my direction of climb and placed my foot onto a rock, then the next and so fourth for about twenty more feet until I could sidestep onto a larger flat rock and plan the next leg. As I gazed up, the rocks seemed to be more vertical, and larger. I had to bend over and use my hands to hold on as I continued. My legs were burning now and I was breathing more heavily through my month; the cold, morning air, stinging the back of my throat. I straightened up and felt the backpack, heavy with camera gear try to pull me over backward. Lurching forward from the waist, I just barely kept my balance. I heaved a sigh and looked down. WOW! How did I get this high? This place was looking more like El Capitan than a rock pile. Below me were hundreds of boulders, all of which had sharp, broken tops waiting for the next fool to come tumbling their way. I remembered thinking the day before that these rocks were the size of basketballs…Volkswagen Beetles would have been a closer assumption.
Now with careful attention to my top-heavy condition, I virtually crawled upward, from handhold to crevice, finding whatever little space would accept my foot. I thought about the great pictures I would get from the top and that wonderful home-brewed Dunkin Donuts coffee in my pack. After a short rest, and deciding that it was not in my best interest to look down, I continued upward. The sun was over the horizon now and the sky had brightened. Then I hit a wide gap between two boulders. I needed to carefully bridge the gap without twisting an ankle or letting a hand slip from its respective hold. I swung my body across and as I did, my Tilly flipped around now covering my face. I could not let go to remove it and I could not see to continue. Then to add to my condition, the tripod also flipped toward my front causing it to collide with my right elbow. My legs were burning from every muscle. My elbow was throbbing and the only thing that I could see was a tag containing the washing instructions for my hat. Spread-eagled as I was, it seemed prudent to stop and survey the problem, to step back, mentally if certainly not physically and gather myself. I wondered where things had gone wrong. Where was all of that ancestral fortitude? Why had this small mound of rocks grown into Tuckerman Ravine? And what in the name of all the mountain-loving world was I doing here? Then a single small pebble under my feet gave way causing its neighbors to join in the fun and my foot and Mt. Washington parted company.
You know how they say that just as you are about to die your life flashes before you? Well it’s not true! Only the stupid and dumb parts parade themselves. You remember the countless other times that you let yourself be fooled into doing crazy things, things that any other person with the common sense to zip up his fly would avoid. So finally, although I had not reached much more than half way to the top, I decided to retreat and live to photograph another day. I raised my dangling foot and searched for another footing. With some effort, being virtually blind and all, I managed to swing myself onto a wide rock where I could sit and reposition my hat and tripod. Then I looked down and the realization of the situation hit me. How was I going to climb down from this eagles perch? I had no doubt that the trip down would be a lot harder then the ascent. I remembered the rock-climbers at Yosemite. Idiots! Crazy, self-destructive, delusional Idiots! I remembered the mountain goats that I watched scale the cliffs near Jasper. How was it that across eons of time they had not risen to the top of the animal world? Perhaps we would all be better off had they done so. At this point I would have enjoyed the friendship and know-how of those shaggy beasts. Then those evolutionary forces come to bare and I remembered the tripod. I could extend one of its legs so that it could act as a hiking stick, a virtual third foot. That would give me the stability I needed to get down.
It took a while, and much careful and deliberate planning, but I managed to return to terra firma again. My body ached. Sweat was pouring from every pour, not so much from the exercise as from the fact that the temperature had risen twenty degrees now and the down jacket was overwhelming. I removed it, took in a few deep breaths and started toward the parking lot, a wiser man. As I walked along the trail, I met a woman fumbling with a small camera. Noticing my tripod and surmising that I must be a true photographer, out so early and all, she asked if she might get some advice. She had some poor results in capturing the light on the mountains. I suggested that she get a neutral-density filter to shade the bright sky. I took one from my bag and placed it in front of her lens to show her the result. She was most thankful. Then she said, “Were you just coming off of that rock pile?” I nodded and told her of my decision to turn back halfway up. She gave an affirming expression and then informed me that had I continued on this same trail, it would have led to a lookout just to the left and above the rock pile. “I think you will find it an excellent and easy to reach place from which to capture the sunrise on the mountains”, she said. Now, feeling completely foolish, I bid her a good day, crossed the parking lot, and packed away my gear and extra clothing. I climbed in behind the steering wheel and as I looked down to fasten my seat belt, I noticed that my fly was open.