On Wednesday January 18 my dad and I left for the Columbia Icefields. We were planning to leave two days earlier, but were held up by work and weather. We drove to Blue River and spent the night there. The next morning we drove to Jasper and bought a backcountry camping permit. We then headed to the Icefield Parkway. We parked at the Big Bend. We left our car at 2 pm. This was my first trip using a sled to haul gear. We skinned until it was almost dark, we still couldn’t see the Saskatchewan Glacier our entry point to the icefield. When setting up our camp we heard a rumbling and looked around. About 500 meters away from our camp, we saw a cloud of snow flowing down the slope. We looked on with amazement because we knew we were safe, we were on a flat plane that the avalanche could not reach. That was the first time I have seen an avalanche happen. This mixed with all of the instability signs on the way up told us that we would not be able to go on slope that could slide. That night when I walked out of the tent I felt like I was on the moon. I was wearing down booties, which felt super light compared to my ski boots, I could only see the snow in front of me because we were encased in clouds.
In the morning we packed up our camp and skinned the extremely flat way to a moraine where we would practice crevasse rescue. This was not the first time I had watched crevasse rescue practice, but this time I needed to be able to replicate it well. My dad dug an anchor and performed “rescue”. After that I started at transferring the load and completed the rescue with hints from my dad. We ate and started again towards the glacier. We crossed a stretch of land with wind affected snow and dirt.
We started up the glacier and I was glad for the incline in steepness because I felt like I was getting somewhere. However, the slope soon mellowed out and I felt like I wasn’t moving at all. I kept waiting to come over the bump in front of us but the dark came first. We stopped before passing under a rock face with ice on top. We didn’t want to continue because if we needed to stopped we could be hit by falling ice. That night was my highest camp ever, 2200 meters. I had noticed that I was getting hot spots on my feet that could develop into blisters. I didn’t think much of them though because they felt very minor. In the morning we packed up camp and started uphill. I kept looking up and saying to myself, we will reach the top of this bump soon. My dad said, in thirty minutes we will have a new view, about time. We passed the ice fall area and Mt. Columbia came into view. It looked so far away. Thinking about having to go that far was exhausting, but I was upset that I wouldn’t be able to stand on top of the highest peak in Alberta because of the avalanche danger. About an hour after we left our camp my ad decided to stop and set up camp. We were planning on continuing with light packs and try to summit Snowdome. We set up our camp and had lunch. At about 12:30 we left our camp. I felt like I was floating because my pack was so light. As we walked I looked around and saw the peak of Castlegaurd and my dad was pointing out numerous summit including Athabasca. Farther along we saw Athabasca glacier. I looked longingly at the short ascent that was necessary from that approach, but I would rather walk for a while longer than be crushed by ice and never walk again.
Even with our light packs the hike seemed long. My mindset was not the best and I didn’t like the slow walk. The low angle was very annoying and I didn’t feel like I was moving at all. I knew I shouldn’t be tired, but I felt very tired. As we continued my mind game became worse and I was not enjoying myself. This sucked quite a lot because I new I was in one of the most amazing places I had ever been, wanted to go as far as possible. That climb showed me that your brain can make climbing very difficult. I knew I shouldn’t be as tired as I felt and I wasn’t enjoying myself. It made me realize I need to exercise more when I do not feel like it, to get used to it. When you are in the mountains you can’t just move on the days you feel good. Lots of the time the weather doesn’t correspond with your feelings. Some rest days you may feel super hyped and other long hiking days you may feel horrible. Looking up at Snowdome 2 hours into our hike I knew I wouldn’t be able to make it to the top. This feeling was horrible because I knew if I gave it my all I could make it to the top, but I didn’t want to give it my all. This made me think of what I would do if this feeling came on Mt. Logan. I hated thinking about that. At about 2:30 I told my dad I couldn’t make it to the top and we started to the left a little in hope of a new view. At 3:15 we still couldn’t see over the other side of the bump we were ascending. I asked if we could stop because my feet were hurting quite a bit. We stopped and looked around. It was incredible, unlike any other view I had ever seen before. I was stunned by how different the Rockies looked than the coastal mountains. We looked out at Castlegaurd and Columbia. We were at 3100 m, higher than the summit of Caslegaurd. We took videos and pictures while we ate and took off our skins.
As we started sliding down we could feel our skis sticking to the snow, we had warm wax on, not cold wax. The top section was the steepest part and I was fairly good skiing, however it only lasted 100 meters. After this the “descent” was almost flat. We unlocked our heels so that we were able to walk along in a cross country ski like manner. By now I could feel the blisters on my feet rubbing. They felt hot and raw. I walked along trying to get as much glide as possible, I couldn’t get very much. I switched from double poling to walking for a long time. Looking down I was glad that we were descending, but my feet were super sore. There were some sections where we could glide for a minute, those were very nice. Eventually we saw our camp and I was very glad. We reached it and saw that it had taken us an hour to descend 700 meters. That night my feet were sensitive to touch. I left the tape and band aids on so that I wouldn’t pop any of the blisters. We talked about our plan for tomorrow. If my feet were feeling good and he weather was ok we would go up Castlegaurd. That night was my highest ever, I had an ok sleep. I had discovered that my thermarest had a hole in it. We wouldn’t be able to find it so I had to re-pump it up with my hands whenever I awoke and was cold (the thermarest provides a lot of insulation). In the morning the sun came out, that made us very happy. However, there were quite a few lingering clouds that we might come in. I wasn’t sure how well my feet would be able to handle hiking. We ate and prepared for our day. The two options were to go up Castlegaurd and then down as far as we could, or practice crevasse rescue and go down. My feet were sore, but I wouldn’t be able to tell for sure until I put my ski boots on. The previous cold mornings showed us that my boots are extremely stiff and hard to get on when cold. This would be a problem when being in cold conditions for a long period of time. My dad helped me get my boots on. I walked around for a few step and didn’t think I would be able to climb quickly and descend very far. I took off my ski boot, put on my down booties and we prepared to practice crevasse rescue.
This time I would be doing everything, from stopping the “fall” to hauling out the “victim” (a pair of skis and a bag). It took me quite a while to make the anchor because I dug it a bit too big. That was the part that I found the easiest because it didn’t involve knots. I am not great at remembering how to tie knots and which ones are used when. I transferred the load with a little reminder. After this I continued fairly well. I needed pointers, but I remembered much more than last time. The was still out and my spirits were much better than yesterday. When I was done with the crevasse rescue I started to pack up. I finished almost everything and then I did a avalanche rescue practice. When that was done we packed up the rest of our stuff and glanced around.
The view was definitely what I would miss the most. I knew my feet would become very sore, but also probably kind off numb. The first steps were pretty bad, though after a while they got slightly better, I was used to the pain a little. Because the sun was out, the snow was warmer and our skis were more slippery. The sleds didn’t prove very difficult because the angle was so low. I continually looked around as we descended. the sun was bright and the snow was glistening.
At the toe of the glacier the slope was steeper. When my dad hit the dirty snow he stumbled because he was going fairly fast. We decided that from here till the moraine we would take off our skis. We strapped then to our sleds and set off. This felt much better on my feet because the motion was different, my heels were touching first not my toes. We saw that some other people had been here. They hadn’t quite reached the glacier though. My dad took many videos and photos here. The sun was receding behind the mountains and the lighting was incredible. There were some patches of snow that we sunk into, but for he most park we were walking on dirt, ice or hard snow.
By the time we reached the moraine the sun was gone. We put our skis and started going again. Now my feet were pretty numb so I walked pretty normally. We passed our first camp and I noticed that people who came up here were cross county skiing. The tracks had the tell tale pattern of fish scales. As the angle became uphill we stopped and put on our skins and transceivers. We had a climb of about a half an hour and then we would descend to the clearing near the highway. We also took out our head lamps as the light was fading quickly. We reached the logging road we had come in on and started uphill. Now I wasn’t thinking about my feet I was just moving forward. Soon, we the road started to descend. We could glide for the most part and didn’t have to take very many steps. My sled was tipping over sometimes and turning sideways because of the fairly narrow path. Once we were close to the clearing there was snow shoe tracks. We reached clearing and it was dark. I looked at the stars and smiled. I loved the stars with the mountains. We set up our camp and ate dinner. This was definitely our latest night. We planned to not cook in the morning and just head out. The walk out from here would only take us about half and hour. That night I had a very bad sleep. I was awake fro a very long time. After what seemed like an eternity my dad shook me. It was still dark so it was very early, I checked my watch, 4:10. I was surprised at how early we were leaving, we had planned on 7. However since I had a bad sleep anyway I was fine with going out now. We packed up pretty quickly and started to walk. We reached a junction in the path. We saw that no one else had taken our trail, so we expected the other trail to be shorter. We took the other trail and eventually came to where the river was. The tracks went beside the river for a while. After crossing we were right at our car. We loaded up the car and sat down. I took off my boots, then socks, then band aids and tape. I had one popped blisters, and two other sets of blisters.
One of the blisters was pretty big, it stuck out by 2 centimetres. Every time I go into the backcountry I learn something new, this trip I learned to add tape to your feet immediately when you feel a potential hot spot.