THE LORAX
“I am the Lorax.
I speak for the trees!”
From
“The Lorax”, by Dr. Suess
The French word of the day is “Cloches”, which translates to “bells” in English. As in, hikers adorned with cloches are very annoying, and often sound like Santa Claus and his reindeer coming through the woods.
On Tuesday, we hiked to Lake
Helen and Cirque Peak. Cirque Peak is
located near Bow Lake, off of the Icefields Parkway north of Lake Louise. Cirque Peak stands 9819’ above sea level,
and was the highest elevation we attained in our 4 weeks in the Canadian
Rockies. It provided what was probably
the best scenery of the entire trip.
Coincidentally, it was probably the hardest hike we did. In addition to the incredible scenery, we
had a near miss with what would’ve been an exciting wildlife encounter, and a
“celebrity” wildlife encounter that was quite unique.
We were up early, and fueled
up on a hearty breakfast of eggs, ham, and cheese on bagels. We’d need a lot of energy for the hike,
which would be 11 miles with a 3400’ elevation gain, some of it off-trail. We left the campground, and were relieved to
see that the previous night’s storm had cleared out.
We drove to the trailhead,
which is across from the Crowfoot Glacier Overlook above Bow Lake on the
Icefields Parkway. It was already 9:30,
but it was still shockingly cold in the parking lot. We both hoped it would warm up by the time we made it to
treeline.
That only took a little over
an hour, as we climbed through the woods towards Lake Helen. The first section of trail wasn’t terribly
exciting, but bunches of sunflowers and occasional views of the Crowfoot
Glacier kept things interesting. A
steep set of switchbacks led to better views south, and we quickly found
ourselves in the sub-alpine forest that indicated we were approaching treeline.
Sub-alpine forest is a
favorite haunt of grizzly bears. We
probably should’ve had our guard up, but I was mainly focused on getting out of
the woods to get our first view of the mountain we planned to climb. We passed around the end of a ridge, hiking
high above Helen Creek, when we caught up to a group of 5 women. A couple of them were nearly hysterical. They had just seen a grizzly bear at close
range! When it saw them, it ran over
the ridge immediately above us. Christy
and I were disappointed – we had missed it by less than a minute. The panicky women in the group wanted to
turn around – and head back in the direction the bear had gone. We agreed to hike with them for a while,
since there is some safety in numbers.
This quickly became tedious.
They were moving slow, and we still had a big day ahead of us. Plus, several of them were carrying those
damn bear bells. Do you know what the
purpose of bear bells is? So the bear
knows when it’s time for dinner!
We put up with this for a
little while, but once we were fully above treeline and visibility was
unlimited, the danger was clearly over.
At that point, we left them behind, which made me feel guilty for about
10 seconds. Later, we heard them blowing
whistles. Now what was that all
about? The only other thing they needed
were kazoos, and maybe a big bass drum.
Then they could’ve had a parade.
We reached a crossing of
Helen Creek, where we discovered exceptionally slippery rocks. We found a better place to rock hop
immediately upstream. One more short
climb brought us to the shores of Lake Helen.
The lake itself was a little disappointing, but the surrounding scenery
made up for it. Sheer peaks, some
decorated with glaciers, towered around us in every direction.
We improved on the view by
following the trail to the ridge above the lake. We switchbacked quickly upwards, but should’ve gone left at an
unmarked fork in the trail. Instead we
took a long-cut that brought us to crest of the ridge well south of the
departure point for climbing the peak.
It was already noon, so we stopped for a brief lunch. We didn’t linger long though, as it was cold
and windy spot. The scenery here is
very stark. We looked out over a
moonscape of rock as we huddled out of the wind.
From there, we had a great
view of what was still to come. Namely,
a 1600’ climb over perhaps a mile on a steep, untracked ridge. Christy wasn’t entirely convinced the she wanted
to attempt it, but decided to start towards the peak and see how it went. I knew once she started on it, she’d never
quit until she reached the top.
Our first challenge was
getting on the approach ridge. It’s
guarded by a band of steep rock that requires some scrambling. We curved around a small tarn, and headed
towards the nose of the ridge. We found
some cairns, which we followed to the nose of the ridge, and beyond. Soon we were dangling from a ledge on the
west side of the ridge, with steep rock above us and a long fall below. It wasn’t long before I decided that we had
erred. Christy’s resolve for climbing
the peak wavered, and we considered turning back. After much debate, we decided to scramble up to the top of the
ridge, which was only 30 or 40 feet above.
The scramble wasn’t as bad as it looked, though it was still much more
difficult than it needed to be. If we
had simply gone straight up the nose of the ridge, it would’ve been much
easier, and safer. Later, on our
return, I removed the errant cairn that had led us into taking the wrong route.
Once on the ridge, we
actually had some easy walking. The
ridge climbed gently, and the scree underfoot was soft, almost like sand. This didn’t last long. Soon we were climbing steeply, and the scree
eventually gave way to loose talus. We
zig-zagged back and forth across the ridge in a futile effort at making our own
switchbacks. It didn’t help. We were both struggling, and battling
altitude-induced headaches to boot. An
icy wind blowing from the west felt like the onset of winter. Despite our exertion, we climbed with hats
and gloves on. We were about halfway up
when a solo European hiker galloped by, leaving us in a cloud of dust.
We renewed our efforts, and
were rewarded with a climb of steep boulder field. The rocks were loose, and most of our steps upward ended with us
sliding back down on a surfboard of rock.
Making progress was slow and frustrating. Once again we had to zig zag back and forth across the
slope. Climbing over all those rocks
was tedious, but the summit was coming closer.
Plus, the ever-expanding views drove us on. Already we could see mountains, glaciers, and lakes in almost
every direction.
We finally reached the base
of a cliff just short of the summit where the footing was better. This led to a steep chute that required a
little more scrambling. After one final
push, we found ourselves on the south summit.
There we sat, on a narrow pinnacle of rock, towering above a scene of amazing
beauty. There was nothing but snow,
ice, and jagged peaks in every direction.
It may well have been the best view I’ve ever seen.
The guy that had passed us
and another hiker were on the north peak.
A few minutes later, they joined us on the south summit. Oddly, the second hiker, who claimed to be
from somewhere in the vicinity of Calgary, was accompanied by the Lorax. The Lorax was posing as this person’s dog,
but he couldn’t fool us. Apparently he
lives in the Canadian Rockies because he enjoys the clean air. I guess I really shouldn’t be
surprised. If I was the Lorax, that’s
where I’d live, too. I have few regrets
from our trip, but one is not getting a photo of the Lorax. After all, it’s not every day that you get a
celebrity wildlife sighting. This is
only circumstantial evidence, but we did see something on the hike out that
corroborates our story. Truffula
Trees. We saw them frequently on our
trip, usually near treeline. It should
be noted that due to a misunderstanding of scale surrounding Dr. Seuss’ book
and movie, Truffula Trees are in fact only about a foot tall.
Incidentally, Truffula Trees
are often called by their proper, scientific name, which is Drummond’s
Anemone. That didn’t fool us
though. We know Truffula Trees when we
see them.
We hung out on the summit
for over an hour, enjoying the view and conversing with the Lorax. We talked about the merits of clean air, and
why he had moved all the way to Canada to find it. For any readers who think this whole thing may have been an
altitude and exhaustion induced delusion, well, I guess you just had to be
there.
The Lorax and the other
hikers eventually headed down, but we found Cirque Peak a hard place to
leave. I wandered over to the north
peak, where I signed the summit register.
I eventually rejoined Christy, and building clouds to the northwest
finally convinced us to head down. The
descent wasn’t nearly as bad as we feared.
We scrambled past the worst of the talus, and then just slid through the
scree. This was easier on the knees
than moving cautiously, and somehow we made it down without falling. We followed a better route down the nose of
the ridge, and before long, were passing Lake Helen. We kept an eye out for bears, and parades of panicky women, but
saw neither heading out.
The last two miles through
the woods seemed to stretch out for an eternity, as the end of long, difficult
hikes often do. We finally made it to
the car, and headed for Banff to get groceries. We were almost back to the campground, when we passed two black
bear along the side of the parkway. We
had missed out on the grizzly, but at least we got to see a couple of
bears. We feasted that night on grilled
salmon, rice, and salad. It was a meal
well-deserved, after a beautiful but demanding hike.
Continue reading about our adventures in Canada, as we take a rest day in Banff, before an easy hike to the waterfalls of Johnston Canyon.
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Please remember to Leave No Trace!