Day 6: August 4, 2010
We had a team best wakeup time and were out of Pembina Provincial Park by 9:30am. With Jasper a mere 2 hours west, we were ramped up for the start of the real mountain wilderness. Big West Country continued to serenade us with songs like “I’m good at drinkin beer.”
Arriving at the Jasper gatehouse by noon, I went snap happy with the new landscape. Pulling off the main road a few kilometres in, we made an “on the fly decision” (as most of ours seem to be) to check out the Miette Hot Springs. Stopping at hot springs had been on my to-do list since that first post on “43 things” so we made it our first adventure in Jasper National Park. After giving correct, but apparently ‘lost in translation’ directions to an unhappy French family, we decided to do a quick hike beyond the springs to “earn” our hot soak. We tossed on our running shoes and loaded up on bug spray, and believe it or not, I- the neurotic planner- didn’t even stop to look at the details of the route at the trailhead. I did notice it would be a 5km trail (one way), offering “panoramic views,” but elected not to share this with the boys for fear of them backing out and heading straight for the spring pools instead. Ten minutes into the trek Storm says, “This is great. So are the springs just at the end of this here?”
“Ah....no. We passed them on our way onto the trail,” I reply.
“Oh! No kidding,” he says. And we keep going.
At the thirty minute mark (what ended up being 1/6th of the way up) we pause and glance up.
“You think that’s the peak we’re headed to?” asks Storm pointing upwards.
“Ya, looks like it could be,” agree Smith and I.
“I dare you to go straight up from here,” I challenge Storm.
“Ya?” Storm says with a grin. And then he was gone- straight up through thick brush and steep inclines. In a bathing suit, with no shirt on.
Smith and I laugh and watch as Storm disappeared into the trees.
We turn and keep walking, half expecting Storm to be racing to catch up with us when his attempt fails, but also joking about a mountain-top rendezvous should he succeed. We continue climbing, and frequently find ourselves thinking we’re almost at the top... but not quite. More and more time passes, and Smith and I agree that Storm has likely encountered rocky cliffs or bears and was forced to turn back, and would be trailing us by at least an hour. As we trek on, we see that the trail has veered far from the peak we were originally scoping out. The peak that Storm was “heading for.”
At the 2.5 hour mark, Smith and I pause, still thick in the trees but with far-reaching views of the valley and the hot spring pools below. Smith looks across the valley and jokingly says, “Oh look, there’s Andrew.” I glance across at the next mountain over, taking in the thick forest as it transitioned to the rocky hardscape.
“Oh my god. It is Andrew [Storm],” says Smith.
I look up again more closely and spot the half-naked man standing mountainside slowly moving upward.
“HEY! ANDREW!” bellows Smith.
The figure stops moving. I would assume he turned out toward us to see us, madly flailing our arms. We were still amongst thick brush and knew we’d be hard to see.
“OH! HEY!” Storm calls back, “IF I GO DOWN FROM HERE,” he says, pointing directly below him, “WILL I MEET UP WITH YOUR TRAIL?”
Smith and I look at each other, not just shocked that we’d seen him by such chance, but laughing at the fact that he’d ended up on the wrong mountain nearly 2 kilometers away.
“AHHH... NO MAN, I THINK YOU SHOULD JUST GO BACK THE WAY YOU CAME. AND WATCH OUT FOR BEARS!” hollars Smith. The echo of his message travels crystal clear through the mountain air.
“OH, OKAY. MEET YOU BACK AT THE BOTTOM THEN!” replies Storm.
And off we went.
It was over another hour before Smith and I made it to the top of the Sulphur Ridge, a 5km route ascending to 2070m. It was definitely a more aggressive hike than we’d anticipated, but the panoramic view at the top was entirely worthwhile. The air had chilled significantly, and soaked in sweat from the workout up, we couldn’t manage to stand in the cool wind for long. We did, however, get some great glamour shots with the local residents- incredibly friendly chipmunks eating sunflower seeds right out of our hands as if at an Ontario sideroad petting zoo.
As we started back shuffling down the shattered shale rock peak, we reached the beginnings of the mossy grasses to find Storm sitting and waiting, taking in the view.
“Well Hello!” I call out.
Storm looks up, still shirtless, but legs gashed up and sweat still dripping down his face,
“Hey guys!” he says cheerily.
“What are you doing here? Did you go down and then come back on the trail to here?” I ask.
“Ya man. The way up was brutal- I was not hiking. I was scaling rocks and grabbing trees to hold on. The way down was better, I skied the loose rocks and got down way faster. I figured I’d come meet you guys on this mountain,” Storm says.
“Wow,” we say, “Well you missed some great photo ops with the chipmunks.”
Our unanticipated mountain climb left us feeling like a hot spring dip was more than well-earned. Sitting in the middle of a valley 40 minutes off the main Jasper Park highway, the Miette Hot Springs were discovered in the late 1800’s, with timber-framed pools built soon after drawing locals and international tourists alike. Today the temperature was clocking in at 40 degrees celcius. We later learned that the supply temperature from the source spring was 54 degrees celcius. The deep smell of sulphur spread from the pools into the surrounding parking and trails, but once in the massive pools of source-fed (and cooled a tad) water, the smell was undetectable. Definitely the best hot tub, and largest, that I’ve ever been in.
We cooked up some hotdogs with hornbuck sheep tromping nearby all over the place and were back on the road by 5:30pm with Lion King blasting. The scenery was intoxicating. Aqua-marine blue waters gushing as icy rivers running amongst towering mountains draped in deep forest. The wildlife made several appearances and I got some postcard shots of a pair of caribou along a river at dusk.
We’ve made it to Kerkeslin, a quiet camp back-dropped by a fast-moving glacial river. Storm had to look up the name of this place on our park map by the crackling fire as I write, perched on a picnic table with an ice-cold Kokanee at hand. Not a bad blogspot.
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