Backpacking the Iceline Trail, Yoho National Park, BC

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OwnerMITOC Gallery Administrator
Creation Date2005-08-25 16:31:44 UTC-0400
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    Backpacking the Iceline Trail, Yoho National Park, BC

    The Lovells were very good to us, and fed us well and even lent us their car for our trip! Summer and I drove up from Seattle and across British Columbia to the town of Field, the headquarters for Yoho National Park. There, we worked with a wonderful park ranger (thanks Larissa!) to set up backcountry camping permits. We chose a trip based around the Iceline Trail after closely considering hikes along the Rockwall in Kootenay to the south, and Skoki Valley just north of Banff. We got a TON of good info there, and were all set.

    We camped at Monarch, a drive-in campsite, for the first night. The next day, we were off to our first campsite at Yoho Lake. We started out next to the Whiskey Jack hostel (note: make reservations next time) and across from the amazing Takkakaw Falls, one of the tallest waterfalls in Canada. The beautiful campsite wasn't too far in, so we pitched camp and then went on a dayhike around to Mt. Burgess, which apparently used to be on Canadian currency. On the way, we saw the Presidents Range (a bit more impressive than our own Presidential Range, I must say), and got several views of marmots, pika (wild hampsters!) and Emerald Lake. Very, very nice. Just above the trail we took (Wapta Highline) were the Burgess Shale beds, home of some of the earliest fossils ever found and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It's off limits to hikers not in a guided group. Gorgeous side trip--Summer brought her sketch pad and did some sketching of the view.

    Next day, we started up and over the Iceline, the center of the trip which took us across the feet of several glaciers and the morraines they left behind. It was one of those hikes that leaves you absolutely breathless from the sheer beauty, and really doesn't come across at all in pictures. Seriously...pictures do it no justice, but anyone who's been there will swear up and down how gorgeous it is. Unfortunately, we didn't have great weather for the trip across, but the weather did stabilize for our trip above treeline and didn't start raining until we got below. Phenomenal.

    Little Yoho, the most popular camp right at the end of Iceline, was booked up, so we continued on towards Twin Falls, picking loads of blueberries and huckleberries the whole time. We visited the Twin Falls Chalet, as well as the Canadian Alpine Club hut in Little Yoho Valley--nice places filled with guests that look like they paid nice prices! One couple we met were staying at the ACC hut for two weeks!

    Twin Falls was also a nice camp, right on the creek down from the Twin Falls. The nice thing about all of the "backcountry" sites that we saw was that they were fairly developed--some had specific tent pads, they all had really nice bear poles (reminded me of a marine flagstaff), outhouses (one even had a Clivus like Camelot!) and even--get this--rudimentary picnic tables. Not quite roughing it, but it was nice to have both those amenities and the decreased traffic and wear and tear on the area as a result of the permit process.
    We spent the next day being lazy, picking berries, making berry pancakes (a la Dorthy and Gunther, as they showed me at Acadia), and kicking around. We eventually made our way back down the valley to Takkakaw Falls to get ready for our next trip over to Lake O'Hara after many, many berry breaks.