Thurs./Fri.
27/28 December: To the Point
I
had been planning this short trip for some time. The temperatures had been frigid for a couple
of weeks, but then I noticed a sudden warming trend in the forecast, and so
hurriedly put my plan into place. The
definition of “cold” and “warm” has a different meaning in December in the
Canadian Rockies. To me, cold means
minus twenty C and below. Warm means
perhaps around ten degrees below freezing.
My
planning had included checking the rating of my goose down sleeping bag (minus
10 C), adding an outer and inner bag, buying a small snow shovel, and carefully
preparing my camping list. When I laid
out the gear I thought I needed for the trip, I had about twice as much as I
could carry. Even after some major
reductions, I was left with a backpack which weighed between 50 and 55 pounds –
much heavier than I have carried since my younger days in Scotland, well over
three decades ago. I was confident I
could carry it the relatively short distance needed to reach my campsite. It was heavy, but I managed it alright.
The
idea was to snowshoe westwards along the northern shore of the Upper Kananaskis
Lake, to the Point
back-country campsite, a journey of about three and a half kilometres. I knew the area well, so was confident of my
route. I would stay either one or two nights,
perhaps exploring locally, but staying close to the campsite which was safe
from avalanches. There can hardly be a
more spectacular setting for a campsite than Point. There are twenty sites spread out in the
trees on a peninsula of land stretching out into the wide lake. All around are spectacular mountains, several
of them rising to well over ten thousand feet.
I was expecting there to be snow on the ground, but was perhaps a little
surprised to find how much snow had already accumulated.
I
could tell that nobody had camped here recently, although a set of snowshoe
prints showed where at least one day tripper had travelled through the campsite. I chose the only really sensible site, which
was adjacent to the snow-covered wood-pile and the elevated cylindrical
biffy. There must have been a foot of
snow lying on the ground, and so my first task was to shovel off the picnic
table and tramp down the snow to make a tent base. And, of course, I needed to start a fire as
it was still around minus twelve degrees that morning.
The
fire proved to be a challenge. I had
carried a complete fire log with me, thinking it would be good for two nights
as well as two morning fires. In the
end, I used the whole log up, just to get the fire started. I worked on the fire patiently for an hour or
more, chipping logs with my axe to make kindling, and it finally caught. There was a lot more smoke than fire, and it
looked as if it had gone out several times.
It never did amount to much, but was just enough to warm up my feet.
I
strolled through the snowy campsite, down the hillside to the upper section of
the lake, to admire the fine mountain winter landscapes. Towering above me were Mount
Sarrail (10,413 ft.) and Mount Lyautey
(10,112 ft.). The lake certainly looked
safe enough to walk on, but I had been warned of strange currents, so I stayed
on the shoreline.
Later
in the afternoon, some swirling gusts of wind blew the snow off the trees and
into my camp, but overall it was a calm, sunny day here below the Great Divide
wall. I cooked up some delicious turkey
slices and L’s home made gravy, followed by some fresh fruit and
chocolate. It was a very early night for
me.
The
big test of course was whether I would be warm enough overnight. It was a clear night, with temperatures
dropping to around minus fourteen C with gusts of wind giving a wind chill of
below minus twenty. My tent was pitched
on the packed snow. The first layer
inside my tent was my silver emergency blanket, followed by my inflatable insulated
mat. Then my sleeping bag with its outer
liner and inner fleece liner. When goose
down gets wet, it loses its insulation values, so the outer liner keeps it
dry. This worked really well. Overnight
the frost formed inside the tent, coating the inside of the tent roof. My bag remained dry. It took a while for me to warm up, but this
sleeping arrangement worked well and I remained warm, as long as I wore my
wooly hat and kept my face covered under the hood of my sleeping bag.
It
was a cloudless night, and, as I discovered afterwards, a full moon. The moon rose in the northwest around 4.30 p.m.
and shone brightly across the campsite all night. This date also marks the latest sunrise of
the year (8.40 a.m.), although a beautiful light-blue dawn light was shining
through the trees almost an hour earlier.
I had survived the winter camping test.
It
took a little while for my stove to heat up the porridge, as it had been cold
enough to freeze the gas line, but it did the job in the end. The fire had burned some of the night but I
could not revive it, and my feet were getting cold. So I decided that one night out here would be
quite enough! After making an efficient
job of striking camp, I was on the trail before ten a.m.
I
noticed that the trail which leads from the campsite to the Lower Kananaskis
Falls was free of any
footprints, either human or animal. The
snow lay across the path, and I only gave short consideration to extending my trip
to the Falls. However, I was bold enough
to drop down to the lake and follow a snowed-in trail back along the edge of
the lake. This was a magical journey,
first beside the frozen lake, then up over a hillside, before returning to the lakeside
again. Over three kilometres of rocky
shoreline, with stunning all-round views of the wintry mountain scene. This route also saved me the climb up through
the boulder field and back down to the lake.
As
I came within sight of the trailhead, I saw three guys striding out across the
middle of the lake, towards the Hidden
Lake shore. I was still tempted to travel out to one of
the islands, but stayed on the shoreline.
In the bay beside the car park, a couple of ice fishing tents were
erected on the ice, and a small party of people was preparing for a day’s
fishing.
Arriving
back at the car, I dropped my heavy pack on the ground with some relief. A lady and three male colleagues were curious
to know if I had been out overnight and I think they were somewhat in awe that
I had been camping in the snowy wilderness.
Their plan was to do a short snowshoe trip to Rawson Lake. It dawned on me too late that they were
starting at the wrong car park, so I hope they realized their mistake early enough
to correct it.
In
the meantime, I was glad to clamber into the car and return slowly back up the Kananaskis Valley and out onto the Trans-Canada Highway. It was a stunning winter’s day, cloudless, and
there were many vehicles heading down into the valley as I drove north. The cross-country ski trails would be busy
today, as well as the ski hill at Nakiska.
I
had achieved my goal, which for me had been a stretch. My planning had been successful, the gear had
worked (apart from the iced up stove), and I had enjoyed the experience of a
winter’s night out in the snowy wilderness of Kananaskis Country. And it gave me the opportunity to add more
landscape photos to the growing collection of pictures that nobody will ever
look at!
Statistics
(round trip)
|
The Point, Upper K. Lake
|
Thurs./Fri. 27/28
December
|
Total
Dist.
|
7.4
km (‘shoe)
|
Height
Gain
|
150 ft.
|
Max.
Elev.
|
5,760 ft.
|
Time
on trail
|
3
hrs. 13 mins.
|
Other Stats.
|
Thursday:
Dep.
car: 9.53 am
The
Point: 11.20 am
Friday:
Dep.
camp: 9.50 am
Arr.
car: 11.36 am
|
O/night
temperatures around minus 14 C with wind chills down to minus 24 C.
Sunny,
light W breeze, gusting at night.
|
