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This story appeared in AirLines |
Whipped on the Wapta Rick Hudson
In which Vancouver Island writer Rick Hudson, now in his 50s, revisits old mountain haunts with his twenty-something daughter, and learns that it's true: "You can go back". Well, sort of.
Back when Elton John was a pinball wizard, and the Edmonton Oilers were starting a run on the Stanley Cup, and Ralph Klein was a TV weatherman, we lived in Calgary -- boomtown of the West. Things were different then. We owned a house on a lot 33.3 feet wide, and every weekend we'd escape to the Rocky Mountains, to blow five days of urban claustrophobia out of our heads.
How we lived for Friday! We'd pile in a car and follow the setting sun into the peaks, to spend two whole days summiting from Elk Pass in the south to Mt Robson in the north. The Icefields Parkway was our home away from home. In winter, it was bamboo poles with leather baskets, tarred wooden skis, woolen knickerbockers and fairisle sweaters (before the age of gortex and fleece), backpacks without waistbands … aah, I can see you're smiling and don't believe a word of it! That's OK. It may seem like a hundred years ago, if you weren't around when Pierre Trudeau was making his third comeback for the Liberals, but to me … it seems like yesterday.
Are there bugs in the Yukon? Does wheat grow on the Prairies? Have I ever skied the Wapta Icefields? Hey, I've headed out across Bow Lake from the Num-Ti-Jah Lodge more times than BC's NDPs have run a deficit.
"Want to do it again? Huh? Huh, Dad?"
So here we are, leaving the Num-Ti-Jah Lodge and crossing Bow Lake again, after all those years. How could I have missed so many seasons? How could I have left a place like this, so beautiful, for so long? I look ahead of me through the blowing snow, and I can see one half of the reason .. she's skating along on her skis, backpack (with waistbelt) piled high above her head, as though it weighs nothing at all.
At the far side of the lake she waits politely, elbows on poles, smiling. "You OK?" She asks sweetly.
"I'll be fine, just as soon as I get my rhythm," I reply, hoping like hell I still got rhythm. With all the sweat in my eyes, I'm not sure I'd see rhythm if I ran into it.
The climb up to Bow Hut takes three hours. These days we use skins on our skis. The sloping-back fur lets your ski slide forward, but stops it sliding back. It beats waxing any day. And the new skis have metal edges, to cut the steep icy sections. The poles are fiberglass and whippy, a far cry from duct-taped bamboo.
Despite all the new tech stuff, the slopes seem steeper than I remember them, and the sections longer. She waits periodically, and offers just the right amount of encouragement, without being patronizing. I'm a mixture of exhaustion and pride ... mostly I'm proud ... a chip off the old block.
The hut's changed too .. it's large and warm, with the afternoon sun streaming through many double-glazed windows. A plaque inside lists the builders' names, and I'm embarrassed to recognize most of them. We all used to ski together. So this is what old Alpine Club members do, when they're not raising a new generation of super kids!
Early the next morning we head up the glacier. It's an hour-long pull to reach the saddle above, where the Wapta Icefield opens up. Great sweeps of snow-covered glacier stretch away to the north and west and south, separated by steep peaks. There must have been a lot of erosion these past two decades … I don't recall the summits being so vertical!
No time to ponder. She is off and away, striding and gliding across a world of white with that lazy, easy rhythm of youth, the knees flexing and the shoulders swinging to an unheard beat within.
I find a rhythm of my own: "I can do this. I can do this. I can do this … heck, I hope I can still do this!"
She's skating up some of the grades. Wait a minute, we never did that! And then, on the descent from a summit, she starts a series of tight telemark turns .. left, right, left, right ... we definitely never did that! We had lace-up leather boots and hardwood edges. Look at her go .. it looks so darned easy. Except it isn't. It's not just the gear, you realize; you need rubber knees too. And rubber knees turn to clay at 40.
At the foot of the slope she waits, grinning. "You're doing great, Dad," she calls up-slope as I ricochet from protruding rock to rock. "Just bend your front knee a bit more!" Yeah, right. Genuflecting was never my strong suit, even in church. On a 30 degree slab at some insane speed, knee bends take more courage than I have.
"Very nice," she says when I arrive. "I should call you Dollar Dad." Looking at our tracks, my direct descent route has cut her elegant S-turns.
On the way back to the hut, she asks about the peaks on either side. Every one has a story, and memories flood back. Don got us lost on that one over there … couldn't cross the bergshrund to that summit one winter … climbed that one once in a white-out, using just a compass … made the first ski descent from that col, and would never do it again … heck, we had some days up here among the clouds.
The weather stays down for several days. Each morning we hope for blue sky, and each day we head out into a world of swirling white. But the spring days are warm, and there are magical glimpses through clouds to where dark rock and ice faces stand. To me, these are old friends, but to her they are all new, all exciting. She wants to know about everything, and it reminds me of when I felt like that … fresh and wonderful.
The wind and cloud refuse to disappear. Well, that's the Wapta for you. We'd hoped to traverse to two other huts, before descending to the Kicking Horse Pass, but with no views, there seems no point. Instead, on the fourth morning, we descend the way we came up. Back at Bow Lake, the weather is clearer, the wind almost still, but we aren't fooled for a minute. Behind us, the icefield is still socked in, and dark shadows race across the few snow slopes we can see.
At the car, she has taken off her skis and unpacked her gear by the time I struggle in.
"That was a wonderful trip," she says. "Thanks, Dad, for taking me."
Anytime, sweetheart.
When staying within the Park, you must have a Park Use Permit, available at Park entrances and offices: $10 daily, $70 annually.
For further reading, see "Summits & Icefields: Alpine Ski Tours in the Rockies and Columbia Mountains of Canada" ($15.00) by Chic Scott, who also runs tours. There are numerous other guiding outfits who operate Wapta ski trips.
Most of the Parks' mountain huts are operated by the Alpine Club of Canada. The national office is open 9:00am - 8:00pm, seven days a week, phone (403) 678-3200 and press 1, fax (403) 678-3224, or at alpclub@telusplanet.net. Fees range from $8-23/night. Many huts are locked, so make sure you have both a reservation and a lock combination before setting out.
The Wapta Icefields lie some 50 km north of Lake Louise on the BC-Alberta border, and average 2,400 m in elevation. The summits range from 3,000-3,400m, and most can be reached with just an axe, crampons, and rope. This is the good place for strong novices to learn glacier touring. Popular in the winter and spring, there are five huts sited around the Icefields, meaning you can reach a new hut every day, weather permitting. However, groups may encounter snow storms (even in summer), whiteout conditions (very common), avalanches (in some areas), icefalls, and crevasses.
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