Poboktan Creek to Maligne Lake via Maligne Pass

"The Skyline Will Have to Wait"

 
Snow on the hills - a premonition of things to come

Chuck McCafferty, Ken Willlis, Dale Macquarrie, and I drove to Jasper to start our trek through Maligne Pass and on to the Skyline trail. Ken had made all the reservations. It was early August. It snowed in the mountains when we woke up in Jasper to start our hike.

Heavy Packs again.

The day we left, the weather looked quite promising. The picture above was taken at the junction where you can go north to Avalanche camp or south towards the Jonas Shoulder loop.

We finally got to Avalanche camp. The weather stopped looking promising. It started to look worrisome. The video was taken with my little Olympus still camera. I have made it as small as possible to download quicker.

During the first night it rained ....and rained. In the morning Ken stuck his head outside the tent and announced that the snow line was about 500 feet above us. We were headed to Maligne Pass which was at least that much above us. If we were going to do this hike, we were going to get wet and cold.

Going through the pass (Ken's photo)

It proved to be true. Going over the pass was an exercise in perseverence. The wind blew wet snow onto us where it stuck and formed a layer only to show how poorly our older goretext coats worked.

Just down from the pass at Mary Vaux Campsite, we tried to eat to get warm again. It partly succeeded, so once we ate a bunch, off we went headed for the Mary Schaffer campsite many kilometers ahead.

At the Mary Schaffer campsite. (Ken's photo)

The trail seemed to go on and on. Finally we rounded a bend and found oursleves at the campsite. It had a nice view to the north where our goal lay.

I have never seen so many tracks and scat on a trail (Ken's photo)

One of the many meadows on the trail (Ken's photo).

 

Trapper Creek campsite was our last camp. It was to be our last camp with the mosquitos and smoke. Dale dealt with his sock "thing", Chuck dealt with the mosquitos the best he could, and Ken was still bubbling with energy.

The next day dawned grey and threatening to rain. We did the last five kilometers to Maligne Lake and took off our packs. Ken hitch hiked to get his car, and our hike was over. The Skyline trail was going to have to wait.

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