Hiking the Iceline Trail

November 24, 2023July 11, 2024 / Maria / 1 Comment

We’d already hiked both the Rockwall Trail and Lake O’Hara, but we still had time for one more adventure before leaving the Rockies. The first half of the trip was centered around Kootenay National Park and the second half was centered around Yoho National Park, so I wanted to do another iconic hike in Yoho. The other hike everyone seems to mention is the Iceline Trail. It’s fairly popular, but I’d never heard about it until this year, so I was happy to check it out.

It’s a 20km trail, so it’s a full day commitment. There are several camping options along the trail, so you can turn it into a multi day trip, but we hadn’t booked any sites in advance and by this point, we’d had enough camping. So we decided to tackle the entire trail as a day hike.

We got up early in Golden to a very foggy morning. The rain was finally gone from the forecast and we were hoping for sun later in the day, but early on we couldn’t really see anything through the fog. We decided to go anyways and drove back through the park to get to the trailhead. It was pretty empty when we arrived and Takakkaw Falls (which is where the trail starts) was pretty must lost in the fog. But it was definitely thinning and we could see the sun starting to shine through.

We started hiking around 9am. The nice thing about the Iceline Trail is that, even though it’s long, it’s a loop trail, so you don’t have to repeat any terrain. We decided to start with the big climb up to the alpine. As we climbed up through the trees, the fog continued to thin until eventually we got above the clouds and could see the surrounding mountains, glaciers, and Takakkaw Falls. It’s pretty easy to guess where the Iceline Trail takes it’s name from because you’re basically hiking along all the facets of the Emerald Glacier for several hours.

You start with about 550m of elevation gain over 4km, but it doesn’t take long to get above the treeline and once you hit the alpine, there’s ~8km of exposed trail with gorgeous views. I think this would be a tough hike on a really hot day because there’s absolutely no shade anywhere, but it was September and still really cool, so we didn’t have any problems with the heat and wore long sleeves and pants all day.

After we got up to the alpine, we took a short break and Brandon eyed up the glaciers while I had a snack. You can’t actually touch any of the glaciers on the hike and he was really keen to hike closer to them. We debated the merits of this and what approach to take for a while. I’m pretty risk adverse and my gut reaction is always to decline any risky kind of exploration. But I couldn’t deny that I wanted to get closer to them as well. The problem is that there’s no trail up to the glaciers and the terrain is a bit challenging.

From afar, the terrain looks like a series of giant steps. You can tell that up close it’s likely a lot more varied than it looks from a far, so we debated how to tackle the problem. I agreed to make an attempt at it and we gave ourselves an hour to mess around before continuing the hike (it’s a 20km trail, so we didn’t want to run out of daylight later). We decided to approach the glaciers from the left side because the terrain looked less steep that way. Brandon wanted to hike up closer, than hike along the edge of the glaciers and then exit back to the trail on the other side. I know there’s no frame of reference for those who haven’t been there, so I’ve included my GPS track from this section.

Once we hit the large rock steps, we did find a series of cairns, so we decided to follow them up the rock. There are a few sections where you need to use your hands to climb, but there was only one spot where I was like “this isn’t going to be fun on the way down” (pictured above). Eventually, we made it to the top of the stone steps. We still weren’t close enough to touch the glaciers, but this isn’t advised anyways because they are on steep terrain and the ice can calve at any point. So we had a bit of a photoshoot before deciding what to do next.

Like I said, Brandon wanted to continue along the top of the stone steps and approach the glacier further down, but I was really unsure what the terrain would look like from there (there might be more steep areas where we couldn’t get down). So I decided I’d pushed my comfort level enough for one day and insisted we go back the way we’d come. We followed the cairns back through the worst section, and then cut across the alpine to get back to the trail.

We didn’t see very many people on the way up, but it was around noon at this point and the trail was definitely getting busier. More day hikers were coming up and we also passed a bunch of backpackers on their way out. The alpine is absolutely beautiful and we took our time hiking along the rocks and exploring the different viewpoints and lakes.

After awhile I got a bit nervous because some mean looking clouds were starting to move in. I learned a valuable lesson about rain pants at Lake O’Hara and it was quite cold, so I was keen to avoid getting wet in the exposed alpine. There are some shale fields up there and Brandon wanted to look around for fossils, but I hurried him through the rest of the alpine. We took another break at the last alpine lake before you start to head down. It never did rain, but better safe than sorry I guess.

We hit the edge of the alpine around the 11km mark. Since we’d done a bit of a detour to the glacier, we figured we were still only at the half point of the hike. But the second half of the hike is all downhill or flat, so it’s much easier than the alpine section. We hiked down to little Yoho Valley until we reached the meadows. There’s another ACC hut on this trail called the Stanley Mitchell Hut. You have to have a booking to go in, so we just stopped at some of the picnic tables to have a snack and rest our feet. My plantar fasciitis injury was doing surprisingly well, but Brandon was having a bit of trouble with his ankle.

From the ACC hut, you can hike 1km further through the valley to a Parks Canada site called Little Yoho Valley, but we opted to skip it and continued the hike down the valley. It’s all in the trees from this point along the Little Yoho River. It looks like there were a few avalanches in the winter, so we had to detour through some blowdown.

At 18km, we came to the Laughing Falls Campground. From there, it’s only 5km back to the parking lot, so I think it would make for a great beginner backpacking trip. The falls are nice and there’s some lovely campsites along the river. The reservations were all sold out when we visited, but the campground was still mostly empty.

From there, it’s 5km of mostly flat walking back to the trailhead. 1km before the parking lot, you reach the Takakkaw Falls Campground. It’s a really interesting site because it’s not really frontcountry or backcountry. It’s a large campground and you can’t drive into it. But it’s only a 1km walk along a dirt road, so people still bring a fair amount of gear it. It’s where we had wanted to stay after O’Hara, but it was so cold and there’s no showers, so I don’t regret our decision to stay in a hotel. But it’s a really nice site and I think it would be lovely in warmer weather.

By the end of the hike, it was 5:30pm and we’d clocked 23km, so it was a pretty big day. Even so, I would highly recommend this trail! I know Lake O’Hara would have been a completely different experience for me on a nicer day and that I might have liked it better in different weather, but of the two experiences, I actually enjoyed the Iceline Trail a lot more than O’Hara. It’s a gorgeous trail and if you extend it over 1-2 nights, you could really take your time through the alpine. I would love to go back and do it as a backpacking trip. The campsites are still popular, but I’m guessing they’re easier to get then permits to O’Hara. Plus, it’s a much more doable day hike even if you don’t get permits. So if you’re looking for something a little bit different to do in Yoho, check out this trail instead!

We finished the trip with one more night out in Golden before heading back to Vancouver the next day. We briefly stopped in Glacier National Park to explore the visitor center at Roger’s Pass. Then we stopped again for ice cream at Dutchman Dairy outside Sicamous. It was a little surreal driving through Shuswap because some sections along the highway had completely burned down through the summer. We had lunch in Kelowna and then went straight home. We returned on a Friday, so I had a nice weekend to recover with Seth before heading back to work after a very epic trip!

Lake O’Hara Backpacking Trip Part II

November 15, 2023July 11, 2024 / Maria / 1 Comment

Click here to start with Part 1.

The rain held off all night and it wasn’t looking too bad when we got up on Day 2, so we decided to make a go at visiting Lake McArthur, which is the the second big hike in the area after the Alpine Circuit. We had breakfast and packed up our bags. But just as we were getting ready to start hiking, it started raining. It was pretty light at first, so we started walking up towards the junction to the Lake McArthur trail, but the rain got heavier as we went, so we decided to stop in Le Relais, which is a Parks Canada owned hut just before the lake (right at the junction to the Lake McArthur trail).

Le Relais is pretty cool. It’s a log cabin and they have some information on the history of the park and run a small cafe out of it during the day. It’s well known for its carrot cake, which is legendary inside and outside of the park. They notoriously sell out of the carrot cake every day, so we decided to see if we could score a piece and wait out the rain. We managed to get the very last slice! So we split it between the two of us and bought some hot chocolates.

Le Relais was pretty busy because of the rain, but it has a woodstove inside, so it’s toasty warm and has a really nice atmosphere. We decided to wait for the rain to let up, but we ended up killing 2-3 hours there with no reprieve! We made friends with some of the other people trying to wait out the rain and ate our lunch while trying to decide what to do.

The weather forecast was supposed to be better the next day, so we decided to hold off on Lake McArthur. I didn’t have any rain pants with me and I wanted to avoid getting totally soaked when the temperature was very low (around 3 degrees) and we still had another night at the campground. But we also didn’t want to just sit around all day, so we decided to do the hour long walk around Lake O’Hara instead to see Seven Veils Falls.

The rain never really stopped, but it didn’t lighten up a lot, so we had a fairly nice walk around the lake. Even in the rain, the area is still incredibly beautiful and we could see a fresh layer of snow sitting on the peaks of the Alpine Circuit. The water still looks like kool-aid, even on a rainy day, and we made the best of the rain. We stopped at Seven Veils Fall, which had a pretty steady flow coming down, before continuing around the lake. We returned to Le Relais just before it really started pouring again and killed another few hours warming up and drinking a second round of hot chocolate.

When we got a break in the rain again, we ran back to the campground to hang out for the rest of the evening. I love meeting people at the campground and I’m a busybody. I noticed one guy was wearing a knitted hat with the Labrador flag on it (and I happened to be wearing my NL home hat), so I quickly befriended him. He and his wife are from Ontario and met in Labrador when they were both working at Voisey’s Bay, so I had a great chat with them. They later broke out a crib game (which I also love), and I was joined by another camper named Lynn to play doubles against them. Not to brag, but we totally fleeced them! We won the first game and then Lynn pegged an incredible 3 triples in a row in the second game and we skunked them. So that was great fun!

We got a few more reprieves from the rain throughout the evening, and even saw a sliver of sun poking through the clouds. So we congregated outside at the campfire for awhile, but eventually the rain returned and sent us to bed early. We decided that we were going to make a try at Lake McArthur the next day (rain or shine) because even if we got soaked, at least we were going home after that.

Unfortunately things still didn’t work out as planned. It wasn’t raining too hard when we packed up our tent and gear in the morning. There’s a storage room at the campground, so we left everything we didn’t need in there and starting hiking back towards Le Relais. It was raining pretty hard and my pants were already soaked by the time we got to the turn-off. We continued on a little further to see the Elizabeth Parker hut, and then hiked as far as Shaffer Lake, which is the halfway point to Lake McArthur. When we hit Shaffer Lake, it started wet snowing on us and we had to re-assess. I was definitely not having a good time without rain pants and I was already soaked all the way to my underwear. I had a dry pair of pants in my bag, but they’re not really much use to you if they’re just going to get wet again. I think Brandon would have been okay to keep going since he had rain pants, but I had to do a bit of risk management.

It was below zero and we still had several more kilometres of uphill to get to the lake, so it just didn’t seem like a good idea to keep hiking. I was already cold and if I had to stop for any reason, I would freeze in wet pants and sub-zero temperatures. Plus I wasn’t having any fun, so we made the smart decision and turned around to go back.

There was still carrot cake at Le Relais and we stopped in for a slice each and some hot chocolate while I stood by the wood stove to dry off. We checked the bus schedule and decided to catch the next bus out. The weather might improve later in the day, but we still didn’t have anywhere to stay that night, so we decided to come back another year for McArthur.

We walked back to the campsite and changed into dry clothes to wait for the bus. It was definitely not the ideal trip to Lake O’Hara, between the smoke and the rain, but we still got to cram in most of the alpine circuit. Now we just have an excuse to come back again another time. It’s so exclusive, I’ll probably just try for permits every year until I get lucky again.

Our plan for the night had originally been to get one of the first-come, first-serve campsites at Takakkaw Falls in Yoho Park, but we really needed a hotel to warm up. We called around to every accommodation in Field town that could offer us two beds, but they were all booked, so instead we drove a half hour back to Golden where there were lots of budget options. We showered and then hit the hot tub, sauna, and pool at the hotel to relax before getting a celebratory dinner of more elk burgers (3rd of the trip) at the local pub.

Rockwall Trail Backpacking Trip Part II

October 11, 2023July 11, 2024 / Maria / 2 Comments

To read Part I, start here.

Day 3 very much felt like the second half of the journey to me. The total length of the trail is 54km (though we tracked 58km in total on my GPS). By the end of day 2, we had done 34km of 54km, so we had two much easier days ahead of us. Unfortunately, the weather was supposed to deteriorate on Day 3.

I checked a ton of weather forecasts before we left and they often contradict each other, so we weren’t sure what to expect. The original forecast had said a 60% chance of showers, but when I got a weather update from my inreach, the POP had increased, but wasn’t starting until 1pm. So we got up early to try and finish the 10km hike to Floe Lake before the rain started.

It was overcast when we started hiking, but looking pretty good. It drizzled on us for a few minutes mid-morning and I put my backpack cover on, but then it didn’t bother us again for the rest of the hike. The trail from Numa Creek to Floe Lake ascends up through Numa Pass, with an elevation gain of ~800m. It was the biggest uphill of the trip, but similar to other parts of the trail, it was largely switchbacks, so it’s never overly steep. We made good time hiking up and decided to stop for a break at the top of the pass.

Coming up to the pass is very beautiful, with lots of larch trees. Before you get to the top of the pass, there’s a fantastic view looking back at the Rockwall and where you’ve come from, so that’s where we decided to stop. The downside is that it’s also the highest point of elevation across the entire trail at 2,336m, so it was quite cold up there. The rain was still holding off, but it’s very barren and nothing grows, it’s just a lot of rock, so it can get a bit windy.

We continued on to the top of the pass, which is where you get your first view of Floe Lake! If you have the time, definitely linger in the pass for a while because it is incredibly beautiful in all directions. We took some photos with Floe Lake, but then continued on in an attempt to warm up.

While my plantar fasciitis was doing quite well, I was battling a second foot problem on Day 3. I’ve been wearing trail shoes for the past 2 years (meaning they’re short and have limited ankle support), so I switched to my mid-ankle hikers for the Rockwall Trail. They were fine for my injury, but I think I’ve been overcompensating with my left foot and my ankles got used to short shoes, so I ended up with a very large bruise on my left ankle from rubbing against the shoe. It was actually quite painful and resulted in a bit of a stabbing pain with each step on the downhill sections.

It’s all downhill to Floe Lake from the Pass, which is only a few kilometres, but it was quite painful on my ankle. I was really concerned about Day 4, which is all downhill for 11km, but after a bit of workshopping, I figured out it was less painful if I didn’t tie up my boots past my ankle and rolled my socks down to create a bit of a cushion. But I dumped the mid-ankle shoes after that and switched back to my short ones for the rest of my trip.

There’s no where to swim on the Rockwall Trail aside from Floe Lake, so me and Carolyn were pretty keen to swim there. The problem is that it was quite cold and we weren’t convinced it would be warm enough to strip down to our swimsuits. Fortunately, we worked up enough of a sweat on the way down that we decided to immediately make a swim attempt. We didn’t look for a campsite, but walked directly to the lake to immediately strip down and run in the water. Unfortunately, we didn’t pick the best swim spot, because it was very muddy and we sunk ankle deep into it, but we went in anyways and had a quick refresh before going to set up camp (obviously it was freezing).

Floe Lake is by far the most popular campsite on the trail and because it’s only 11km from the trailhead, lots of people visit as a day hike. That said, it was not at all busy when we were there. It was mid week and the weather was dicey, so it was a pretty quiet. The cooking area at Floe Lake is right by the lake and really nice. There’s 2 campsites with lake views, but the rest are way up in the woods, so we spent most of our time just chilling at the lake. The layout of the campsite is a bit odd and don’t rely on the site maps provided because they aren’t accurate. The outhouses are far up in the woods and there’s a few tent pad clusters around. The campground wasn’t full when we were there, but not too many empty sites.

Because I didn’t have to carry a tent on the trip (I shared Brandon’s), I decided to bring my tarp for Floe in case it rained. We caught up with our new friend, Jason, and set it up on the beach for lunch. It did drizzle on us a few more times, but later in the afternoon it actually started to clear up and we got a few glimpses of the sun poking out from behind some clouds. So we spent the rest of the afternoon just hanging out and doing a few photo shoots.

It was by far our most relaxing time on the trail and we hung out for several hours. Floe Lake is just another extension of the Rockwall, with lots of glaciers sitting up on the rock. They’re quite active and you can regularly hear and see bits of ice falling off the glacier. It was kind of nice to listen to it while you sleep, but at one point in the middle of the night it sounded like half the mountain had fallen off into the lake!

While relaxing we did spot a black bear on the other side of the lake. He was moving pretty quickly and we think he got scared by a few hikers that decided to hike around the lake. They never ended up seeing him at all though because he took off so fast and ran the entire length of the lake. We decided to start preparing our supper around 6pm, but our timing was bad because the wind picked up at the same time. It got really windy and it felt like the weather was getting ready to shift back to rain, so we ate and tidied up everything really quickly to get back to our tents before the it started.

We decided to all hang out in Brandon’s tent for the evening and I went there while Carolyn did a quick run to the outhouse. The rain never did materialize so I started doing a bit of journaling. But I was alone for a long time and I began to wonder where Carolyn and Brandon were. Eventually, Brandon showed up at the tent laughing to himself and started to gleefully tell me that Carolyn had a REALLY good story for me. He made it sound really ominous and I was convinced that she got cornered in the outhouse by a bear or something while I was obliviously writing in my journal. Brandon said they’d be back soon and I kept waiting for them with no sign of anything.

Eventually I gave up and went looking for them. I had to walk through the entire campground before I finally found them coming back from the lake with Jason. Carolyn looked mortified. It turns out, in her quick trip to the outhouse, she made a grave mistake. She keeps all her stuff for camp in a cross-body bag, including her toilet paper, and when she leaned down to close the toilet seat lid after using it, her inreach and kindle both slipped out of her open bag and fell in the outhouse!

I have to say, the outhouse at Floe Lake was particularly disgusting. It looked older and it was really dirty on the inside. She immediately had a panic attack after they fell in because she was alone and had to address the problem immediately lest someone else come along and poop on them. To her credit, Carolyn was more worried about the Leave No Trace aspect of her electronics in the outhouse than the actual monetary value of them. The outhouse wasn’t that deep (by which I mean, the gap between the seat and the waste wasn’t that far, maybe 5-6 feet). She managed to fish out her inreach fairly easily with a stick because the inreach has a carabiner and it was sitting on top of mostly toilet paper. She obviously sanitized it, but overall it wasn’t too dirty.

The kindle was another issue. You can imagine her relief when Brandon happened to show up at the outhouse with the intention of conducting his own business. Apparently her first instinct was to tell him to go and get me immediately, but then she reconsidered and said, “wait, no, Maria can’t help me. I need help now, you’ll have to help me!” For which I am grateful!

It took 3 tries, but the two of them were able to fish out the kindle using a pair of giant stick chopsticks, but Carolyn did have to go almost shoulder deep in the outhouse to reach it. They double bagged the kindle to deal with later, but she ended up washing it (and her jacket) in the lake because at the end of the day, she cared less about whether she would still be able to use the kindle and more about just not leaving it in the outhouse, even if she ultimately disposed of it.

So yes, it was incredibly gross and I think most people’s instinct would be to just leave it in the outhouse, but I do respect her for actually going in after it. It was mostly to assuage her guilt, but as Jason pointed out, “guilt fades, shame is forever”. That said, Carolyn claims that if she could go back in time, she would probably still do the same thing, but she’ll never be making that mistake again! However, we have stumbled upon a few articles since then about other people who have fallen into outhouses and got trapped while trying to retrieve items, and S&R recommends against this risk! So you do get a pass to just leave it if this happens to you. We spent the rest of the trip sizing up the depth of every outhouse we used to assess ease of retrieval!

After that the rest of the trip was somewhat uneventful. It didn’t rain all night, but then started to pour around 6:30am on Day 4. It rained for about an hour. We waited it out and then I got up as soon as it stopped to grab our stuff for a tent breakfast, but it didn’t rain again after that. We packed down our camp and readied for our final 11km descent back to the parking lot.

It’s pretty steep for the first 3km, but there’s still lots of switchbacks and it levels out a lot after that. It’s a decently nice hike back down through the valley with views across the mountain, but it’s all one massive burn zone, which puts a bit of a damper on the hike and is fairly exposed. It would be pretty rough on a hot day hiking uphill because there’s limited shade. The burn zone is from 2003, so it actually has 20 years of growth in it, but it’s still very obviously a burn zone because it takes years for the burned tree trunks to finally fall down. Knowing that the rest of the province was burning at the same time made for a somber hike.

We only stopped once for a break on the way down and did the whole 11km in 3 hours. We loaded everything in Carolyn’s car and drove back to Paint Pots to get Brandon’s car. There’s a few picnic tables there, so Carolyn cooked us some ravioli for lunch and then we drove to our hotel in Radium to shower before going for a proper post-hike burger and ice cream in Radium.

So overall this was one of the most fun hikes I’ve been on in a long time. I don’t think it was as stunning as Mount Assiniboine, which I did in 2021, but I had a lot more fun on this trail and it is still incredibly beautiful. The Rockwall is a really unique feature and I loved hiking along it for 3 days. Even though this is a very popular hike and it’s hard to get permits, it doesn’t feel busy at all because it’s a long trail and the permit system greatly reduces the traffic on the trail. I could see it being busy at Floe Lake on a nice weekend, but mid-week really eliminates a lot of the crowds. I really think Kootenay National Park is underrated in the Rockies and we had a great time exploring the trail and the region! Definitely recommend!