09 5 Day five Carthew Alderson
For today’s hike you will need a bus ticket for a ride to the trail head, hiking poles, warm clothes, rain clothes, camera, lots of water, a lunch and mole skin.
Today we started at the Tamarack sporting goods store in lovely down town Waterton. From there we take a bus ride to the trail head. This ride takes about 25 minutes. On the ride we get a good overview of different hike in the Waterton area. Good to know for next time we are in town. We are on the bus with Corrie form yesterday’s hike. Four Italians who speak very limited English. Along with Kathi and I there are two people from the Netherlands who are named Chris and Marijke. The Italians hiked by themselves the rest of us joined forces and headed out for our 12.5 miles back town.
We started at Cameron Lake with a few pictures with the lake shrouded with low hanging clouds. I’m thinking that the lake is a real stunner I could only imagine what the lake would look like if it was clear skies…
We hiked steadily up the switch backs until we reached the small Summit Lake. At the lake our group stopped to take pictures. I stopped to put a piece of mole skin on a little hot spot that I had on my left heel. I had all of my supplies with me and tried to hurry. We got back to hiking pretty fast. As we start the long round about climb up to the next set of switch back the clouds are moving in, but the conversation of the group is all very entertaining. We find that Chris and Marijke (sounds like Mary reg all one word) are on a three week vacation. They will be spending one week in Waterton/ Banff, one week in Yoho and one week in Jasper. I guess when you work in those European countries you get four weeks of vacation right from the get go. This is to Kathi’s amazement, as in her job after 13 years of works she still only has 2 weeks of vacation.
Chris and Marijke’s English was perfect. Chris spoke five languages and Marijke only speaks four. So I ask, well when you think do you think in Dutch or in English? They think in Dutch, and then translate into the language they want to speak. Geez that is amazing. I have a hard time thinking and speaking in English and they are throwing in a whole other step in the process. Chris and Marijke must have been in their late 20’s but I don’t think in their 30’s yet. They seemed to be highly educated, well grounded and well traveled. Corrie on the other hand was another story.
Corrie is certainly a hiker and has done some pretty amazing hikes. But she is young, and well I will just say searching to try and find herself. She currently is working as an interpreter in Dinosaur Provincial Park in Alberta. She has plans to go to New Zealand to take an adventure certification class and then she wants to come back to Canada to volunteer at the Winter Olympic in Whistler Canada. She has finished with 1 and half years of college and decided to put that on hold…Basically I think the only thing she actually owns is her camera. Everything else she has borrowed.
Did I mention at this point in the hike we are just talking and hiking with each other as it is totally fogged in… Perhaps I forgot to mention that. Well, I would tell you what we are seeing on this trip, but I’m not sure. I can tell you what my feet look like. Ica also tell you the trail has small flat rocks which are dark grey I know some of you hiking club members are wondering why are we doing this hike today? The answer is because it is on the schedule for today… What else are we going to do? At some point during these switch backs up to the pass we cannot see other groups members, but we can still hear them talking. This is how we know they haven’t fallen off of the mountain. All of this chatting and walking has made me hungry! We have to stop to eat a little snack and put on some more clothes. With the fog, it has become chilly and damp.
We reached the top of the pass and had a hard time telling. Just sort of figured out it was the top as it was level for about ten feet and then started going down. Ok, time for pictures… I guess this is what it looks like when people tell you are on cloud 9. Well this cloud 9 was thick, chilly and damp. We are disappointed as this is supposed to be fantastic viewing of the chain of lakes. I’m going to guess that since all of the write ups say it is fantastic… then it must be fantastic!
As we are on our way down we have brief moments of the clouds moving and the lakes appearing and disappearing. It is so fast that you would get your camera out and by the time it turned on and ready to take a picture the clouds would have blown back in. So we just stopped walking and waited for the moment to happen again. These pictures prove to be a fun little game of hid and seek.
We moved on down to the third lake thinking we would be out of the clouds and could have a warmer weather lunch. Found a perfect spot with some really fun exploring to be had. I should have stopped exploring and paid attention to my hot spot, which was blooming into a very mature blister. I thought it was too inconvenient to fix, I can just ignore it… Note to self: Next time take whatever time you need to tend to the blister before it becomes a monster blister! Ok, I put that on my hiking notes on a page I have titled: Things I only need to learn once!
After lunch the sun came out!!! We did a little cheer! Then we all just stood in warmth and glow. After two days of not seeing it, it was a blessed event. Ok, now we are looking at some real views! Wow, it was like when Dorothy and Toto went from black and white Kansas to the Technicolor land over the rainbow full of color. I thought I could hear the little munchkins singing “We welcome you to lollipop land…” Oh the blues of the lake, the colors of the flowers….Ahhhhh. Now you can only wonder what you all missed? We poked out way back down through the chain of lakes and had some great views all the way down to Alderson Lake.
View time is over…As we approached tree line the clouds had settled back in. We had about four miles before we would be back to town. This was going to be four miles of walking in the forest with nothing to look at because of the clouds. And as you might have guessed it was raining by the time we entered town. Corrie had to rush off as she needed to drive 4 hours to get back to work. It was about 5 pm so she had a long drive ahead of her. Chris, Marijke and I went to a bar in town to warm up, have a beer and go through some hikes they defiantly should do when they are up in Lake Louse are and Yoho. I’m thinking that s I write this hiking notes they must be finishing up their three week trip.
Today’s hike will go on the re-do list. I’m sure it is an epic hike, but save it for a day that you can see further than your feet…
Hike 12.5 miles, 2135 foot elevation gain, 3330 foot elevation loss, 7 hours and 25 minutes, 1655 calories. I had a big ice cream cone after dinner. HHHHHMMMmmm
There is no vacation complete without a privy shot. This privy is brand new!!! New freshly cut wood smell. Only thing missing was the TP…
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