Plain of The Six Glaciers

Plain of Six Glaciers – October 10, 2004

Mountain height: approx. 2,150 m (7,052 ft)
Elevation gain: 420 m
Roundtrip distance: 13.4 km

Hiking with Mark, Mum, Larry, Uncle Bill, and Auntie Margaret.

With predicted great weather, we decided to drag our parents and Aunt and Uncle from England up one of the more scenic and popular hikes in the Lake Louise area. The weather didn’t really cooperate, being cloudy most of the day (of course, it could have been far worse, so I won’t whine….yet!), but we, along with four other people on the trail, got far more than we bargained for. More to come on that later…..

The first part the of hike was uneventful and pleasant, though I have to admit it was unusual for us to be on trail with so many other people – we usually have the whole mountain to ourselves – one of the luxurious perks of the Canadian Rockies! Things livened up a little when we (along with about 50 other people) stopped to watch three grizzlies several hundred metres away in the valley. They were just little specks from that distance, but it was still an amazing sight, and Mum, Larry, and especially Margaret and Bill were all quite excited to see the spectacle.

Arriving at the teahouse we decided to take a break, in hopes that the weather might clear before we completed the final 1.3 km to the trail-end. It didn’t, but nevertheless the extra hiking was well worth the effort for a terrific view of Mount Victoria, the heavily crevassed Victoria Glacier below and above, Mount Lefroy, and the infamous Death-Trap, with the Abbot Pass Hut perched high above. Everyone persevered to end of the trail, even though the katabatic winds blowing off the glacier caused the temperature to plummet severely. Credit to Auntie Margaret and Uncle Bill, for completing the entire trip up. Even at a modest height of 2150 m above sea level, the high point of the hike is still more than double the height of England’s highest mountain – Scafell Pike, at 978m.

On return, since Mark and I had most of our glacier travel gear with us, we decided to go down to the glacier and explore a little. It was a great little diversion, as we worked our way through decent sized crevasses and huge colorful piles of rock debris. The best scenery, however, came right at the end when we made it to the end of the glacier and a huge cave of ice. After enjoying the wonders of the cave, sculpted beautifully by weather, we headed immediately back to the trail. It would have been far easier to just continue down the valley and join up with the trail later, but that would have taken us directly through the area where the grizzlies were searching for food, and since we had no desire to become that food, we took the more strenuous, but safer option….or so we thought!!

Upon rejoining the trail, we almost immediately ran into an American couple from Albany,New York (Bob and Jan). Since no one could see the bears down below, we joined up and started down the trail together. Within 1 minute, Bob spotted the bears. I said “where?” as I looked to the area they had been earlier. I couldn’t see anything, but upon turning my head a little, a fair sized grizzly immediately came into view – not hundreds of metres away in the valley, but about 10 metres away, on the trail and heading right for us. It was a grizzly sow and right away it became obvious that the two other grizzlies were here cubs – bad scene!!

We started backing up immediately, turning around frequently to see where the mother was. She was very obliging and made it easy for us to keep her in our sights by simply following us up the trail (bad scene, getting worse). And wouldn’t you know that after hauling around a large can of bearspray on every trip for most of the season, I picked this day to leave it in the car! We did have ice axes in hand, but they did nothing to improve my sense of security.

Very shortly, we ran into another couple, and after telling the gentleman “who” was coming up the trail behind us, he took charge and suggested we stand our ground in a tight bunch. It seemed to work – the grizzly stopped, looked us over, and then left the trail and continued on her way, up the hill, cubs in tow. We managed to snap a few photos as they crossed the path and climbed the slope and out of sight. Wow!....what an adrenaline rush and a unique experience. Certainly not one I would care to repeat, but it was exhilarating, nonetheless.

The remainder of the trip was rather drab (compared to what we had just been through), but Bob and Jan were a delightful couple to chat with and I’m glad (for a couple of reasons) that we ran into them. Overall, an extraordinary day and at least the “bear” experience gave us a plethora of ammunition for some really lame puns at the dinner table, later that evening: “Bear in mind we didn’t have time to decent photos”; “we bearly made it outta there!”; “the experience doesn’t bear thinking about”- you get the picture!