Rocky Mountains previous:
Day one
Day two
Ground squirrel
Marmot
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On the third day, tired of weather that Mount Robson provided, we decided to run away from it and go to Jasper National Park to hike along the Calumet River up to the Moose Pass. In early morning under the light rain we packed our camp and went out of Berg Lake.
Wave good buy to the lake,
to the trail to Snowbird pass,
and go to Jasper.
Adolphus Lake. It is funny, but we realized that it is Adolphus Lake only after we return from the trip. On our ways forth and back we diligently looked for the lake without any success for no reason ignoring its presence in front of our eyes.
Along Calumet River
It is a sort of highland swamp around there. It is very wet and covered by dwarf birch and dwarf willow.
As a reward for endless rain, we’ve got plenty of mushrooms. I will make a separate post to show them all, but here are some of the mushrooms we piked up for our lunch and dinner.
Orange-cap boletus:
Passingly we picked up full hat of mushrooms for our lunch.
With this gift from Nature, our traditional lunch dry noodles started to look like much more edible stuff. This morning hike brought us far enough from Mount Robson for sun to start breaking through the clouds. Fortunately, the weather-making action radius of this vagarious peak is not very big, and can be passed in a day hike. Crossing of Calumet River was not a trivial thing. Oh, yes, there is a bridge across the river, but it is better to know about it before. After you ford the first arm, you should go far back upstream to find the bridge across the main river stream. If you don’t know about this, you have a good chance to get completely wet and cold, rigging the safety line (if you lucky to carry rope). Calumet River in the place of fording.
Saying that not a lot of people visit Moose Pass does not draw the picture. We’ve seen nobody, which was really good. Those who visit the pass usually do it by riding a horse. For us it meant that we used horse trail via the swamp. Cannot say that it was fun. After the ascent on battered trail along the riverbed, we came to the plateau, which was a real swamp, where in every step you dip your legs in shin deep water.
Mosquitoes here are huge and ubiquitous, you cannot miss them.
There’s no bridge over this river.
Anyway, the following swamp doesn’t live you with a chance to keep you feet dry.
Finally we came to the riverside from which we could start ascending to Moose Pass.
It was dry place with a lot of wood for fire, so we set our camp right there. No rain, heat of fire, and we finally getting drier and warmer.
Close to the night the rocks were colored by flame.
To be continued:
Day four – first half
Day four – second half
Day five
Pika
Day six
Day seven -Sentinel Pass
Sentinel Pass – Ground Squirrel
Rockies Fungi
