Way back in Jackson Hole we met a couple and their two young girls who said that if we went to Jasper area we should do the walk to Berg Lake which would be more than a day hike except that they let you cycle the first part of it. I’d made a note of this so we waited out a few days of bad weather in Jasper to try to get good weather for the walk. On the drive east we saw two magnificent male elks with huge antlers just grazing by the roadside.
Today we set off from the campground at 7.45am and cycled a couple of road kilometres to the trailhead. It was chilly but we had plenty of layers with us. We were allowed to cycle 7km to Kinney Lake on the shared trail which would save us valuable time.
With clear blue skies it soon got warm and layers of clothing were being stripped off. As we cycled we could see the top of Mount Robson (3943m) – apparently that is not a frequent event. Kinney Lake had a lovely reflection on it, I could see why it was a popular campsite.
We locked up our bikes at the designated spot and started the 14km hike. We crossed several bridges, some more bouncy than others.
We walked up the Valley of 1000 Falls and now I am not sure if that were talking about all the waterfalls or people falling to their death.
Our favourite waterfall was Emperor Waterfall which gave a cooling misty shower.
Then we carried on up (apparently this part of the trail gained 500m altitude in 4km) feeling pretty happy about our small day backpacks as most other people camp over and so had huge backbacks with them. We didn’t feel quite so smug as one couple went running past us! !!
It took us 5 hours to get there but at Berg Lake we were greeted by two glaciers coming down to the lake’s edge and we agreed it had been worth the effort. We were looking at Mist and Berg Glaciers and it was stunning!
We sat on the lakeside and ate our sandwiches while willing a bit of the glaciers to carve off into the water.
Just as we set off for our descent, there was a loud cracking noise and we rushed to a gap in the trees to see a bit of the side edge of Berg Glacier rolling down the cliff face. The walk down was a bit of a killer on the knees but it soon passed by with such stunning vistas to “ooh” and “ahh” at. The blue sky remained so we could see the peak of Mount Robson once more.
Our bikes were still there and we reckon we were half an hour quicker on the descent with them. We were probably 30 minutes quicker each way cycling (over walking the 9km) so we reckon our trusty steeds saved us about an hour and a half in total. This was a good thing because the whole trip took us 10 hours and 15 mins to do. We allowed ourselves an extra frankfurter for dinner once we’d had nice for showers back at the campground.
.JPG)
