The new backpacking season in Mount Robson park is well underway, with several interesting highlights during a recent four-day visit at the end of May. We enjoyed remarkably good, if unseasonably cool hiking weather. Despite driving to Tête Jaune in torrential driving rain, there was no precipitation nor bugs during our four days in the park. We even managed to catch part of the FMCBC AGM from the cell-signal equipped Mount Terry Fox Viewpoint on Highway 16 on the way into the park.
 
The first highlight this year was the remnant avalanche that came down earlier in the year that must be crossed less than a kilometre from the parking lot. I’ve seen the remains of avalanches here before, but never this large. Has there ever been a more relevant trail warning sign?
 
 
 
The revamped Marmot campsite at the south end of Berg Lake has a new picnic shelter, a new outhouse, and all the tent sites have new wooden platforms. These are great to camp on but can present challenges when pitching a tent, so it’s a good idea to take some extra cord.  It doesn’t get much better than this for a room with a view! The roughly 400 large stepping stones that were placed by helicopter across the braided streams in the adjacent Hargreaves fan in lieu of the old wooden bridges are working well, but there must still be some concern about high water because BC Parks have built several preparatory bridge pilings and have stockpiled metal bridge decks at this campsite. 
 
 
A principal goal of our trip was to visit to the newly-opened alpine hut at Robson Pass. As both Caledonia Ramblers and ACC members, Dave King and I were involved with concept planning for this 19 years ago with much correspondence and a winter helicopter trip in to look at possible sites in winter conditions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40N8wemm2X4. It’s a large, impressive-looking structure, nestled back in the trees a few hundred metres from the historic BC-Alberta border monument where, in 1924, a ceremony was held to mark the completion of the 1913-1924 boundary survey (see footnote). Despite its imposing size, the hut accommodates just 12 people, whereas we were originally thinking of up to 20. The main entrance, kitchen and living areas are upstairs, and the sleeping cubbies are down below. The hut is powered by a bank of large propane tanks, plus solar and all the relevant electrical gear, and has an impressive double outhouse. There were just two guests in residence, whom we met a few minutes earlier on the trail. They had flown in by helicopter that morning and had the place to themselves. No custodian, just a heavy duty combination padlock on the main door. The shelter, although imposing, nicely disappears into the forest as seen from the trail. There are decent views of the mountains from the cabin through the trees, although they may disappear in time with tree growth.
 
 
An unexpected highlight of our trip occurred on the hike out was when I spotted three animals moving rapidly across a wide snowfield below the first rock band on Robson’s west face. It turned out to be two wolves trying to chase down a mountain goat. They had likely been stalking it and broke out in full chase when they had it out in the open. The end result, as it usually is in such cases, was that the mountain goat readily made it to steep rocky escape terrain at the end of the snow patch. The 30X optical/digital zoom image from my phone is very fuzzy, but shows the goat safely up on the rocks, with the wolves on the snow below. The wolves had little hope of catching the mountain goat, and were likely playing the odds that it would fall from the rocks in the heat of the chase. A true Attenborough moment!
 
 

On a personal note, my first hike to Berg Lake was in October 1978, 48 years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_v5Z1jZ3zKk; this was my first after more than 80 trips around the sun!

This blog post was written by Mike Nash from Caledonia Ramblers, an FMCBC Member Club based in Prince George.

Footnote:

Official approval was required from the BC, Alberta and Federal governments to conclude the 1913-1924 boundary survey, and as part of that process a ceremony was held at Robson Pass. This was coincident with the 1924 ACC summer camp that saw the first female ascents of Mount Robson by BC’s Phyllis Munday and American, Annette Buck. There is a fine photograph in the book of Wheeler and Cautley standing next to their commemorative monument at Robson Pass, near where the ACC fittingly built the new mountain hut a century later.