One of the things you learn about when you actually get to a place is that your perceptions from afar are uually off base. I don't know how many years I had looked maps of the Little Yoho Valley. It is different when you finally get there and the little brown contour lines, the white patches showing glaciers and ice fields and the blue of lakes, streams and rivers morph into physical geography. Reality erases what the lines on the map put into your head. You also learn from other people about their perceptions of the area are.
People at the hut come to the valley for different reasons. It provides a cluster of high peaks that are not super technical, and thus are suitable for novice alpinists. They are also close so you can bag another if your chosen peak is not the best choice. we learned from other folks hanging at the huts and talking about mountains that the President was unclimbable at this time as the glacier leading to the summit had deteriorating snow and ice and was not safe for beginners or those unwilling to put forth the effort deal with the conditions. No worries, there was always another peak nearby for these folks to try.
It was clear that the site of the hut was chosen to maximize the access in both summer and winter. The hut log book talked of lots of winter activity. You have to ski up the Takakkaw Falls Road as it is closed in winter, then you get to do the six miles we hiked in. I am not sure how you ski up the 182 fights of stairs that got us to the hut (see Part 1 of this post). I am thinking that you might have to carry snow shoes to get up the steepest hills. However, once you get to Stanley Mitchell, there is lots of skiing to be had. Folks write about getting up into the snow bowls below the pass we missed yesterday and running turns down the bowl.
For our part we had to choose if we were going to take another shot at the pass or head up the legendary Iceline Trail. We chose the latter. The forecast for our out hike day was for showers and the day again had dawned as cloudless and sparkling. We hedged our bet by heading out the Iceline, lest we be rained out the next day.
The night before was also cloudless and also the height of the Perseid Meteor Showers, with a late rising moon. There was a lot of late night shuffling and scattered flashlights as folks took advantage of the open meadow vistas of the sky on their trips to the "biffy". It was actually difficult to recognize constellations as stars of less magnitude were visible in the dark sky presenting a confusing picture. The Milky Way was a ribbon of cloudy white running through the sky and the meteors put on a decent show for the 30 minutes I spent outside. I also got up at dawn and got some nice alpenglow off the western peaks.
We made the correct choice in the Iceline Trail. It rises from the valley to a point around the side of the Vice President near a small lake fed by a glacier. It then descends back down to the parking lot at Takakkaw Falls. Our goal for the day was to get to the high point of the lake and come back to the hut. It was a great hike along a trail that ascended up a bit then hugged the line between the subalpine forest and the bottoms of the scree fields. It eventually broke out into the alpine slopes providing unlimited views across the Yoho Valley. It was a gorgeous ramble across the bottom of the moraines rising slowly the lake. Across the valley to the east was the Waputik Icefield spawning the Niles, Daily Fairy and Diableret Glaciers as the peaks split it into rivers of ice. To the northwest was the McArthur Glacier surrounding McArthur Peak. Above and behind us as we walked and stretching out to the southwest were the President, the Vice President and the Secretary-Treasurer with their smaller unnamed glaciers giving us close up views of ice falls, blue tinted bottom ice where the glaciers met the small lakes and snow caves where larger quantities of water had carved out a hole under the ice. It was like walking in a beautiful dream dream.
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