After School Activities: The Wall Lake Hike

Dear Cassie and Charlie,

I saw Cassie’s picture with her birthday press on nails. They reminded me of the claws of a grizzly bear. It inspired me to write this story for you. Have your Mom or Dad read it to you.

The Wall Lake Hike - A Tale to Remember

Dedicated to Sondra Grizzlyfingers and Sir Charles of Evans

This is the story of how I narrowly escaped a tragic situation by luck and my wits. It is a tall tale. A tale tale is where the author might not exactly be telling the truth. There might be things in the story that are a little bit made up to make the story better, or more exciting. Sometimes the storyteller is trying to teach a lesson and a little bit fibbing might help make the point. In a tall tale, the listener has to decide for himself which parts are true and which parts are not so true. So at the end, you have to decide what parts of the story are true and what parts are a tale tale...

This story happened on a trip to the Canadian Rockies. You know that Canada is the country just north of the United States. In the western part of Canada, just like in the western United States there are big tall mountains called the Rockies. They are so beautiful that large parts of the mountains have been set aside as parks, to be preserved and protected so that people can come to visit them and enjoy them forever. The Canadian Rockies are mostly in two of provinces, Alberta and British Columbia. Canadian provinces are kind of like states in the United States. These two provinces sit side-by-side like Vermont and New Hampshire do in the USA.

When Aunt Marsha and I were visiting Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta, we went on a hike. It was a great hike to a high mountain lake called Wall Lake. Isn’t that a funny name, Wall Lake? Who would name a lake that? If you could name a lake what would you call it?

Anyway, it turns out that it was the perfect name. We hiked up the trail and up the trail, and then up the trail some more. It was hot. We were sweaty. We drank water from our water bottles. We hiked up into Akimina Pass. At the top of the pass there was a sign that said “Welcome to British Columbia”. We had hiked so far that we left Alberta and hiked clear into British Columbia!

We still had more to hike, so we went on. Finally, we turned a corner and there it was, a towering wall of rock 1000 feet high. You looked at the bottom and you let your eyes go up and up until you neck hurt! You looked up until there was no more wall left, just a big open sky. And at the bottom of that wall, was a beautiful lake.

Around the edges, the water was perfectly clear. So clear that you could see all the way to the bottom. We put on our sandals a waded in a few feet. As you gazed out the water turned blue, and then further out it became a beautiful emerald green. It stretched out to bottom of the rock wall. At the far end of lake there were patches of snow and this was the middle of the summer! If stood at the top of the 1000 foot wall you could toss a rock and it would land in the lake. Wall Lake, the perfect name!

As we looked out at the lake we could see ducks. They were diving ducks, the kind that go underwater and actually swim to catch fish for food. There was a group, a Mom duck and three little ones swimming along. Every once in a while they would disappear under water and after a bit they would pop up to the surface. WIth such clear water, I thought, it would be pretty easy for them to catch fish.

Then I looked down at my feet, and sure enough, you could see fish gliding along the shoreline. Every so often a fish would come up near the surface and grab a bug or an insect to eat and dive back down. I realized that those fish were pretty tricky. If they came near the surface it was only for a moment and when they would dive back down, they tucked themselves down in the rocks or near a log where they could hide. Those ducks were going to have to work hard to catch these fish.

So, here we were, two hot and sweaty hikers, up to our knees in a beautiful mountain lake. What do you think happened next? What would you do if you were hot and sweaty and next to a lake? That’s right, were went in.

It was SOOOOO, COOOOOLD! All we could do was to wade out as far as we dared and dunk our heads under. The shock of the cold water took your breath away. We came running out of there very quickly.

We decided to sit on the sunny shore to dry off and warm up. Aunt Marsha laid back on her backpack and gazed up at the wall. See grabbed the binoculars and started pointing and yelling. One no two, no THREE mountain goats high up on the wall. Three small white dots, but through the binoculars it was clear that they were goats. They were all white and had shaggy fur. What a treat! It is pretty rare you get to see mountain goats. We got to watch them jump from rock to rock and munch on the small patches of grass that grew high up on the wall.

After a while it was time to go back down the trail. We said goodbye and thank you to Wall Lake for sharing all its beauty and wildlife. It was then we go into trouble.

The parks are the home to bears. When you hike, you need to make noise to let any bears know you are coming. Some people use small bells that jingle when you walk Some people clap their hands to let a bear know they are coming. We like to sing songs or do bear calls.

A bear call is just a shout out every few minutes, like - Yo! Bear! It can be anything but you want it has to have lots of vowels Vowels are those letters (a,e,i,o,u) that say their name when you read them. Their sound tends to travel farther, So the “Yo” in our Yo! Bear! call is good, because the “o” sound will travel far. But we thought we could make it better by adding more vowels at the end like - “e”. We made our bear call, “Yo, Bear-eeee!” Can you try that? Just call it out ,Yo! Bear-eee!

It does get boring sometimes so you can change it up a bit. How about -Yo! Blueberry!

or Yo! Strawberry! Or Yo! Huckleberry! Maybe you could flip it - Hucklebereee! Yooogurt! What would your bear call be? Remember it has to have lots of vowel sounds.

Of, course, if you get bored with bear calls you could always sing. Here is a favorite trail song:

I love to go a-wandering,

Along the mountain track,

And as I go, I love to sing,

My knapsack on my back.

(chorus)

Val-deri,Val-dera, Val-deri, Val-dera-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha Val-deri,Val-dera. My knapsack on my back.

I’ll bet your Mom knows the tune and she can teach you this great hiking song. Sometimes you you get bored singing the same tune and you can change the words. Try singing these:

I’d love to send
My good friend Cass,

All the way to France,

When she’s there,

She could buy

Some brand new underpants!

Valderi, Valdera …

Our problem on the way back was that we forgot to keep doing our bear calls or to sing bear songs. What can I say? It wa a long trail back, we were tired and hot again. We just wanted to get finished.

As came back up to Akimina Pass, Aunt Marsha was ahead by a little bit so there was a gap between me and her. In the space between us, out stepped a British Columbia Grizzly Bear! We froze. What should we do? I suddenly realized that our last bites of trail snacks and our garbage from lunch was in Aunt Marsha’s backpack! I yelled to her to drop her pack and run up the trail and she did.

The bear walked over to the pack, ripped it open with its giant claws. He gobbled down our last granola bar and our cheddar cheese goldfish crackers! He then looked up, smacked his lips, looked down the trail and saw me. He started walking toward me. What should I do?

Now I’ve never told you this, but when I was a lad, I became very good at a sport called barrel jumping. It is a crazy sport that combines skating and jumping. On a frozen pond you make a pile of barrels. You skate as hard and as fast as you can toward the barrels and then jump. If you jump over one, you and a second barrel and try again. You keep adding and adding barrels. It is a contest so whoever can jump over the most barrels wins. Here is a picture of me from my jumping days.

Now like I said, back in the day, I was very good at barrel jumping. I even tried out for the International Championships! I was not good enough for the USA team, but because of my Polish heritage, I could try to qualify for the Polish International Barrel Jumping Team. Alas, I came in fourth, and they only took the top three to the championship that year.

Now back to bear. As he turned and came down the trail at me, I realized I could use my barrel jumping experience. Instead of running away, I ran right at him. Then I JUMPED. He reared back on his hind legs. He and the air as I went up and over. I was almost high enough and far enough, jumping and kicking my legs. His claws flashed, but he only nicked me, giving me scratches on my calf. I hit the ground beyond the bear, rolled twice flipped up to my feet and started running.

I took a quick look over my shoulder and the bear was coming. I ran harder and dashed through Akinima Pass. I looked back again. Something weird was happening. The bear was standing at the top of the pass, stopped dead in his tracks. I was stunned, why would the bear stop?

Then it hit me. This was a British Columbia Grizzly bear! When I jumped and ran through the pass I had crossed into the province of Alberta. As a British Columbia Grizzly Bear, he couldn’t travel into Alberta! I was safe on my side of the border (except for the scratches on my leg) and there was nothing he could do about it. The British Columbia Grizzly turned away and gave one last swat at Aunt Marsha’s backpack and went back down into the woods.

As for us, we waited until we thought it was safe, grabbed got the backpack and finished our hike. We leaearn our lesson to never forget to do our bear call or sing our silly songs. All the way back down the trail from Akimina Pass we sang as loud as we could: