The Defense of Rick Bombaci

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• • Rick Bombaci Looks like he even brought a good stout rope to hang him with. Remember, 13 turns on the noose.

    Like · Reply · 1 · August 10 at 9:48pm
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    Steve Sokoloski When last we spoke over a map of the Little Yoho Valley you said that on your divide trip you looked at it and decided that "it did not look too interesting" and went by on a different route. You were wrong. Great 4 days at Stanley Mitchell Hut. Lots of interesting hiking, lots of fun. Had to teach the flatlanders how to play cribbage. More coming on the blog. Just out and back at Lake Louise Hostel. And Robin Rose, long before August was Eagle Cap season it was Banff/Jasper season...

    Like · Reply · August 14 at 3:24pm
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    Rick Bombaci No, you were wrong. I never said that, and I don't know where your imagination came up with that. In fact, I put together a couple of off-trail links in my hike in 2008 specifically to enable me to hike the Iceline Trail through the Little Yoho Valley. I hiked through a miserable cold rain up out of Field, enjoyed views of Takakkaw Falls, walked by the Stanley Mitchell Hut, and climbed up out of the valley into a whiteout. That were two of my more challenging days.

    Like · Reply · 18 hrs
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    Steve Sokoloski Well, now we have one more thing to argue over the next time we are at TG.
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The Takakkaw Falls Mets Fan

When we pulled into the Takakkaw Falls parking lot to begin our Stanley Mitchell Hut trip I noticed that the car next to us had a Mets hat sitting on the dashboard on the drivers side. Way out in the middle of British Columbia, a fellow traveller. ANd it was not just any Mets hat. It was the classic blue with orange lettering. Dutifully I took out my classic cap out it on and waited and hoped as we sorted and packed.

In a few minutes a couple of guys came out of the Takakkaw Falls Campground. The Mets fan was from California. We bonded instantly. I had been able to jump on the Internet and knew about some player movement at the end of the trading deadline, and wa aware that the Mets had backslid into first place. He filled in a few more details.

They ended up hiking the Iceline up to Stanley Mitchell and then out the Little Yoho Trail. Essentially doing the loop we contemplated counter clockwise in one day, while we planned on going clockwise in two days of hiking. So, we were there at the hut as they turned for home.

I seriously doubt that the Stanley Mitchell Hut has ever heard cries of , "Let's Go Mets!"as we said good bye to each other.

Four Days, Ten Glaciers and Two Wayward Johnsons: Part 3 - Reflections

When we got up to the top of the moraine overlooking the small blue green lake that caught the discharge from the glacier off of the Secretary- Treasurer I could turn in a circle and count ten glaciers. We had just been through a short rain shower and the others wanted to go on to the next ridge. I chose to stay behind. I sat behind a boulder on the shoulder of the moraine and let my eyes wander from peak to peak.

For a long time I had looked at maps about the Yoho Valley and here it was. There were many questions in my mind about this part of the trip. My knees, my back, my heart, my age, my lack of physical fitness, my diabetes and the time between the last time I shouldered a backpack weighed on my mind. All of those fell away. I was able to get enough hiking in so the the trail was hard but fair. The trail was not as tough as it could have been and my body responded well to the challenge. In some ways it feels better than it has for months.

What a gift I had been given. Four days of beautiful clear weather. Up way high in the alpine. Sharing the hikes with my wife my daughter and son-in-law. I have had the joy of stepping out onto mountain vistas a few times in my life. There is always awe and magic there. It touches me deep down in some chord in my soul and waits there until the next time it can be plucked. Annie Dilliard in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek has a line that in paraphrase says, "it was like my whole life I had been a bell and had not known it until that moment when I was lifted and struck".

I also realize that at my age, and physical condition this may never happen to me again. The exuberant ones just think I am a slow old hiker. Half of it is the knowledge that I must take the time to savor this. Each step of these high hikes I had to treasure and burn into my heart. I had to suck the marrow from the broken spine of the Rockies on the chance that I might never be here again.

It is a physical, touchable joy that is hard to explain. It shrouds me in awe, it brings physical calmness and an inner peace like few things outside this world. I was glad to sit cloaked in awe for the hour it took the others to grab one more ridge. I just sat and listened to the wind and my breathing, surrendering to the grandeur before me. If the Lord had decided to take me then and there, it would have been alright with me. I was glad I could hear Marsha coming back so I could wipe a tear, and that she and I stayed for a bit while the young ones hiked down. My plunge steps were cushioned by joy as we went back down to the hut. I really don't remember the hike out the next day except that it was slow and deliberate and I had a smile on my face. Some people get stuck someplace and walk out saying, "Well, that is an hour of my life I will never get back". For me that hour is one that will always stay with me.

Don't the days grow shorter as the hours go by,
You never get to stop and open your eyes,
Spirits open to a thrust of grace,
Never a breathe you can afford to waste...

Four Days, Ten Glaciers and Two Wayward Johnsons: Part 1

This is a tale of exuberant youth, and wisdom that comes with age. If you have been reading our previous posts, you might agree with me that everytime I write it sounds like we are gushing over everything we have seen. Each post we seem to find something more fantastic, see something more extraordinary, something more amazing. Some of you have been very kind to post comments about all the cool things we have experienced and seen.

We started this blog to help us remember all the details of what we had seen and done. As we get older when we look back the things get jumbled. Did that happen when we were here with Janice Shannon and her crew or was that with Rick and Doug?

I can tell you sincerely that for all the wonderful things we have seen and done so far, the last four days have surpassed them. If I become addled with age and cannot think straight to recall the bike rides or the times in Glacier, or Waterton and I need someone read me the old blog and tell me, "Look Steve, you wrote in 2015 that you saw a bear near the Prince of Wales hotel",  I will have the memory of these last four days burned deep into my brain. Other than my wedding day, the days spent creating and birthing my children, the 1969 and 1986 Mets World Series wins, and that day in Gampel when the UCONN Women beat Tennessee for the first time,  these have been the best four days in my life.

We left the luxury digs of the HI/ACC hostel at Lake Louise on Tuesday morning. We had spent late Monday afternoon into the evening organizing our packs, sorting and dividing up four days of food all to be ready for an early start up the Yoho Valley Road to the parking lot at  the base of Takakkaw Falls. The road is twisty with two hairy hairpin turns, but the thundering cascade of the 300 meter falls was worth the white knuckles. The falls is the outflow of a lake fed by the Daley Glacier. it is actually a two stage falls with the first cascade hitting something up there and sending it out in a 254 meter free fall to the base. Its roar made it difficult to talk to each other in the parking lot as we gathered our things. We met a couple of interesting fellows as we left. They will be the subject of another post.

I also experienced my first taste of the exuberance of youth. We were headed to ACC Stanley Mitchell Hut in the Little Yoho Valley. The trail junctions we were headed to were described by Patton and Robinson as tricky. So, with a tear in my eye, I took my Swiss Army knife and carefully sliced out the 5 or 6 pages of the "bible" to take with us up to the hut. Katie looked over my shoulder and said, "Oh yeah, I took pictures of those pages with my phone." Kids these days.

Trail at the end of the parking is the terminus of many routes that take you into the delights of the Yoho Valley.  At the beginning you follow the access road to the Takakkaw Falls campground which is self service and first come first serve. It was going to be one of our options for a place to camp on our day out, but by happenstance Marsha had checked with hostel  and found that there was a family room available on that day, so we skipped the campout and grabbed the room. We did check out he campground for future reference. It is a .2 km walk in and there is a cart where you can lug your stuff down the road to a tent site. Water from the gray glacier fed Yoho River, to be filtered or boiled and pit toilets. It has a kitchen shelter. We learned later that for a winter trip when the access road from Trans Canada 1 is closed, folks ski the 13 km up the road and camp in the kitchen shelter and then head out to other destinations up valley. The walk in without snow was not bad.

Beyond the campground, the trail follows along a roadbed on the broad flat alluvial plain of the river for a while, then turns up and scabs the side of a hill steeply. It gets your heart going.

The trail does flatten out  after a while, and leads down to the Laugh Falls Campground, where of course the outflow of Laughing Falls which takes the flow of the Little Yoho River and delivered it to the Yoho. Laughing Falls is tent sites scattered around the all alluvial debris of this part of the Yoho River. No kitchen shelter, water from the river but a very nice, new pit toilet. It was a pretty busy place with many tent sites filled.

Out trip now took us up the hill that formed Laughing Falls on the Little Yoho Valley Trail.  Just a heavy stepping one foot after the other, turn at the switchback, move up again, turn at the switchback and move up again. It was a chore and a half, but after the initial surge it tapered off a bit so that your heart was no longer pounding in your ears, just merely pounding out of your chest. It was long and tedious but in the end not overwhelming. Katie had her FitBit tracking her walking and the trip up was worth 182 flights of stairs.

Stanley Mitchell Hut sits on the edge of a meadow hard by terminal moraines formed off the flanks of several 3000 meter peaks, that ring the Little Yoho Valley. The hut and the meadow are broad and green, but once you leave the valley floor you are up into alpine tundra of scree and rock. There is an camping area just up valley if you do not have a spot at the hut.

You can see right away that it is an alpinist hut build in the ACC tradition of placing huts in places that support technical ascents of peaks. From the warm secure hut you can strike out and summit several peaks that ring the valley.

The hut itself is very nice. Complete kitchen with gas stoves, pots and pans and all the kitchen utensils you need. Water is pulled from the stream outside and boiled. The creek also serves as a refrigerator. There is a small bunkroom that fits eight, and an attic loft up a ladder that sleeps another 16 or so. The common area has tables and benches and a woodstove. It is a fine place to stay, well used and signs that tell you how everything works. Whatever group is there quickly figures out the routines of hut life and works cooperatively to share chores and kitchen time.

We settled in with our hutmates. The first night there were a couple of families, a guided group that was learning technical mountaineering, and other groups that were using the hut as a base. 

The second morning we chose to head up the meadow to climb up to Kiwetinok Pass,  a col that would offer views back across to the two high peaks, The President and the Vice President, and views down valley to the peaks to the east. A perfect cloudless day with cool temps and a little breeze. 

The exuberants lead off, charging up the valley, with the old folks bringing up the rear. Thier strong legs led them to the bottom of the scree and the streams that flowed down from the glaciers. They had heart, they had courage, they did not have a map. The old folks did. After a few minutes watching their path from far below it was pretty clear that the Wayward Johnsons had gone up the wrong drainage. Too much thundering water, too much wind to call them back, to exuberant to look back over their shoulders to see the old folks far below waving and pointing at the valley now far to our right leading to the visible and obvious pass that was now getting further and further away.  We were headed pretty straight toward the glacier that hung off the President on the route the peak baggers took to use the glacier as the route to the summit. We were not inclined by temperament nor by equipment and experience to make a summit attempt, but we pressed on up the moraines, the exuberant Wayward Johnsons hopping over rocks, bounding over streams, climbing up the sides of cascading water, the old folks far below, muttering under their breath and carefully placing one foot after the other. 

In the end as always, folly rewards youth, and serendipity often leads to its own reward. As the intend pass stayed to the west, the height of the moraine at the outflow of the glacier was reached. first by the exubernt legs, sometime later by the old ones. It was glorious. The flanks of the President offered views down valley, and to the peaks and associated glaciers of the Waputuk Icefield to the east. Clear as a bell, not a cloud in the sky, warm but not too warm and a cooling breeze.  The mountains seeming so close that you could reach out and touch them, yet so far away. The Wayward Johnstons were forgiven. 

We marveled at the glacier and wondered at the tortured geology. The mountain had a lot of sedimentary shale that had been lifted. In one area, a huge bulb of underlying granite had pushed up under the shale, bending it into a horseshoe but not breaking it. 

Too soon it was time to descend, but which way down? We did some scrambling down the scree slopes, picking and choosing the least steep and least scary routes. Tricky and nerve racking. 

I am being called to a lovely breakfast so I will finish this post and pick up the tale in Part 2. We have decisions to make today. It has been thundering and lightning in Lake Louise all night. We are scheduled to move 3 hours north into Jasper for tent camping the next three nights, however, they have room for us here at the hostel. Time to rouse the Wayward Johnsons for this no brainer.

Moraine Lake Revisited

 With the lessons learned from yesterday we got up early (well, early for the flatlanders) and went directly to Moraine Lake. We opted for rental canoes. It was truly beautiful. The milky blue of the lake water set against the Valley of the Ten Peaks on a day that was warm and windless was amazing.

I reminded Kate that the last time we were here it was cold and windy and the best we could do was climb the rock pile moraine at the foot of the lake. Renting a canoe on a glacial lake of white caps was out of the question with two little kids. Glad we had such a perfect day,

We were back at the hostel mid-afternoon and geared up for the main event, our trip into the backcountry of Yoho National Park to Stanley Mitchell Hut. It is a 6 mile hike, at least 3 of it uphill. Full pack, w/ 4 days of food. We did score a room at the hostel when we come out (Can you shout, sow-na!!!). No bars and no wifi for a few days.

 
 
 

Lake Louise No! Lake Sherbrooke Yes!

One of the many reasons to dislike the Lake Louise area is the crowds. The awesome beauty of this lake with its iconic hotel sitting at the end if often mocked and marred by hordes of tourists on a nice sunny summer day. So to be sure, we did not give the old gal her best chance by visiting midday on a Sunday in August. Just a zoo of traffic and people. We took a quick look and split.

The alternate plan was to hike up along the (slightly) less popular, nearby Moraine Lake. As we drove around to it, the road was closed. The parking lot was so full that they stopped traffic for a while. We went back down to the visitor's center. The helpful ranger suggested a hike just over the Kicking Horse pass in Yoho to Lake Sherbrooke. Nice hike, not a lot of work. A chance for Katie and Nate to stretch their legs in the alpine air. Very picturesque lake.

Couple of pictures - Lake Louise, then Nate on the side of the trail at Lake Sherbrooke.

Sir Charles of Evans and the Yukon Medicine Man

Sir Charles of Evans and the Yukon Medicine Man

dedicated to Sondra Grizzlyfingers and Sir Charles of Evans

Sir Charles of Evans and his Merry Men were travelling from Banff National Park in Alberta to Yoho National Park, in British Columbia. They were  headed over Kicking Horse Pass to get there. Sir Charles had an idea. “Men,” he said, “I think I need a little adventure, I would to go to Yoho by way of Lac Sherbrook (he was trying to practice his French while he was in Canada).

“The horses and wagons cannot go that way, so we will divide in half. Half the Merry Men will go over Kicking Horse Pass with the horses and wagons, half will come with me and we will hike up to Lac Sherbrook, through the the pass at the head of the lake and meet the horses and wagons in Field, B.C. That will be a grand adventure!”, he said.

And that is what they did. Half of the Merry Men went toward Lac Sherbrook with Sir Charles of Evans. They hiked toward the lake. The trail was steep. It was a hard hike.

After an hour, the Merry Men were getting hungry. Sir Charles of Evans stopped and said, “Let's have a snack and a short rest before we go on.”

When they went to look for a snack, they realized that they had sent all the food with the wagons and horses! They had no food. It was too late to go back. The other half of the Merry Men had already gone over Kicking Horse Pass by now. They only thing to do was to hike on.

As they hiked Sir Charles and the Merry Men got hungrier and hungrier. Some of the Merry Men saw berries that were blue along the trail. Hmm, they must be blue berries they thought. They started picking them as the went along. Sir Charles of Evans ate some too.

After a while they saw red berries and they thought they must be strawberries, They started eating them as well. Sir Charles ate them as well. Then one Merry Man saw a mushroom, He thought, "I’ve had mushrooms on pizza, and they tasted very good!"

Soon everybody was picking and eating mushrooms as they hiked along.

They got past the lake, and started up the steep part to the pass. Something strange started happening. Sir Charles of Evans started to feel funny. They started to get headaches. They had ringing in their ears. They started getting pains in their stomachs. Soon it was hard to walk. They were holding their stomachs and doubling over in pain. Some of them threw up. They were crawling up the steep trail to the pass. Sir Charles of Evans found his tongue was starting to swell and it was sticking out. He could hardly speak as his tongue would not go back in. He was on his hands and knees crawling as he got to the top of the pass and collapsed.

His head was spinning, he could hardly move and the rest of the Merry Men were no better off. He looked up. There was a tall man standing in the pass. He had on a blue robe, trimmed with white fur, and red trim on his sleeves. He had a black dog at his side that wore backpacks along his body.

As was his habit, Sir Charles tried to raise his hiking stick like a sword and announce his presence with authority. He only got to his knees. With his swollen tongue it came out, “ I yam Sirth Charfles of Evanths and deese arff my Mawee Menth. Whoth arff yoot?”

The man in the blue and white robe said, “I don’t know exactly what language you are speaking sir, but I am Nay-tan-yell, a Medicine Man from the North, the land of the Husky Nation, the place you call Yukon, and this is my Medicine Pup, Sky.”   

Sir Charles of Evans tried to stand all the way up but fell to his knees. He blurted out with his swollen tongue, “Helffff!”

Nay-tan-yell looked at all the Merry Men lying on the ground holding their stomachs and groaning. He said, “What happened?”

“Berrithese”, said Sir Charles.

“You ate berries?”, said Nay-tan-yell, “Were they blue?” Sir Charles and the Merry Men shook their heads, yes.

“Were, they red?” Again the Merry Men and Sir Charles shook their heads, yes.

“And muthrooms!” said one of the Merry Men.

“Muthrooms, I mean mushrooms?” repeated Nay-tan-yell.

And slowly the story came out of how Sir Charles and the Merry Men ate berries and mushrooms and were sick as dogs (Sky the Medicine Pup, excluded, of course).

Nay-tan-yell told Sir Charles of Evans and the Merry Men how foolish they had been for eating food from the forest when they were not absolutely sure it was safe. He told them that they needed to get to a doctor, right away.

Sir Charles said, “Youth powerfuth Meth-a-din Manth, pleeth helphhh!”

Nay-tan-yell said that he was a powerful medicine man, who had studies the medicines in the Yukon for many years, and that Sky the Medicine Pup carried many powerful medicines in her  bags, but it was the doctor’s job to decide what was the right medicine. It the job of Nay-tan-yell the Yukon Medicine Man to mix the right drugs and deliver them to the person. He needed a doctor’s OK.

Just then a Merry Man threw up and the barf landed on Nay-ta-yell’s blue robe. Nay-tan-yell thought about all his years of medicine training in the Yukon. There must be something. Then he had it. He remembered his teaching from an old French explorer, Oveer de Countear, who taught the Yukon medicine men to collect leaves and twigs from nature and brew a soothing tea that made stomachs feel better.

Nay-tan-yell told Sir Charles of Evans, “I have an idea. I  remember a recipe for a soothing natural tea taught to me by the old French explorer, Oveer de Countear. It won’t be as power as a medicine chosen by a doctor, but it might soothe your stomachs enough to get you off this mountain. Sir Charles of Evans said, “Pleeth, dooth it”

Nay-tan-yell called over Sky the Medicine Pup and pulled a few packages of dry leaves and twigs from the dog’s backpack. He started walking around and carefully picking  a few leaves here and a few leaves there.

Sky the Medicine Pup helped, too. She dragged sticks out of the woods for the fire. She gave the Merry Men some puppy love by licking their faces to help them feel better.

Soon Nay-tan-yell had the tea ready. He had Sir Charles and the Merry Men take little sips. It tasted good! And it was helping! Sir Charles liked it so much he reached over to add extra sticks and leaves to his tea. Nay-tan-yell swatted his hand away.

He said, “Sir Charles, isn’t that just what got you in trouble in the first place? Grabbing things you don’t really know about  and sticking them in your mouth? Look what it did to your Merry Men! I am a Yukon Medicine Man and have dedicated my life to understand drugs. I know that even natural drugs have to be taken with caution!”

As Sir Charles’  tongue was smaller now he could speak better. He asked Nay-tan-yell what a Yukon Medicine Man was doing so far from home. Nay-tan-yell explained that while he lived in the north in the summer, he spent his winters in the south. Part of his Husky Nation had settled in the northeast corner of a state called Connecticut. The tribe was very good at many sports. Nay-tan-yell was making his yearly pilgrimage to cheer on the sports teams for the winter. This was going to be Sky the Medicine Pup’s first trip and she hoped to meet the Yukon Husky Mascot, Jonathan.

Bye and bye, Sir Charles of Evans and the Merry Men were feeling better. Not great but good enough to try hiking again. Nay-tan-yell reminded them that as soon as they went down the mountain they all had to see a doctor. He gathered up some of the berries and mushrooms so they could show the doctor what they had been eating.

Sir Charles of Evans asked what he needed to pay the Medicine Man for helping the Merry Men and Sir Charles get better. Nay-tan-yell explained that it the north it was not necessary to pay for these kind of services. He said that they believed that it was enough reward to just make people feel better.

Sir Charles was shocked. He insisted on paying something. Nay-tan-yell explained again that it was not necessary, but Sir Charles insisted again. Nay-tan-yell, said it was only in the south that people argued and fought about paying to help people feel better. Sir Charles insisted again. Nay-tan-yell finally said, “I know in the south they have something called a "co-pay", where you have to pay a little as part of the service. Give me $10 and I will consider it a co-pay.”

Sir Charles quickly counted out 10 Canadian Loonies and gave them to Nay-tan-yell.

Sir Charles rallied his men with the traditional cry, “Tally-ho!”

His men answered, “Let’s go!”

He led his men through the pass and Nay-tan-yell and Sky, the Medicine Pup went down the other side. As they went Sir Charles could her Nay-tan-yell singing the Yukon Husky Fight song,

Connecticut Yukon Huskies

Symbol of might to the foe

Fight, Fight, Connecticut

For victory, let’s go…….

Skythe Medicine Pup was barking and howling right along!