Take a side trip, a side stop, to explore the many trails just off the Icefield Parkway. I’m sure that many of us northerners who drive the Parkway (the most beautiful highway in the world) often highball...we just want, to get to the destination, whether airport, shopping, concert, business, whatever. The blinders might be on; sunglasses reflect all the majesty of peaks, rivers and wilderness. The focus sometimes (we’re all guilty of this) is to survive the traffic, the slooow drivers and try not get too frustrated. Lately I’ve been motivated to leave earlier, and plan to stop, somewhere along the Parkway, to investigate a trail that I’ve never been on, or to re acquaint my shoes with an old favorite. I’m discovering another galaxy of trail pleasure and treasures. My eyes are not only filled with the many spectacular views and vistas of the mountain national parks, but the gaze is also on the ground. I now possess a heighted appreciation to the construction of the trail. In my imagination, I can hear; the pick axes striking stone, (that peculiar cringing sound when metal meets rock), the gasps and grunts of trail laborers moving rocks, gravel with sweat on their brow, or seeing scuffed marks under a pine tree, where they might have huddled, soaked, icy cold during a rainstorm, when planning, figuring out how to build seemingly impossible steps up the side of a canyon My two latest side stops were South Molar Pass and Bow Glacier Falls, in BNP. Both of them are remarkable in the sense of where they take you...the trail user. South Molar Pass, is a serpent of delight that winds and contours up beside Molar Creek, through the squishy squish of subalpine to finally...a trail hacked out of the mountain...up to the pass. Bow Glacier Falls: have you ever slowed down, or pulled over, on the Parkway to glance beyond Bow Lake, Num Ti-jah Lodge to a waterfall in the distance? A waterfall, that endlessly pours, from a top hat of a glacier. There’s a trail that beckons...leads to the base of these falls. Trail builders have constructed wooden steps up the side of a canyon! Ingenuity, on the spot decisions, and muscles are to thank for these contrived saviors. The trails that we follow, the trails that we take for granted, just didn’t appear overnight. Trails are a kind of living history, often built many decades ago, by men long forgotten. They often laboured in remote valleys and mountain scapes...perservered in very challenging conditions, for little pay or recognition. Now –a- days, there are even more challenges for trails. Trail planning; whether in the way of trail building, trail maintaining is a living, constantly evolving and changing entity. Priorities, budgets, washouts, wildlife needs and changing use, are all cards in the deck of trails. Do yourself a huge favour, the next time when driving the Icefield Parkway, on route to somewhere...plan a side trip, a side stop. This advice comes with a warning: you might find this slightly addicting...Leave the complicated deck of cards trail planning, in the backseat. Walk, hike, run, or bike with a unclutttered, wide open mind, but dont forget, to include a generous portion of thanks for all past and future trail builders,in your backpack.
Posted on: Wed, 24 Sep 2014 03:30:38 +0000
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