Berg Lake Backpacking Trip

 Hello! I hope this finds you well. I want to share the story of our Berg Lake backpacking trip from August 2020.

The backstory

With other travel plans canceled due to the pandemic this year, we started trying to figure out what we could do for adventure safely within our own province, since leaving our province seemed unlikely. What trip do I want to do the most that is inside BC as a family? 

I've heard amazing things about the Berg Lake Trail at Mt. Robson Provincial Park, which is not far from Jasper. Often people describe this hike as "breath taking" and "life changing".

My hiking book says "The Berg Lake Trail, which brings you to the foot of Mt. Robson's awesome northern rampart, is by far the most heavily travelled backpacking route in the Canadian Rockies." There is a quota system in place and usually all of the sites are booked within the first reservation day. Many people come from all over the world to hike it. 

So when all of our provincial parks started to open, but only people from BC could reserve, and all international/other provincial reservations were canceled due to COVID 19, I wondered if we could make this work.

You need to reserve a tent pad for each night, and commit to your destination with no ability to switch plans once you have booked. So I was pretty stoked, after days of looking and hoping, that I found enough open sites to make a trip reservation plan work for our family.

Getting there

The pandemic also closed some of the girls' summer camps, so we decided to do a two week road trip to explore the Canadian Rockies. (The national parks also ended up opening up and we were able to camp in both BC and Alberta). Although it would have been better for our energy levels and gear organization to START with the backpacking trip, that wasn't an option with our dates, so we ENDED our 2 week trip with this adventure. That means that we had already been camping 6/10 the previous nights before we started. ... Picture our Subaru and box on top full of camping stuff, clothes and food and trash and books and crayons and cut up paper snowflakes and toys strewn all over the place... Thankfully we booked a terrific hotel in Valemount for the two nights prior to our trip, which included coin laundry and a pool with a water slide. I was able to unpack everything, repack and organize and get us ready to roll.

Gear Update

For other trips in the last two years, we have decided to take 2 lightweight 2-person tents and split up our family. But for this trip, we could only book and pay for 1 tent pad per night, which would have been challenging to assemble two tents together on one tent pad. Some people did acheive this, but from previous experience with our awesome Nemo Hornet 2 tent on slatted tent pads, we knew that it could be difficult with how it is rigged up... so we decided instead that we would borrow a 4 person tent for this trip and sleep together in one tent. Although we were grateful for the ability to borrow it, it was certainly a much heavier option and the poles weighed quite a bit more than we were used to. 

Also, we had 4 nights and 5 days planned for this adventure, which was more food and clothing than we had done before as a family... so our packs were all feeling quite heavy for this trip!

Day One: Trailhead to Whitehorn - 11km

After a hotel breakfast, we drove 30 min to the park visitor center and check in. Mt. Robson itself was cloud covered and it started to rain as we were getting our tags from the Rangers. We drove to the trailhead at 862m. But Ava, 7 years old, started crying and complaining as we were donning our packs to start. She was tired of camping and hiking and didn't want to go backpacking and just wanted to go home and see her cat. Not the happy, sunny, energetic start we were hoping for. But we started anyway, and took turns doing our best to cheer Ava up and motivate her, which took some time. Rachel, age 9.5 years, hiked along happily just fine.

The first 4.2km is an easy double wide trail (old road) climbing gently along the river, walking through forest that feels very coastal, including old growth cedars. By the time we could see Kinney Lake, with its beautiful turquoise colour, Ava was happy and we were rolling along just fine. We had a nice lunch at Kinney Lake campground with some sun and a cool breeze.

We hiked 11km up to 1128m to camp at Whitehorn campground. Shortly after setting up the tent, it rained harder and we snuggled up inside to read for some of the afternoon. We also enjoyed making rock towers at the river when the rain took a break.

The campground became quite full that evening, but we slept well that night.

Kinney Lake for lunch

 

 

Suspension bridge leading into Whitehorn campground

 

Ava excited to snuggle in and read when we arrived

 

Making a picnic table out of rocks

Whitehorn camp tent pad and our 4 person tent

 

 

Moving under shelter for dinner when it poured rain

 

Day Two: Whitehorn to Marmot Campground - 7km

Thankfully it didn't rain WHILE we were packing up camp, but unfortunately the wet tent didn't lighten our packs for the hike. Shortly after we set off, we started a steeper climb past beautiful waterfalls. We climbed up and up and the trail felt quite crowded today. It rained here and there, which meant we didn't linger at any viewpoints for long because we weren't warm enough to hang out and picnic.

We had a beautiful lunch spot at the Emperor Falls campground, but the breeze was cold and Jason and I were having a tough time staying warm enough, so we pushed on without too much of a break.

As we emerged from this campground, we came into more open alpine views with rock and talus around. Wildflowers along the trail were beautiful, but the rain turned to sleet and hail as we pushed through a windy valley coming toward Berg Lake to find Marmot campground. 

We set up our tent and got in to change, snuggle down, and warm up for a bit before dinner.

The glaciers and Mt. Robson were cloud covered with the yucky weather, and we didn't quite have the "breath taking" experience that you certainly could if the weather were warm, the sky blue, and the whole of Mt. Robson visible above.

Still, the colour of Berg Lake and the glaciers that we could see were magestic, and it felt good to be in the alpine. Our campsite, at 1646m, was beautiful. It was a cold night (probably very close to 0 degrees Celcius) but we were fine in our warm sleeping bags.

 

Climbing up out of the valley

Lunch at Emperor Falls campground

    

Spotting Berg Lake

 

Dehydrated ice cream dessert!

Tent pad at Marmot CG

Snuggling in to read and stay warm

Mt. Robson is in the clouds

Day Three: free day

Ava woke late on this day, tired and grumpy and not feeling well. She said her stomach didn't feel great and she felt dizzy when she sat up. She was also fairly uncomfortable as a tooth was loose and hanging on by only a thread, making it difficult to eat properly.

We hoped to explore and hike around the area today without large packs since we had a second night booked at the same campsite. The sun was making an appearance amongst the clouds and patches of the mountain and glaciers were peeking out with some warmth and better views.

Jason went for a run toward Snowbird Pass while I comforted Ava and got her eating. She rebounded just fine, but wasn't interested in any more hiking or exploring. Even Rachel wasn't up for the 7-8km hike I was hoping for toward Hargreaves Lake. But she came with me to explore the Berg Lake campground and back as we enjoyed different views of the glaciers and more wildflowers. Jason jumped in Berg Lake after his run and Rachel joined in, but I couldn't make myself dunk into the frigid waters as I still wasn't entirely warm from our adventuring so far. Ava lost her tooth and felt way more comfortable, but we weren't quite sure if/how the tooth fairy would make it to her remote campsite that night!

We had a lovely afternoon throwing and skipping rocks into the lake in the sun below the glaciers, which was a special memory of relaxed family fun in a beautiful place.

Ava and Jason saw a porcupine while Rachel and I were out hiking, and it came to visit our tent in the darkness of night again. Jason and I clapped and hollered to chase it away from eating our backpack straps while the girls slept.

Good morning Mt. Robson!

Jason runs to Bear Glacier to explore

Jason sees a glacier calve and these pieces float by

  

Porcupine Butt!

 

 

 

Ava loses her tooth and wonders if the tooth fairy will come to our tent?

Day Four: Marmot Campground to the Trailhead, 19km / 12 miles down

The initial plan was to hike back to Whitehorn for a 4th night camping, and then hike out on day 5. But Rachel was pushing to see if we could hike all the way out and get home sooner, and everyone was up for trying. We weren't really sure if backpacking 19km was possible, especially for a 7 year old... 

We got up early and packed up with some light drizzle and patches of sun. Our packs felt much lighter as the tent and clothes were mostly dry and we had eaten much more food. Rachel lead the fierce downhill pace and we moved along through the beautiful trail. The kids were motivated to move and going downhill seemed very easy for them. The trail is not technical and so well used that it is easy going. We stepped aside often to stay physically distanced from other hikers climbing up, but I don't think anyone passed us coming out. 

At the end of a steep climb coming toward Whitehorn campground, Jason and the girls went ahead as we were passing a man, and I lingered to take off a layer. Above me I heard rocks falling as though other hikers were coming down the trail behind me. As I turned to see the hikers, however, I realized the noise was coming from a mamma bear and her bear cub, 30 feet above me on a hillside and coming my way! I called out, sounded my bear horn to make noise, and the bears turned to traverse away from me as Jason and the other hiker and the girls came back, hoping to see the bears. Once the bears were heading away from me, it was quite fun/exciting and we walked around the valley to see if we could see the bears again. By the time we saw them crossing the valley, they were very far away. 

We got to Whitehorn campground before 11am, and it was clear that we were all motivated to keep going and hike out to the car instead of spending the night. Once we started walking passed the campground, though, we had to go to the end. We didn't have reservations at Kinney Lake that night so going forward was commitment to go all the way to the car. 

We aimed to make it to the Kinney Lake campground for lunch. There is a beautiful shelter there covering many picnic tables beside the beautiful lake, and the temperature was increasing as we dropped in elevation. But the shelter was quite crowded, and we didn't feel very safe being that close to others during this pandemic, so we kept walking forward hoping for a lunch spot. It was raining gently, though, and we were getting emotional / hangry, so it was excellent to stop under some trees and pulled out the stove for some hot raman noodles and spaghetti.

After lunch we cruised along, celebrating each km as we passed the marker. 5km left. Then 4km. The trail felt busy with all sorts of different folks. Some families were hiking or biking out the Kinney Lake for the day - one family even pushed a city stroller out, which seemd ambitious to us. Our packs were feeling heavy and the kids were getting tired, but we were very happy to get to the 1 km sign and then to the car by about 2pm.

Changing into fresh clothes and fresh sandals and sitting in the car felt fantastic. Jason was keen to drive and we had family we could stay with if we could make a 6 hour drive... so we turned on some music and rocked the drive back toward the coast... really proud of our girls and the amazing way they cranked on the jets to come out a day early when they were motivated.

Reflections

I'm really grateful to have had this experience. For me, backpacking to more remote areas allows us to unplug and get away from it all and enjoy nature in ways that we don't do as a family in any other way. I think being able to access this particular spot was a 'silver lining' of the pandemic, and probably not something we would have otherwise done. I think if the weather had been warmer and more clear, we would have appreciated the scenery even more. It is a crowded trail, which made me feel safer in some ways (like I could see myself doing this as a solo hiker and not being as scared about bears or getting lost) but also made things felt less peaceful and less remote in other ways. I think if Jason and I had done this as a couple without kids, we would have packed up to Marmot CG for 2 nights and explored around the area for the middle day before coming home on day 3. 

Every backpacking trip I learn a little bit more - how far can we go? how much food do we need? what gear could we improve? I think packing for more than 3 nights as a family feels like it's more than we enjoy and more weight than I want to carry... So I might stick to 2-3 night adventures until the girls can carry more... but we will see what future trips look like and how things shift as the girls grow.