Posted by Topher Donahue on Mon, Aug 16, 2010 @ 08:00 AM
This spring the CMH guides built a new Via Ferrata in the Bugaboos on a little-known rock buttress of smooth quartzite know as Trundle Ridge. Last month I photographed one of the first teams to ascend the new route. CMH Bugaboos assistant manager Peter Macpherson was our guide for the day. We talked about how diverse the CMH Summer Adventure program has become, and how hard it is to describe the experience. Grandparents can go on leisurely hikes near the helicopter, while their kids climb a via ferrata or hike all day, and their grandkids slide on alpine snowfields and splash in tiny streams - and then afterwards everyone sits down together for a gourmet dinner. How do you compare that to the average adventure travel experience?
From the view out the window of the helicopter of the CMH Bugaboo Lodge, just minutes after finishing a coffee, to standing on the summit of the via ferrata with the otherworldly Bugaboo Spires in the background, here are a few shots that tell the tale better than words:
The next day two of the via ferrata climbers went on an eight-hour hike along a serpentine ridge overlooking the Bugaboos. One of them sat on the tundra with a view of the Bugaboo Spires and a palette of watercolours, painting the toothy peaks and nibbling lox croissants. The other two went hiking with their kids in a wonderland of glaciers, wildly-coloured lakes, and beaches of crystalline sand.
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Photos by Topher Donahue
Posted by Jane Carswell on Fri, May 28, 2010 @ 03:33 PM
by Paul Lazarski
As heli-hiking guides at CMH we are confronted minute by minute by a multitude of puzzle-like decisions. The true art of guiding is to make those decisions appear seamless and ‘easy' to the guest. Many decisions are made for purely environmental and sustainability reasons. Today the word ‘sustainability' is heard everywhere, both referring to many different things and meaning different things to different people. To a guide it means something very simple: caring for your home! In fact caring IS the essence of sustainability, creating a love of place and a sense of ownership, as in when you value something so much, you feel the need to share it with others.
In addition to the behind the scenes work back at the lodge, there are a multitude of in-the-field decisions that take place in the mind of a guide starting with the very first few steps away from the helicopter. As guests are taking in their first excited views of the mountains, they are unaware that the guide has already quietly scuffed over the helicopter skid depressions, protecting that moment for future guests. They will introduce the mountains, subtly changing his/her position and drawing the group nearer to a more group friendly ‘hardened' site. A hardened site simply refers to a micro portion of terrain that is more resistant to the footfalls of a group so as to minimize long term impact. We always impact our environment, the challenge however, is to walk through it in such a way so as to protect its integrity, not only for future guests but simply because it is the right thing to do.
If you watch the line that a guides leads, they will continually be connecting the dots, moving from one harder surface to another (rock, grasses, snow, dry meadows) avoiding if possible the environments that will be more impacted (heather, willow, moist meadows). Creek crossings are areas of special concern by forcing one over the same terrain time and time again leading to heavy impact. More importantly, simple avoidance if possible, can preserve the surrounding plant community. Lunch spots, vulnerable to trampling and washroom issues, need extra diligence when choosing. Often the guest only becomes aware of this process and these sensitive environments when they are asked to "spread out". When appropriate, the guide may describe their decision making process to guests. Education being the secret to good guiding, and the best education is that which leaves the guest with a deeper understanding but without the knowledge that they've been taught.
Being used to hiking in parks and along trails, some guests feel uncomfortable walking through mountain environments, however, plants respond to footfalls in different ways, recover at different rates and are more or less susceptible to lesser or greater numbers of people. Guides use pre-existing animal trails (like the one in the photo above) timelessly created by mountain goat, elk and bear to eliminate human impact. In 2004 CMH sponsored specific trampling plot studies, in which a variety of plant communities where deliberately walked through a varying number of times. In order to determine long term vs. short term impact, these sites are inspected at regular intervals. In addition, as part of this ABLE project (Applying Back-country Landscape Evaluations) hundreds of specific GPS landmarked plots were established to determine the impact and/or non-impact of hikers and game. Both trail and area plots measure the amount of, and percent of species, the amount of cover & bare ground and the width of pre-existing trails if any. These are checked and compared on a multi-year cycle.
The knowledge from these ongoing studies is part of a guides skill set and is paramount in creating a successful hiking day for our guests. All of these behind the scenes decisions are being processed within a framework of other issues (guest fitness & fatigue, the best view & lunch spots, terrain & bear safety, timing, heli pick up sites, guest interests & expectations, the avoidance of wildlife & other hiking groups, water sources and fragile or ‘tempting' geology) to create exceptional guests experiences.
It can be rightly said, that a guide has a ‘love interest' in preserving the landscape and its ecosystems and is fully aware that it is his/her self that has the greatest power to protect the places they love. As guides we have a responsibility to think forward, so that we can proudly share the same amazing places with the same level of passion to our future guests.
Cheers
Paul Lazarski
photo by Paul Lazarski, Guests using a game trail on Rockypoint Ridge, CMH Bugaboos.
Posted by Topher Donahue on Thu, Apr 22, 2010 @ 11:55 AM
It was 1985. I was clomping down a Colorado trail in my hiking boots. We called them “waffle stompers” for the pattern left by the heavy tread. I was proud of my waffle stompers, and the suffering I endured while wearing them was part and parcel of mountain adventure. We stopped at the side of the trail to rest our weary feet, and I vividly remember watching two climbers coming down the trail with their packs heavily laden with ropes and various implements of vertical fun. My eyes were immediately drawn to their feet. No waffle stompers! Instead they were wearing lightweight running shoes and it seemed they were floating down the trail instead of walking. The rest of the way down the trail, my feet felt as if they were clamped in a hot waffle iron, and I would have given anything for a pair of running shoes. After that I became a committed light shoe hiker.
Fast-forward 20 years. Adventure travel is mainstream. I'm heli-hiking in the Bugaboos. I’m wearing running shoes. Everyone else in the group is wearing new-school hiking boots that are lighter and more comfortable than my old waffle stompers. The marshy area we crossed earlier has my tennies squelching with ice cold water and my toes feeling weirdly numb and tender at the same time. 
Then, while walking across a short scree field, the sound of a huge ice avalanche calving from a vertical glacier face in the distance catches our attention and we all stop to stand awestruck by the display of wilderness power. Then I take another step onto a sandy slope without paying attention, slip, and in trying to recover my shoes scoop up handfulls of gritty sand. So now I have wet, sandy socks and I looked with envy at my fellow hikers in their lightweight high-top boots.
Today, outdoor footwear companies make a shoe for every occasion, and I realize there is a place for all of them. Here’s a list of iconic mountain adventures and the footwear I choose for each one:
- Short day hikes in warm weather, like visiting Yosemite’s Vernal Falls: Ventilated running shoes with cotton socks.
- Long day hikes in warm weather like Canyonland’s Joint Trail: Sturdy, ventilated trail running shoes with thin synthetic socks.
- Rugged trail hikes in alpine areas like Peru’s Santa Cruz Trek: Gore-tex approach shoes with wool or synthetic socks.
And, no matter what shoes I choose, I leave a pair of flip flops at the car, hut or lodge because my feet are always craving fresh air at the end of the day.
Do you have any footwear epics or opinions you'd like to share?
Photo by Topher Donahue
Posted by Jane Carswell on Tue, Mar 02, 2010 @ 12:21 PM
by CMH Guide, Paul Lazarski
After only a few minutes-long flight by helicopter, we step out on the bare glacial ice of the awe-inspiring Dartmouth Glacier. Here, guests are immersed in a truly wild landscape of expansive peaks and glaciers. Standing on the soft ice, reminiscent of frozen popcorn, we safely cross the glacier flats to view the distant ice fall above Bill's Pass. Until the summer of 2009, this area was off limits due to its ruggedness, however, warming ice conditions and glacial recession have made this new hike, at least in the short term, possible.
In reality, the ease of access to this area we enjoy today would have made earlier mountain visitors envious. In the minds of the early climbers and explorers our quick flight eliminates the oft-times long, arduous valley approach, through thick timber and tangled alder. Now we can enjoy the most time in the most exciting areas!
History has a strange way of repeating itself, today hikers and climbers launch personal pilgrimages to the mountains, seeking the same adventure, peace and perspective on life as did those of a much simpler time. Unknown, however, to most visitors to The Bugaboos and Bobbie Burns, is the fact that we are walking literally within the footsteps of history. There is a long lineage of expeditions to this area from American University Alpine Clubs, with climbers from Dartmouth, Harvard, Princeton and The University of California Berkeley launching expeditions as early as 1948. At a time when travel was less accessible, the ordeal of entering these high mountains proved quite challenging. Even after the introduction of road travel into the Bugaboos for example, climbers would load onto a shock-less 1946 Ford truck for the hellish eight hour 'drive' up to where the lodge is today.
The University that left the most extensive legacy in the area were those climbers from The Dartmouth College Mountaineering Club (DMC). Located some 3,600 km (2,300 miles) distant in New Hampshire, The DMC led numerous expeditions into The Purcells, from 1952 to 1959. For us today this time period holds a certain romance and sought after simplicity. Climbing gear was very sparse, often comprising of only a long ice axe, Tricouni boot spikes or heavy iron crampons for crossing ice, the occasional iron rock anchor and a rope. There were no harnesses, climbers wrapped multiple loops of the rope around their waist, tying them with the age-old marine style bowline knot. Climbing objectives respected the skills of the day, ropes more often than not were wrapped around protruding rock horns for fall protection and climbers chose routes that would reduce the chance of a rope-constricting fall. Celebrating their achievements, climbers would construct small rock piles on the peaks, placing within a small metal tube and there leaving their names on paper for posterity. It was on one such remote peak in the summer of 2003 that a CMH guide discovered part of the legacy of the DMC. While opening the rock cairn to place a similar record of his guests achievement, he found a small aluminum Kodak film canister with the initials DMC scratched on it face. Since that time, other DMC film cans have been found and left to remind future guests, of the simple human value that 'we were here'.
The legacy of those early Dartmouth Mountaineering Club climbers lives on in the names of numerous peaks, both in The Bugaboos and Bobbie Burns Ranges. Many features were named in their honour, such as Collins Creek, Bill's Pass and the Dartmouth Glacier on which we stand today. Most, however, were named by the east-coast climbers themselves, often reflecting their university associations, faculties and personal backgrounds. In 1952-53, history major Bob Collins named Mounts 'Sir William' Wallace, Robert the Bruce, Syphax (after the slave of Julius Caesar) and The Scotch Peaks. Expedition leader Peter Robinson named The Whirpool & Catamount Glaciers (for an ice waterfall and a camp visiting cougar), Mt. North Star and Mt Stone (after the President of Purdue University). Likewise in 1953, a physics and biology major named Mounts Kelvin (for Lord Kelvin - discoverer of absolute zero) and Snaflehound Spire (for the sneaky bushy-tailed wood rat).
The DMC accomplished numerous first ascents including Virgin Peak in 1952 and The Whipping Post, which they named in 1956. The later part of the '50s produced more expeditions and more names including Osprey Peak, Robinson Glacier, Mt. McCarthy, Shaft Seven, Climbing Ridge, The Fountain of Youth, and Pleasure Island. One of the most famous of their achievements was the North Purcell ski traverse, from The Bugaboos to Rogers Pass. Bill Briggs, who later gained renown for his stunning accomplishments in the Grand Tetons, accompanied his DMC friends on that first ever expedition.
Many DMC expedition members went on to be famous, Peter Robinson became geology professor at the University of Massachusetts while Bill Briggs achieved ski-mountaineering fame by being the first person ever to descend The Grand Teton on skis.
For the modern heli-hiking / mountaineering guest, equipped with all the modern conveniences of breathable waterproof fabric and lightweight gear, its hard to imagine long lines of woollen clad climbers, sporting long wooden ice axes, heavy canvas packs and iron pitons ascending some of the most arduous peaks in Western Canada.
Today the DMC achievements live on only in their archived mountaineering club journals, and in the imaginations of the few who know and greatly respect their accomplishments. By joining me this summer in the Bugaboos and Bobbie Burns you can help to keep their memory alive and relive some of the same awe and wonder that spellbound those early adventurers.
photo: Bill's Pass, CMH Bugaboo, by Paul Lazarski