I can't imagine a better place to live than Waterton Lakes National Park, especially for a teenage boy who is into the great out doors. I looked forward to it every spring and I dreaded leaving every fall. I have so many stories I could tell that I could spend a long time writing. By far my favorite thing to do was to climb mountains. Usually it was just Lester and I but once in a while we would go with other people. I remember climbing with Greg, Ross, Curtis, the whole family, Tom, Rick and many others. Of course, it was always with Lester. I don't ever remember hiking by myself.
We climbed many peaks but the mountains I remember best are, Crandel mountain and Vimy mountain. To climb Crandel mountain you had to get on the other side of the lake. This picture is of Kira and Evan standing on bears hump. In the background is Vimy mountain and below them is the townsite. You can tell that without a boat you have to go around the lake. we drove down to the dardenelles where you could walk across the river and then hike from there. We probably hiked along the lake for two or three miles before we started up the mountain. In the picture that would coming to the mountain from the left. The trail went fairly close to a saddle between
Vimy peak and the next peak but the last half mile it was all loose slabs of shale. This picture is taken from Vimy peak looking at the saddle. We came up the left side of the saddle. The shale was tough climbing because the slope was very steep and every step you took the shale would slide down. I think Lester and I climbed the shale for nearly an hour before we finally got to the saddle. Totally out of breath (the altitude was probably well over 8,000 feet) we sat down on the ridge to catch our breath and to admire the view on the other side of the saddle. From there we could see the town sight. It was about that time that we looked down the other side of the saddle and
we noticed that there was a massive bear running up the other side of the saddle right towards us. The ridge was probably twice as far as the side we had just climbed because we had come up a bowl and from the picture you can see that it was much steeper but that bear was in a full out run. The wind was very strong in our face so I was quite sure that the bear couldn't smell us be all of the sudden the fatigue that we had been experiencing was totally gone. Now we were in a full out run along the ridge towards Vimy peak. It only took that bear ten minutes to run up a slope that was at least twice as high as the peak we had just climbed in nearly an hour. The bear reached the saddle in the exact same spot that we had been standing just ten minutes earlier. Out of some morbid curiosity we decided we'd stop and see what the bear decided to do. Obviously he now smelled that we'd been there because he came to an abrupt stop and reared up on his hind legs smelling the air. We were probably only a few hundred yards away (you can't run too fast on a very rugged and rocky mountain ridge) and we were really hoping that the bear wouldn't come and check us out. We probably weren't much further along than that guy in the picture of the ridge. Luckily he decided to carry on with his original plan and ran down the other side exactly where we had come up. The view from on top of Vimy was absolutely stunning. We played around on top for a long time before going back down. We wanted to make sure that the bear had plenty of time to get out of the way.
I can't imagine a better place to live than Waterton Lakes National Park, especially for a teenage boy who is into the great out doors. I looked forward to it every spring and I dreaded leaving every fall. I have so many stories I could tell that I could spend a long time writing. By far my favorite thing to do was to climb mountains. Usually it was just Lester and I but once in a while we would go with other people. I remember climbing with Greg, Ross, Curtis, the whole family, Tom, Rick and many others. Of course, it was always with Lester. I don't ever remember hiking by myself. 
We climbed many peaks but the mountains I remember best are, Crandel mountain and Vimy mountain. To climb Crandel mountain you had to get on the other side of the lake. This picture is of Kira and Evan standing on bears hump. In the background is Vimy mountain and below them is the townsite. You can tell that without a boat you have to go around the lake. we drove down to the dardenelles where you could walk across the river and then hike from there. We probably hiked along the lake for two or three miles before we started up the mountain. In the picture that would coming to the mountain from the left. The trail went fairly close to a saddle between 
Vimy peak and the next peak but the last half mile it was all loose slabs of shale. This picture is taken from Vimy peak looking at the saddle. We came up the left side of the saddle. The shale was tough climbing because the slope was very steep and every step you took the shale would slide down. I think Lester and I climbed the shale for nearly an hour before we finally got to the saddle. Totally out of breath (the altitude was probably well over 8,000 feet) we sat down on the ridge to catch our breath and to admire the view on the other side of the saddle. From there we could see the town sight. It was about that time that we looked down the other side of the saddle and 
we noticed that there was a massive bear running up the other side of the saddle right towards us. The ridge was probably twice as far as the side we had just climbed because we had come up a bowl and from the picture you can see that it was much steeper but that bear was in a full out run. The wind was very strong in our face so I was quite sure that the bear couldn't smell us be all of the sudden the fatigue that we had been experiencing was totally gone. Now we were in a full out run along the ridge towards Vimy peak. It only took that bear ten minutes to run up a slope that was at least twice as high as the peak we had just climbed in nearly an hour. The bear reached the saddle in the exact same spot that we had been standing just ten minutes earlier. Out of some morbid curiosity we decided we'd stop and see what the bear decided to do. Obviously he now smelled that we'd been there because he came to an abrupt stop and reared up on his hind legs smelling the air. We were probably only a few hundred yards away (you can't run too fast on a very rugged and rocky mountain ridge) and we were really hoping that the bear wouldn't come and check us out. We probably weren't much further along than that guy in the picture of the ridge. Luckily he decided to carry on with his original plan and ran down the other side exactly where we had come up. The view from on top of Vimy was absolutely stunning. We played around on top for a long time before going back down. We wanted to make sure that the bear had plenty of time to get out of the way.
3 comments:
Ooo!!!! THat just gives me the shivers to think how close you came to meeting up with a bear.
This is Lester.
I remember that hike as if it was yesterday. I loved Vimy Peak and was looking for any excuse to go back up, so when we lived in Magrath I suggested to my sons that they invite a friend each and we would do the hike again. This must have been in 1997 or 1998.
Instead of getting all wet wading across the Dardenelles, and adding the extra 5 miles to the hike to come in from the Chief Mountain Highway trailhead on foot, we took mountain bikes up in the back of my pickup truck and rode the first five miles as far as we could (to the bottom of the steep trail).
I remember once we got to the top, I thought I would try my cell phone. It was one of those old .6 watt analog phones (before digital), and this cell phone in southern Alberta lost its signal in Cardston...not even to think about getting a "line of sight" signal in Waterton. The best I could figure the nearest tower was in Lethbridge...72 miles away!
The signal strength was 3 out of 5 bars and we all phoned home to say "Hi from the top of Vimy Peak".
It was a very long day! Fred, ask Peter if he still has his photo from the top of Vimy Peak. I blew up the picture and gave one to Peter, Andrew, Curtis, and Brandon.
smart to run. from Sydney
Post a Comment