Illecillewaet Glacier, BC

Day 32: Fri 22 Aug: Oh My Effing God.

Today I hiked the Perley Rock trail to the edge of the Illecillewaet Glacier. I knew it was going to be a bit above me (it's rated "most difficult"), but I figured if I allowed enough time, I'd be fine.

Perley Rock is the third hump from the right in the above photograph. I ended up hiking not to its top, but behind it, to the glacier.

The first thing I should say is that when everything is in meters and kilometers, it all seems so much more doable than it does when you convert it to feet and miles. The trail starts at Illecillewaet Campground, which is at 1,200m. Twelve hundred meters doesn't seem so high, but it's about 4,000 feet, which is high enough to feel. The trail goes for 5.6km (3.5 miles), and you come back the same way, so 7 miles total. And you top out at (get ready) 2,400m (about 8,000 feet). My sea-level lungs were challenged, needless to say. As was every muscle in my body from my hips on down.

For the steeper portions near the top (probably about a third of the trail), all I did was count 100 steps, and stop and rest until I caught my breath. Sometimes I could only go 50 steps. Whatever I could manage. Pacing myself wasn't helping; it didn't really matter how slowly I took my steps, I would still need a rest to catch my breath. It was also made more difficult by the will-breaking magnitude of some of the peaks I was under. I couldn't really tell where the trail was going, except up, and some of the peaks I was under were so enormous that I didn't think I would be able to get to the top. It helped when some hikers coming down said I was only an hour away. An hour? The way I felt I should have been there already.

The trail got a bit confusing when it went over snow. The trail ended at a snowfield that had some very old footprints in it, but no fresh ones. I knew there were people ahead of me, so they must have gone somewhere, but it took me a while to figure it out. I wandered around following footprints (scrapes, really) in the muddy scree for a while. It turns out that they had gone above the snowfield to the base of the cliff it started at and hiked the narrow gap there.

But it was worth it. Oh man, it was so worth it. The view going up was intense, but going up over the last ridge there was the vast expanse of glacier in front of me, including some meltponds and a lake. Incredible. There was a family at the top, and they took a picture of me against the icefields, one of the few pictures on this trip with me in it. I need to learn how to use the face auto-detect mode of the camera at some point. I was just in awe, in every direction, but mostly to the glacier side, since I'd been staring at incredible mountain vistas the whole way up.

The white icefield (Illecillewaet Névé) beyond the glacier just goes on for miles. And it goes up several hundred more meters.

The weather was perfect -- mostly sunny. It started to turn more to cloudy, which made me find a wind-sheltered place to hang out, lay down, and stare up at the sky. Eventually I needed to head back down, since my plan was to be off the mountain by 5pm.

The trip down was fast, but grueling. My right knee was really feeling it, as were the soles of my feet. I didn't have the best footwear. I need to remember that when I go hiking, I should wear my thick polypro socks with these boots, because otherwise my feet slide around too much. The toe that I had smashed in SF actually did fine. It's still a bit sore if I stub or jam it, but I've got no problems pushing off with it.

In this picture looking down, you can see the Asulkan Brook. I'm not sure where this particular stream ends up, but I know I'm close to the headwaters of the Columbia River. Rivers from the mountain parks flow to the Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic oceans. Way off in the distance, down at the bottom, you can see a stretch of Highway 1. It was a long way down, and I took this picture when I was already about a third of the way down.

I finally made it back to the campground, where I decided that my aching feet would be better served by spending the night here than driving anywhere. When I checked in, they asked for where I was from, and when I said Vermont, the campground attendant said he was from Montréal, and loved skiing at Jay Peak -- that is, until he took a job at Banff. We all agree that once you've skiied the West, there's no going back to the East.

I set up my too-huge tent (we've fit two queen-sized air mattresses and four people in this tent), and sat down and wrote this. I'm going to sign off, read a bit, and then go to bed.

I say that, but it's 7pm, and the sun is setting against the mountains and the clouds and mountains look incredible. Man, can it get any more beautiful?