To Trail's End

The final episode of the "Back Country" serial post

Our night at Mystic Camp was punctuated by long rumbling peals of thunder, and fat rain drops drumming on the canvas above us. By the time we woke, though, the weather was clearing up; and when we rode out, the sun was shining again - though invisible to us, riding now along a densely-forested valley floor. This was the easiest riding by far, covering a short distance on the widest and easiest trails of our journey. We broke for lunch in a clearing below the gloriously named Mount Fifi (very fine-looking peak, actually).

Riders at Mt. Norquay, Canadian Rockies

And then, we were back, the familiar mountain-scape around Banff opening up in front of us, riding through meadows that in winter become pistes. Nature had one more surprise for us before trail's end, though; trotting nonchalantly past only forty or so metres away came a coyote - the first I'ld ever seen.

Back at the corral, our guide was effusively thanked, and (we hope) generously tipped. If you'ld like to see something of the Canadian backcountry, you might think of dropping a line to Warner Outfitters, Banff.

In the Back Country: the ride to Mystic

Continued from "to Flint's Peak" and "Into the Back Country"

We woke to another beautiful Rocky Mountain morning - to blue skies and the fresh smells of the dewy meadow and the surrounding pines. Back on the trail, a detour and a short walk along a rather exposed path brought us to the exceptional North Cascade Falls - a real gem of a waterfall in a gorgeous little canyon.

Back on the horses, our ride took us past a shuttered Park Warden's cabin - as a supplementary precaution against ursine intrusion, large numbers of nails had been hammered upwards through wooden pallets, and these left in front of all doors and windows. The location was pretty perfect - right beside a river, with a neat-as-a-pin corral alongside (including a chute to allow horses to drink straight from the river). Lucky people.

North Fork Cascade Falls

Fording the Cascade River for the last time, we rode up the crest of a steep and very exposed ridge - an arete, really. The views on this ascent were probably very good - but the author was too busy dizzying himself by looking down the precipitous drops to either side to pay much attention to the wider landscape. Fortunately for the future of this blog, Ajax behaved himself almost perfectly.

The ridge topped out into level ground eventually, and short stroll through trees brought us to the western shore of Rainbow Lake - a classic post-glacial feature, sitting in a high bowl with steep rocky sides, the shale still concealed in places by the last of the winter's snowdrifts. Perhaps a thousand feet above, mountain sheep were silhouetted briefly against the sky. In the lake at our feet, trout surfaced continuously. To add the final touch of wildness and beauty to the scene, an Osprey stooped down from the trees on the north shore, splashed once, then climbed with impressive speed to circle past us, a dripped trout wriggling in his talons.

We rode on; steeply downhill, and onto the broad open spaces of Forty Mile Pass, which sits on the old packer route between Banff and Jasper, and gives exceptional views to north and south. Then, down again, past a circling eagle, and into the forest, and at last into Mystic Camp.

Campfire at Mystic

It was at Mystic that we were introduced by the camp packer to the mysteries of the great Austrialian art of whip-cracking. This is done with a fantastically supple fifteen foot leather whip, which tapes slowly to a very light and narrow tip. The easiest way to get the crack out is to start by laying the whip straight ahead; then, a surprisingly slow and gentle pull on the handle lifts the leather up and back past the whipper's ear - after which the handle is brought smartly forward, accelerating the tip of the tip to Mach 2! This doesn't produce the crack - but the loop that has just been induced in the main body does, shooting down the thinning leather, concentrating the energy into an ever-lighter cross section, and finally breaking the sound-barrier. Done right, this sounds just like a rifle - and, when you think about it, the sound is generated in a very similar way. Done wrong, I found the thong very likely to wind up around my neck, on the back of my legs, or really anywhere I did not mean it to be. The evening ended around the campfire, with our guide and packer trading trail stories.

In the Back Country: on to Flint's Peak

Continued from "Into the Back Country"

On our second day, C rode out on a fresh mount, the very handsome Ricky - her previous mount, Gent, was being given an easy day, on account of having been bitten by Ajax while in the corral. Ricky was very lazy, always falling behind - until motivated with a freshly-cut switch, after which he became a reformed character.

We rode first along a winding trail through dark forest, tall pines close on every side. Once, we passed a ruined log cabin, built by trappers sometime around the start of the twentieth century. The walls still stood, but the massive trunks of falling trees had toppled inwards from all sides to crash through the roof; an imaginative observer might think the forest had sacrificed a few of its giants to drive the intruders out.

Dark forest became scrubby bog, followed by meadow; we sat a while beside an old elk trap, used to thin (by relocation) the local population. Later, we stopped for lunch in a forest whose floor was carpeted with the thickest and softest mosses became the mattresses for our siesta; we dozed beside an abandoned wolf den, under the solemn gaze of a young and fearless owl.

Fording the Cascade River

The afternoon ride was a little more challenging; we rode a very narrow trail across a steep slope, listening to loose stones rattle off into the forest below. I felt Ajax stumble once or twice, but my Appaloosa didn't fail me. Later, he took me safely through the cold, cold Cascade River a time or two (stirrup-deep, sometimes), and finally, very cautiously, down the break-neck steepness of the trail into our camp below Flint's Peak.

Camped below Flint's Peak

In camp, I took to the river to wash away the heat and grime of the trail; my chosen bathtub was a hollow in mid-river in the lee of an obstruction that broke the current. I reached it by edging out along some fallen trees, a very rough and slippery bridge, trying not to think about how it would feel to be swept downstream after a good raking from the sharp stumps of broken branches. It was the coldest (and easily the quickest) bath of my life - but what a location.

Encounter

I knew I was close - lots of fresh scat on the ground, seed-stippled, each heap with its own orbiting cloud of flies, the stink competing for my attention with the pervading reek of rotten fish. Turning a corner, I sent a cloud of scavenging ravens flapping into the sky; the eagles remained, unmoving but watchful of my passing. There were pug-marks in the mud, broad game-trails in the grass. Perhaps the bear was gone - or perhaps he was behind me. After three hours of stalking, that nasty eyes-on-the-back-of-my-neck feeling was stronger that ever, and my hand hovered above the holster on my hip.

I decided on one final pass through the thicket before giving up - having already seen the runs and the fish scraps, I knew that he must spend a lot of time there. Leaving open ground was a risky tactical move, though. In the thicket, I could pass right by whole squadrons of bears without ever realizing - and a pounce could bring me down before I could even draw, let alone aim.

Then, something clicked in my awareness, and 15 yards ahead, the dark shape framed by the bushes snapped into focus. Glossy black fur framed intelligent eyes that looked directly at me. For an instant, the bear and I stared at each other. His head was disconcertingly big and high. Being face to face with a large carnivore of uncertain intention concentrates the mind perfectly. The yard, the stink, even the surrounding thicket, all vanished, leaving nothing but overwhelming awareness of bear.

Before I could raise either camera or my Capsaicin-based spray, he turned- and, immediately, vanished in the thicket. I would hate to inadvertently trap a nervous bear in a confined space; I circled the thicket once, very, very warily. Then I gave up. I have no video; but I have found my bear.

Into the Back Country

Our guide, Mike, was waiting for us at the trail head, horses (10) saddled, mule (1) packed, ready for the trail. Riding out that sunny morning, we were one cowboy, born and bred (Mike), 3 keen riders from Indiana, a Danish family of 3 of mixed experience, and, finally, C and myself (riding dilettantes).

The first few yards of the trail took us through a shuttered ski resort (Mount Norquay). Then, tall pines closed in around the narrow track, and we said goodbye to "civilisation". Already, the deep quiet of the back country was upon us, the drone of the infernal combustion engine replaced by the by the steady clip-clop rhythm of strolling hooves. In that close forest, the mountains around us were only glimpsed, their presence mostly inferred by the steepness of the ground to either side of the trail, and by the sound of hidden torrents, still swollen with snow-melt.

We stopped for lunch in a clearing at the edge of a meadow, and turned our horses loose (except Mikes, for purposes of rounding-up). Gophers popped out of burrows to watch as Mike removed a grill from the back of his mule and set about splitting firewood to cook our burgers. From the edge of the meadow, we could see across the valley to the forest on the opposite slopes. Looking higher, the scars of fire and avalanche were easily found; above those, a crest of the slate that gives these young mountains their rugged good looks.

Lee and Shrynn, keen riders from Indiana

Post-lunch, the forest closed in again, but the ground around us leveled out - a fortunate circumstance, as it turned out. Up ahead, the guide's horse came to an abrupt stop; I was close enough behind to see the problem, which was an uprooted tree stump sitting on the trail. This was a "grizzly stump" - the ant-ridden remains of a rotting tree, dug up and ripped apart by a protein-hungry grizzly bear. Mike's horse shook its head and stamped its feet, and tried to go anywhere but straight ahead; he put his spurs in, forced its head around to face the stump, and soon enough, got safely past.

Well, the spare horse, Ricky, passed by without incident, and so did Rocket the lunch mule, and Kris from Indiana; but Ajax, my mount, lacked their confidence in Mike's judgement. Having been neck-reining him all day, I neglected to shorten my reins at the crucial moment, and Ajax shied, before heading straight off the trail and into the forest, removing his rider (me) with the help of the first pine he passed. Having separated rider, hat and even the port-side stirrup (replaced with the help of Lee from Indiana), he moved me, on recapturing him, to offer him a new career inside a sausage skin, should he ever repeat that little performance. Having led him past that sinister stump, I re-mounted in a state of mild embarrassment, and our party rode on.

Sorex minutus

Sorex minutus is a predator with a particularly high metabolic rate; so high, in fact, that going more than 2 hours without eating could be fatal. Over the course of 24 hours, this efficient hunter will devour prey equal to two thirds of its own weight. Teeth that do that much biting need to be tough - and they are, containing so much iron that the tips are red. Sorex is also extremely territorial, and the males defend their territories with ferocious violence.

I encountered my first specimen this morning - the corpse of the unfortunate creature was making small circuits in our garden, its tiny body(just 4 grams or so) propelled into the air by batting paws.

The hunter become the hunted

Our little assassin was having the time of his life. Well, somebody's life.

Shakedown

With a small-craft advisory and a gale warning out, I did the only sensible thing – drove as quickly as possible to the cove where we keep Briongloid. The row out was brutal – a squall hit, and actually kicked my dinghy sideways over the water; a vicious chop even managed to slap a little water over the bows.

My row out told me all I needed to know about sail choice; I cast off with a single-reefed main and a hurriedly-hoisted storm jib. One very conservatively managed jibe took me to the entrance of the cove, becalmed for a few minutes in the narrows, and sorely tempted to shake that reef back out.

Glad I didn’t do that! Speed over ground ticked up, up, up on the GPS, and suddenly I was far too busy to be looking at numbers. The burble-burble of our wake built to a hiss; a faint vibration developed in the tiller. Briongloid rose into a swell of some substance; the next was bigger, and the third was bigger again. A wave broke awkwardly on the bow just as we plunged down the back the swell, and spray burst into the cabin around three sides of the fore-hatch. That did get my attention: must get that seal replaced, and take a second look at those latches.

The open sea was a lively place; force 6, gusting to 8, a south-westerly swell combining with a healthy westerly chop – I clipped my harness to a strong-point on the cockpit floor after one well-timed wave nearly lifted me from my seat. A pretty considerable heel developed in the gusts, but Briongloid handled well – steering remained responsive, and I had no fear of a broach. Behind me, the backs of passing swells were already high enough to conceal the entrance to the cove.

Being an evening sail, it wasn’t long before I had to tack for home; bore off on to a real screamer of a reach; GPS says we topped off at 8.3 knots - presumably sliding down a swell with the gale driving us - and staying in the vicinity of hull speed the rest of the way home.

Back on the mooring, I slid back the main hatch to be confronted by utter chaos: a landlubber might have assumed that the boat had been picked up and shaken by a giant (which would be within hailing distance of the truth, I suppose) - tools, sail bags and yet-to-be-installed parts had made an obstacle course of the cabin floor, while a small puddle remained beneath the fore-hatch. An inspection of the rigging also proved educational – the flapping of an imperfectly reefed main and slackly hoisted jib had shaken one bottle neck screw apart, leaving the attached stay to hang slackly by the mast. A job for some tightly-wrapped electrical tape, I think.

Conclusions: a Pandora will handle well in heavier weather, but check your rigging - and your fore-hatch.