From the helicopter, Braeberry River and its tributaries look like a miniature model. We sweep into another valley, and I spot a red-roofed building, Mistaya Lodge, my home for the next four days.
By the time I’ve settled into my room and come back downstairs, Val, the cook, has set out goodies for me and the eight other guests to snack on while we pack a lunch from the sandwich fixings. Dave Birnie, our head guide and lodge owner (together with his wife, Cindy Galligan, who runs the base office out of nearby Golden), instructs us on how things work and what a typical day at Mistaya looks like. We joke about how to manage the composting toilet – Mistaya has virtually no environmental footprint. Toilet humour never gets old, and already group camaraderie has started.
Mohawk Ridge Hike
Lunches packed and water bottles filled, our group heads down the trail by Mistaya Lake. The Lodge is at 2,050 metres, so we move quickly above the tree-line. Dave sets a comfortable pace through Niad Meadow and over a small wooden bridge across Wild Cat Creek, then up a rocky section before we start a few traverses across some snow. Dave’s sister, Sandra, also a certified guide, brings up the rear. They advise that many of their clientele are seniors because the terrain is gentle and easy on arthritic knees.
It’s early July, and even though it’s 10 degrees cooler up here than in the valleys, it’s almost 25 degrees. At this altitude, the sun feels strong. Dave says there was a lot of snow before this hot spell, and even Mistaya Lake had ice on it. He’s a patient guide, happily answering questions, and randomly pointing out interesting things about his home here in the mountains.
We lunch at Wee Lochen Lake, already recognizing the quality of Val’s cooking; she makes everything from scratch, including the bread. Lunch prepares us nutritionally for our summit to the top of Mohawk Ridge, but nobody is prepared for the stunning panoramic view: Mt. Baker, the highest mountain in this Waputik Range, the continental divide to the east (Alberta is on the other side), and the Banff National Park boundary, along the ridge of the mountains to the north. The distant mountains are purplish blue, like the shade I made them when colouring as a kid.
As we return to the Lodge, we pass a tattered “Wild Cat Creek Falls” sign, and Dave explains that a grizzly bear chomped the top part of the sign off. Grizzlies up here are not a problem, as they are not used to people and are very shy. Still, I secretly hope we don’t see one, but I would like to catch a glimpse of the mountain goats, the only other large mammal up this high.
Glacier Hike
The next day, Dave plans a hike to the base of several glaciers. Because we are gaining more elevation today, there are more snow traverses. It’s windy, which is nice because it’s hot again. At Grindl glacier, Sandra describes the changes since she first saw it in 1988, when the ice falls joined at the bottom and it looked like a dragon. Dave, Sandra and their parents were the first guests at Mistaya in the late ’80s, so their history here is long.
We hike to more glaciers, and I waiver between exhilaration at being so close to such rare and incredible formations, and despair that with global warming they are also disappearing. Dave points to where Clamshell glacier once was – it disappeared three years ago. He has been building cairns at some glaciers to measure their retreat, and Wildcat Glacier, the biggest and with its greater exposure to the sun, is receding at a whopping 12 metres per year.
Meadow and Three Lakes Hike
Day three dawns. It’s cold, barely above zero. We’d been wondering how the forecast of 15 could possibly be correct – 10 degrees lower than the previous days. But they were right – there’s no sun and the winds are strong.
I join Sandra’s group for a longer hike up through Heather Meadow and over to see three glacier lakes. We start up the west side of the bowl on Syd’s Trail, named after one of Dave’s mentors, a descendant of one of the original Swiss guides the CPR hotels hired back in the early 1900s. It’s the first day I’ve had to wear my windjacket, hood tied tightly, and my gloves. That the weather can be so variable from one day to the next is humbling.
Sandra is the flower expert and her attention to the smallest detail on the trail is incredible. She points out coltsfoot with its tiny yellow sunflower-like blossoms, and advises the natives burned it and used it like salt. You can eat the glacier lily seed pods like peas, and the meadow rue is one of the rare plants that has two sexes that must cross-pollinate to reproduce. She invites us to feel the butterwort, a carnivorous plant that, with its oily leaves, catches insects and then digests them. Nature is a classroom.
At the first viewpoint, we see Doubt Hill, a peak towards the north so named because explorer David Thompson and group, on one of their first trips through this range, were caught in a snowstorm, and didn’t think they were going to make it out alive.
The group is quieter today – it’s hard to talk in the wind, and we make our way over to the three lakes: Leprechaun, Longshadow and Stone Bird, to see if we can find the “rare white moss campion” (we did). At times, we hop across creeks on strategically placed rocks to avoid getting our feet wet. As we come to a sink-hole at the top of a cliff (divers have tried to descend it to see how deep it is and what it looks like inside, but it quickly gets too narrow), it starts to rain lightly and quickly turns to big, fat snowflakes. This is summer in the Rockies.
That’s our cue to return to the blazing woodstove at the Lodge for a hot tea and the bubbling Moroccan lamb stew for our last dinner together.
After dinner, I seek a meditative moment on the deck, as 20 or so hummingbirds hover and dive bomb each other to control the feeders. I feel nostalgic, not only because if I return (like many of Mistaya’s guests do), the glaciers will likely be significantly receded, but because I will miss the simplicity and quietness of this nature retreat.
For more information, visit mistayalodge.com