Onward to the High Country... Wilcox Pass

Our travels with our German relatives continued...  On Monday afternoon, July 29th, after spending a couple hours at Windy Point, we made a beeline for the National Parks.  We headed into Banff National Park at Saskatchewan Crossing and turned north onto the Icefields Parkway.  By late afternoon we crossed over into Jasper National Park and found ourselves at the Wilcox Creek Campsite.  After driving around the campsite a couple of times we eventually found two camping spots that were large enough for our bigger RV's and relatively close to each other.  We settled down for the evening and got the BBQ going.

The next morning we got up moderately early and by 9:00AM some of us made our way over to the Wilcox Pass trail.  The trailhead was at the entrance to the campsite.  Margarit and the two younger girls, as well as my Aunt Matilda, stayed behind at the campsite.  The trail was 8km in length, return, with an elevation gain of 335M.  It was a strenuous walk, particularly with a heavy camera backpack and wooden tripod.  I lightened my load a little, taking only 5 lenses and a half dozen film holders with me.  At first the trail switched back through the forest, eventually breaking out on a ridge overlooking the Columbia Icefields.  Then it set off up the ridge, above treeline, into an alpine meadow.  Up at the top there was a small pond surrounded by a meadow filled with alpine plants and a few late blooming wildflowers.  We even found some marine fossils in the rocks. We spent a couple of hours up there exploring and making some photographs before eventually setting out down the trail again.  

We arrived back at the campsite a little after noon, worn out from the hike.  We had a quick lunch and then packed up.  We all drove over to the Big Bend Area and stopped at the viewpoint, and then down by the North Saskatchewan River.  We wandered around for a while and even took a short hike up to the canyon that the river spills though on it's way down from the Icefields.  By mid-afternoon we had to pack up and head our separate ways.  The Germans were continuing back to the north, up to Jasper, where they had a campsite reserved for the next couple of nights.  The girls and I had to head back home.  I needed to be at work the next morning, and a service technician was scheduled to come and fix our washing machine.  It had been out of commission for some time and the laundry was piling up around the house, more than usual, despite several trips by Margarit to a local laundromat.  It was a rather quick drive home with only a couple of brief bathroom breaks.  We eventually got home and got the girls to bed by around 10:00PM.