Parker Ridge is the northernmost trail in Banff Park and the views of the Saskatchewan Glacier are up close and personal. The pre global warming--human Industrial Age length of the glacier is clearly visible in grey. I sat and pondered life-nature-being-joy.
After hiking along Parker Ridge north toward Mount Athabasca, I drove up the road a bit to the Wilcox Pass trail, one of the famous Jasper Park trails. Like the Helen Lake trail yesterday, you climb to the hidden valley and are quickly greeted with vistas of the icy mountains, glaciers, Icefields and green-blue valleys. The Columbia Icefield, a high alpine valley set between a half dozen towering mountains and filled with ice 600 feet thick in spots, was the star of the vista.
I hiked to Wilcox Pass and then turned left toward the Icefield and famous Athabasca Glacier, where you can ride a special truck up and walk on the glacier. Once at the far ridge, I hiked toward Mount Wilcox, enjoying the views and peace of this wonderful place. I followed the ridge as it climbed up the mountain. Eventually I had to put my hiking poles away and scramble up the sticky rock spires as the ridge narrowed, wind picked up, and snowbanks got closer. Another hiker, the man in red, climbed up behind me, eventually passing me on a lower route as I breaked for a snack. His presence was comforting so I pushed on higher, eventually pulling myself up a narrow shute to a high verticals spite summit. The route was pretty basic and safe, the rock sticky and solid, but climbing at such altitude with snowy peaks all around made me feel alive--focused in, present, on.
The actual summit was one or two spires up, but I felt accomplished and satisfied with the point I reached. The guidebook said the cross between the north and south peaks were dangerous and I wasn't sure exactly which high peaks I was looking at. I decided to climb down.
On the way down, I saw the man in red making what looked like a very dangerous cross below toward a vertical ridge and his obvious target, the true summit. When he paused at a safe spot, I called out to see if he was okay. He said he was. He asked about my high route and I said it was safe, but I didn't try for the summit. He continued on. See him here in red crossing the snow in bottom left.
He made it to the ridge and disappeared beyond view. After reaching a safe spot on my down-climb, I spotted him again returning back across the dangerous crossing. I waited for him to make it across for fifteen minutes, in case he needed help. He made it and I climbed down, happy to be safely down from danger.
On the return, I must have looked back toward Mount Wilcox twenty times. Something in me wishes I had pushed on further to the summit. Why did I stop? How far up was I? Which snowfield was the red man crossing? These must be the musings of the mountaineer.
Back in the van, I continued my ritual of driving the scenic road north to the start of tomorrow's climb. Tonight's drive took me by the "Endless Chain Ridge" and into a campground just outside Jasper town, and the northern edge of my road trip journey.
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