Rocky Road

Stan Abbott determines the bare necessities of walking in the wild Rockies…

Stan surveys the magnificent view from Skoki Lodge

Canadians have a tip about how to distinguish grizzly bear droppings from those of the less aggressive black bear – the grizzly’s are the ones with bells in.

Bear bells are supposed to be worn by humans hiking in grizzly country, the idea being that a grizzly hearing the bells will make itself scarce, because it would rather avoid an encounter with people than eat them.

Parks Canada publishes Bears and People, a helpful little guide for backpackers, which makes the casual understatement that “some research shows that bear bells are not enough”.

Our problem is that we face a three to five-hour eight-mile hike across bear country to reach our accommodation for the next four nights – Skoki Lodge, the oldest, and among the highest and most remote of the Canadian Rockies’ backwoods log cabin lodges.

The portents are not great: the grizzly killing earlier that month of a jogger – just outside the nearby town of Canmore – seem to have prompted a run on bear spray in the shops of Banff, the nearest major centre to the Lake Louise ski area, which will be our last contact with civilisation. Bear spray is supposed to offer a last ditch defence – the optimistic blasting of a jet of pepper gas into the face of the onrushing grizzly, though we hear tales of perhaps apocryphal European tourists trying to use it as a deterrent, applied to the body like mosquito repellent or underarm deodorant.

Then, as we are taken by van to the start of the Skoki trail, an adolescent female grizzly and a youngster are browsing in a meadow nor more than 30 metres from us. We hurriedly re-check the Parks Canada advice, which suggests clapping hands, talking loudly and singing.

The lightly-loaded American couple who’ve been with us in the van shun the advice that bears don’t often attack groups of four and forge ahead without us. If I try talking, the subject always seems to come back to bears, so singing it is. A medley of all the songs we know with the word bear in the lyrics, plus suitably oursified old Beatles numbers and Northumbrian folk songs seem to provide the bear deterrent. For some strange reason, we don’t see any people either.

The biggest threat proved to be to our lunch, and came from a hopeful ground squirrel. In a surely hopelessly incorrect move, we recorded his chirping call on a mobile phone, which we would later use to make bemused conversation with other ground squirrels we encountered.

Ptarmigan Lake on the ascent of Boulder Pass

The trail rises through mixed forest, giving way to conifers, then dwarf birch and alder as we cross the treeline. Cresting the recently glaciated Boulder Pass, where deeply scoured frost-shattered rocks lie in crazy piles like the aftermath of some titanic struggle between the gods, Ptarmigan Lake hoves into view.

We are at 7,694ft (2,345m), it’s late June and it is not warm. The vegetation is now high alpine, with purple saxifrage raising a timid head above the residual snow. The cold, thinning air makes for slow going as we toil to the head of Deception Pass (8,200ft, 2,485m), from where a quite fantastic vista opens northwards before us.

On our left are the Skoki Lakes of Zigadenus and Myosotis, owing their deep luxuriant turquoise hue to suspended silts from the surrounding glaciers. More careful inspection reveals that the foot of the glaciers is not ice at all, but a fine scree of light-coloured alluvial material. Later, at the Lodge, we’ll see comparative photographs that bear graphic witness to the retreat of the ice over the last half-century.

Beyond the lakes, as we negotiate deep snow drifts to descend 1,100ft to Skoki Lodge, the vast Wall of Jericho guards the left flank of the valley, whose name derives from a native word meaning swamp or marsh. Good call – the trail is fast becoming a river as first rain, then sleet, then snow assault us.

By the time we squelch into Skoki Lodge – in time for marshmallow crispy cakes and tea from the ubiquitous pot – we’ve been on the trail fully five hours. But we have not been eaten by bears and a watery sunlight illuminates bare, castellated peaks filling all points of the compass. I admire the linguistic thrift of the guy who called these the Rocky Mountains.

We are greeted by Leo and Katie Mitzel, proud managers of the lodge, which was opened in 1931 by the Banff-based Ski Club of the Canadian Rockies.

Although more rooms were added in the 30s, Skoki remains essentially unchanged – extensive recent renovations have seen the insertion of a solid foundation, but each plank of the floor and every stone from the chimney breast has been carefully numbered and returned to its original location. The lodge has no electric lighting and running water only in the kitchen. Solar panels help run a few kitchen gadgets and the log-fired sauna proves a great substitute for a hot bath. It’s a 40-metre dash to the earth closets.

The communal sitting room soon has a buzz as the jokes and story-telling begin. Fellow guests Maggie and Paul, from BC, are mountain lodge aficionados and say Skoki’s reputation for its fine food places it beside the best – that’s borne out by the arrival of a spread that belies the basic kitchen and strictures on menu-planning imposed by a weekly helicopter drop (we’re still a week short of the date at which Parks Canada permits packhorses to return to the trails). An immense soufflé stands proud even when cut – perhaps it’s the altitude.

On our first full day we opt for a round trip to Merlin Lake, graded “easy”. The trail quickly becomes a pencil line etched across steep and loose scree, where delightfully named hoary marmots sit on rocks, like sentries. A missed cairn sees me showering rocks down a precarious gully. Then we are faced by a rock wall, tantalisingly too high to clamber up. The alternative is to edge along a narrow ledge on the face of the cliff to a point where the climb is lower.

The reward is another stunning turquoise lake, ringed by dramatic peaks. The descent through the forest, for us hardened bear-song singers, is easier until we are faced with fording the cold and raging Skoki River. Katie tells us the bridge was washed away two winters ago but Parks Canada won’t permit anyone else to replace it (using plentiful local materials), pending the arrival of their own team with pressure-treated timber from British Columbia. “We’ve guys with chain saws here just itching to use them,” she says, ominously.

Back at the lodge after another five-hour hike, long-standing staff member Walter insists he can do Merlin Lake in half an hour. This seems like bravado until we catch sight of him through binoculars, scrambling up and back down seemingly vertical sections of the Walls of Jericho in the blink of an eye.

Katie tells how, four years ago, Walter broke half the bones in his body when he fell 40ft while free-climbing. He crawled three miles to the nearest road and had to squeeze beneath a bear fence before he managed to flag down a passing motorist. “He doesn’t like to talk about it,” she says.

The following day we circumnavigate Skoki Mountain and Deer Lakes and a day, which was cold enough for gloves at one point, ends with a strong hint of summer. By our final day it’s warm and clear enough for an assault on Skoki Mountain itself (8,845ft, 2,696m), from where there is a quite mind-boggling panorama of jagged peaks and yet more turquoise lakes. Any sense of achievement is diminished by coming across Katie on our descent, eight months pregnant but still nimbly leaping from rock to rock. Her confinement will begin with a (planned) helicopter exit from Skoki the following day.

The beautiful Lake Louise

Our heavy-hearted return from Skoki to Lake Louise takes us a more respectable three hours, but brings us close to grizzly encounter. Two young Parks Canada rangers advise against taking the Hidden Lake trail as they’ve just seen a cub, and the mother must be nearby.

A few score metres further and we spot a large, fresh bear dropping. There are no bells in it.

Getting there: it’s an easy two-hour drive into the Rockies from Calgary Airport, via Highway One. Rocky Mountains Sky Shuttle also offers a bus link from Calgary (+ 1 403 762 520; www.rockymountainskyshuttle.com).

Where to stay: Skoki Lodge (+1 877 687 7669; www.skoki.com) is open through winter for cross-country skiers, and through summer for walkers, with short closures in spring and autumn. It has 22 beds, some in the main building and some in cabins. Overnight rates (per person, full board with packed lunch) from $110 in April, $159 June to August (plus local taxes).

Check-in for Skoki Lodge is at Lake Louise ski centre at 0930, so local accommodation in the village may be advisable. Lake Louise Inn offers comfortable rooms from $90.50 per person per night (+1 403 522 3791; www.lakelouiseinn.com).

For every night spent in the Banff National Park, a fee of $8 per person is payable to Parks Canada (www.pc.gc.ca).

Skoki Lodge requires the longest mandatory walk-in of the Canadian Rockies lodges, though there are others that are more remote…

Purcell Mountain Lodge and Fortress Lake

Both these “eco lodges” in the British Columbia Rockies normally require access by helicopter. Purcell Lodge stands at over 7,000ft, on an alpine meadow on the border of Glacier National Park, near Golden, and is open winter and summer. It boasts hot water and electricity, courtesy of power generated from a mountain stream. Fortress Lake Wilderness Cabins are in Hamber Provincial Park, adjacent to Jasper National Park, on the shores of an 11kms lake. Not open in winter. Three-day packages, including helicopter transfer from Golden, range from $1,188 at Purcell Lodge and from $1,644 at Fortress Lake. For both lodges, telephone +1 250 344 2639; www.placeslesstravelled.com.

Sentry Mountain Lodge

Relatively new winter and summer lodge, at just under 7,000ft, in the Selkirk Mountains of British Columbia. Helicopter transfer from Golden. Three nights from $595 (self-catered and self-guided) or $1,095, all-inclusive. Tel +1 250 344 7227; www.sentrymountainlodge.com.

For those disinclined to walk in or take a helicopter, or who simply prefer their creature comforts, Moraine Lake Lodge is accessible by road from Lake Louise, Alberta, with individual cabins opening onto the archetypal turquoise lake. Open June to September, from $275 for a double room. +1 403 522 3733; www.morainelake.com