Columbia Icefield

Wilcox Pass Hike

The drive to Banff was a little showery as we kept trying to outrun a cold front that was right behind us the whole way - and were successful for the most part. About an hour from Jasper we stopped in at the Columbia Ice Field Visitor Center - located at the toe of the Athabasca glacier and in an area at the summit of the pass where about 5 huge glaciers collectively form the headwaters of the various rivers that flow north, west, and east from this spot - the triple continental divide. Another beautiful place in the Canadian rockies.

Just beyond the center was the trailhead for the Wilcox Pass hike - advertised as one of the prettiest in the area, and so it proved to be. We laced up our boots and hiked the first half of it to the top of the pass. Didn't have time to do the whole thing but the part we saw was truly amazing. The trail wound its way up thru a nice little alpine forest before it emerged onto an elevated "bench" at the 8,000 ft level, then gradually continued uphill with spectacular views of the glaciers off to the left and what appeared to be open tundra off to our right all the way to the base of the surrounding mountains. Finally stopped near the top when we saw a group of bighorn sheep grazing in the meadow just ahead of us...not more than 30 yards away. One was a big ram with huge horns, accompanied by one female and what appeared to be a juvenile male.

As we sat down to rest and have a drink the female started walking straight towards us, coming within 10 feet of our position on the rocks. Turned out she was making her way to another herd of about 8 individuals that we hadn't noticed before, but which was just below us in the meadow. I commented that it was a great photo op, only to be told by my hiking companion (who shall remain nameless) than she had left the camera in the car!

So... the photos below are a few that I gleaned from other web pages - they're not ours. They do accurately show what we saw, however.


We actually saw 3 separate herds of Bighorns in the immediate vicinity...probably about 20 animals. It was pretty apparent that they were well acclimated to the presence of humans - not skittish at all.



Lots of panoramas like this.



And this was the view of the Athabasca glacier from near the top of the pass.



And lots of these guys milling around. It was really an idyllic scene. Even thought we may have seen some caribou off in the distance at the base of the hills.

Since we still had a couple of hours of driving ahead of us to get to Banff we turned around at this point and started heading back to the car. Turned out to be good timing. Just after we reversed course we heard the rumble of distant thunder as the front started approaching rapidly from the north. Since the absolute last place you want to be in a thunderstorm is on an exposed ridge we high-stepped it down the hill...reaching the car about 5 minutes before the thing broke over our heads. Drove out of the rain after about 10 miles and finally reached Banff around 5 PM where it was sunny and hot (about 80 deg). The front passed over last night and it got down to the 30's. Forecast is for showers with highs in the 50's for the next few days. We're hoping for a break so we can head back up to Lake Louise for some more pretty day hikes.