Yoho, eh? The trip report!

“Yoho, eh? The trip report! (Rated R- Contains brief nudity)

You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll hurl when you follow the sidesplitting, madcap adventures and mis-adventures as TT’ers head to the Canadian Rockies for a week of backbacking through Yoho National Park! Starring Hodgeman, Trail Bunny, Snow Nymph, Snow Dude, Martyb, Geezr, Weezr and Aero!

Join the wacky crew as they meet up in Calgary at the Toad and Turtle Pub where a misunderstanding leads to mayhem when Snow Nymph asks the waitress to take a group picture of us with Hooters in the background!

Hookers at the mall? No way, eh!

High Tech adventure!
You’ll watch with rapt fascination as Martyb demonstrates proper beer can crushing at the Takakaw Falls campground! Join Snow Nymph as she carries in more gigabytes on her digital camera than the collective memory aboard a Japanese tour bus!

High drama!
You’ll scream with excitement as the team scales the peaks of Mt. Field and Mt. Kerr. But hang on! You’ll sit breathless as Martyb dislodges a mellon-sized boulder from the summit of Mt. Field and sends it hurtling towards Hodgeman, and the Snows! Where will it go? Who will it hit? And, what did the group re-name Martyb? Stay tuned!

Intrigue!
The team encounters a cast of characters on the trail; #&%!$y French-Canadian girl, a park worker with a wracked soul who manages to offend both the Americans and Canadians; Krazy Kevin, a lonely backpacker from Red Deer, Alberta who turns out to be Hodgeman’s evil twin; Paleo Pete, a Park tour geologist with 6-pack abs who stopped at our Yoho Lake camp for a swim and inadvertently turned Snow Nymph and Trail Bunny into giggling schoolgirls.
(“Is that a rock hammer, or are you just glad to see me?”);
and for the men: a topless Euro-babe surprises everyone at the lake!!

Will Aero make it back to camp with the beer for the last night on the trail? Will Snow Nymph’s camera run out of memory? What will Martyb’s new trail name be? Will we ever be allowed back into Canada? Stay tuned!”

“Pix, Pix, Pix!!!!”

“It's like Trip Report Summer Blockbuster Time for TT.


Who is going home with the Gigli Award?”

“AERO, you're back!! :-) i can't wait for the rest of the story...especially the brief nudity!”

“I just got back last night. It only took about 10 hours from Banff, but I haven't uploaded the pics yet. You guys better enjoy Webshots while you can because Snow Nymph is going to crash it when she gets back!”

“Shouldn't this be called a "Strip Report" then?”

“Paleo Pete, eh? Yo-HO!”

“Ahhh..... home at last !! Took me about ten hours also, including the detour to drop TrailBunny off at home.

No major delays on the Hwy, despite the fact that BC is still pretty much 'on fire'. We did see the entire hillside above the town of Chase burning. The citizens were on 15 minute notice for evacuation as we went through.

The slowest part was battling the Greater Vancouver weekend wariors jamming up the freeway, as they came back into town

I sure hope the Snows and Martyb & family will be able to find some smoke free areas to spend the rest of their vacations in

LMAO at the preview Aero !! I can't wait to see everybody's photos.... there must be a couple of thousand between us !! I should have mine back in a day or two”

“Webshots is going down!!”

“I've got most of my Yoho pics up on Webshots now. I hope Snow Nymph got the R-rated ones!”

“Check out this one- it's really weird!”

“Thanks for sharing the pics !!”

“...and my fave!”

“Hmm, I can't seem to access Webshots. One minute it was there, the next minute, poof!”

“what the stink......? it's taking forever to pull up webshots!”

“Hmmm, maybe Snow Nymph is uploading her photos!”

“Popped right up for me. Better make sure you don't have the worm virus thingy. Slow internet access is one of the symptoms.

Cool pics Aero. Any fires close to you or newgirl?”

“We have fires all over the place, Indiana. It was choking up at Banff and I had smoke all the way along the Front from there to Billings. Souther BC and Alberta have some huge fires and we have a few in the Beartooths and Yellowstone. Hasn't rained here since early June; driest July-Aug on record!”

“Hope you guys are safe. The rest of us will do a rain dance for you.”

“Great pics areo. Glad to see you all had a fun time. That trip rates as one of my favorite loops of all time.

Looking forward to more photos.”

“Hey! Not too smoky up here, eh? We cruised on up here after breakfast w/the 'eezrs - the place we're staying is awesome! No desperate phone calls from the Snows, so I guess they're on their way to whereever it was they were going.

We finally saw some large mammals (that pine marten just didn't do it for me) - right next to the road, of course. Four goats, including one baby.

Anyway, I finally filled up that memory card - and that photo of Paleo Pete turned out great. Sorry, though, no uploads 'till I get back in a couple weeks :-( . No time to check out your photos, aero, I have about a minute left on my internet time. I'll check in later!!

(BTW, I used to be Martyb....)”

“OK, OK, I paid an extra 2 bucks (Canadian!) for another 15 minutes to check out aero's photos. AWESOME, DUDE!!!! Can't wait to see mine on something larger than a 1x1 LCD screen....

Until later....”

“Paleo Pete's pickup line...
Hey babe, wanna see my Burgess Shale?”

“Have a great time in the parks with your family, Bowlderman. I'll look forward to meeting them next time.

Can't wait to see your photos..... well, except for Paleo Pete..... I saw enough of him LOL”

“Thanks Aero for the report and pictures - awesome! I have a great one of you fondling the 24 beer! Bring on the pictures of Pete's Burgess Shale!”

“"Shale we?", he asked.
"Of quartz !", she replied. "But don't take me for granite!"
"Don't worry, I'll be gneiss.", he said. "I'm ready to get bentonite!"”

“Great pictures - Green Glacier Lakes - just beautiful.”

“Oh Nooo !!! ... not geologist humor, Aero ;-)”

“Sorry, it's my fault. I didn't mean to erupt.

I'll quit now- orogeny leads to uplift!”

“Oh man, I'm (Mg, Fe)7Si8O22(OH)2”

“aero-

Thanks for posting your pics. Great shots of a very beautiful area.”

“wow, that mountain pic is a trip!”

“LMAO Capt Underpants! By yourself or with a partner?”

“beautiful pictures! i like the last one best too. :-) looks like you guys had a great time!”

“oh man, great pics. I hate to check out pics from the west. Everytime I do I just want to hop into the car and drive. Well, can't do that, at least not right now.”

“Thanx for sharing those pictures. Mt. Kerr and those Emerald Glacier photos were particularly beautiful. Looked like a great trip. Glad you are all back safe...”

“The Snows and BowlderMan (the TT'er formerly known as Martyb) are still up there near Jasper. Hopefully they'll get out of the smoke!”

“great intro to the TR. and once again, stellar photos...One of these days...I'm gonna send myself to the moon to outshoot ya.”

“awesome, awesome pics. the canadian rockies are so beautiful!”

“Saturday Aug 9 – Most of the group, Geezr, Weezr, the Snows, Martyb and Aero hook up in Calgary, Alberta. A trip to the Toad and Turtle Pub is in order. As we round the corner of the building, a patron falls from the front wall in an attempt to retrieve his wedding ring dropped from the 2nd story deck. We take this as a good sign and proceed through the doors. We notice a Hooters across the parking lot and Snow Nymph asks the waitress to take a picture of the group with Hooters in the background. The waitress misunderstands the request and things go terribly wrong. We patch things up with a round of ales and a big tip.

Sunday Aug 10 – The fires in southern BC are horrendous and smoke fills the mountain valleys. We can see more than ¼ mile from the highway through Banff. We’re still concerned they might close the park! We meet up with Hodgeman and Trail Bunny in Field, BC and have a Buffalo Burger before heading to the walk-in campground at Takakkaw Falls. This is our last night before we hit the trail, so we celebrate with a few more Molsons.

Monday Aug 11 – We hit the trail bright and early and get group pictures that rival Japanese tourists at the trailhead. Easy trail 7km, to Twin Falls campground where we set up the tents and head off for a side trip in search of the Yoho Glacier. We traverse along the lateral moraine and can spot the toe of the glacier. The Snows continue on and make it to the glacier. Back at camp we notice we have another group member, Krazy Kevin, a lone backpacker from Red Deer, Alberta who had a backcountry permit for the same week as ours. Things get weird when he and Hodgeman discover that they were born 4 months apart, work for the same company, same position for the same number of years, only in different cities. Hodgeman’s Evil Twin Kevin! Kevin is very knowledgeable of the area and shares this and all other conceivable information with us. That night, Hodgeman prepares steaks along the streamside as the rest of us choke down freeze-dried paste.

Tuesday Aug 12th – The day dawns clear and bright and the smoke has dissipated in the Yoho valleys. We head up the trail to the top of Twin Falls past the Chalet. Snow Dude gets tingly kohunas as he leans over the falls and contemplates the 800’ drop. We contour around Whaleback Mtn and take in the Glacier Des Poilus to the northwest. After lunch we drop down the steep switchbacks into Little Yoho Valley CG (6800') . Hodgeman and Aero take a look at the Stanley Mitchell Hut and head to the Warden Cabin to get some info on the surrounding peaks. There we run into the bitter, intermittently French-speaking girl from Vancouver, who has nothing good to say about either Americans or Canadians. Hodgeman deliberately mispronounces her Vancouver neighborhood sending her into a string of French expletives. Our work is done here. The Little Yoho Valley CG is home to one of the finest biffys in North America!

Wednesday Aug 13th – Another smoke-free day with a few few clouds! We take a side daytrip west, to Kiwetinok Lake (8051') to attempt a summit scramble of Mt Kerr (9400'). We pass the glacial moraine of the President Range where we climb huge, sinuous piles of ice-bulldozed rocks and gravel. Once to the lake we plan a route up Mt. Kerr. It looks steep and scary but better as we climb. There were a couple steep piches and we finally reach the summit. Views back to The President Range are fantastic to the west are more peaks and mountain ranges for what seems to be 100 miles or more.

(to be continued...)”

“Oh well, don't click on the links, my syntax is screwed up!!”

“mmmm, tingly kohunas!”

“That's how Snow Dude described them anyway! A little different than a chil down the spine!”

“Nice pictures. We were in the same area at the same time, more or less. We did a week up north (3 days in Mt. Robson/Berg Lake, then 3 days in Jasper/Tonquin Valley) then ended up just dayhiking down south last week. They weren't giving any new backcountry permits in Yoho or Banff because of the fires, so we had to do dayhikes. (Kootenay was completely closed.) In Yoho we did the Iceline loop and the Emerald Lake/Burgess Pass/Yoho Pass Triangle, so your pictures were familiar. We had a lot of smoke haze on those hikes, so our pictures won't be very good. We woke up to a coating of ash on the tent on Saturday morning. When we passed through Banff the first time, August 3rd, we could barely breath, the smoke was so bad, which is why we headed north as quickly as possible. That was a good decision, as the backpacking trips were good ones, really beautiful. My favorite dayhike was Nigel Pass in northern Banff, though I think Jim liked the Iceline best. Takkagaw was certainly a beautiful waterfall, and your photo is a good one of it. I love waterfalls off glaciers.”

“Thursday Aug 14th – Hiked 10km from Little Yoho CG (6800'), over the Iceline Trail (high point 7250'), past the Presidents Range and glaciers, to Yoho Lake CG (5950') . The weather was crystal clear and we had great views of just about everywhere we had been. We climbed huge glacial moraines along the way.
The highlight had to be Trail Bunny’s dive into a glacially-fed lake- but for a price. The bidding was up to $5 before she went in attracting a fairly large crowd of onlookers. How cold was it? Let’s just say we saw the Pointer Sisters in concert.

Friday Aug 15th – From the camp at Yoho Lake, we took a side daytrip along the Wapta Highline (high point 7215'), for views of Emerald Lake (good even in the smokey haze), toward Mt Field (8650'). Part of the group (Hodgeman, Martyb, the Snows) scrambled Mt. Field and narrowly averted disaster by dodging an errant boulder dislodged by Martyb. The boulder careened towards the descending climbers and changed directions several times. The boulder faked left, but Snow Nymph didn’t take the bait and held her ground as the mellon-sized projectile whizzed by her head. Martyb has been searching for a new trail name and the consensus after the incident was BowlderMan . Meanwhile Aero has made a 12K run from Burgess Pass for Field in an attempt to bring back beer for the last night on the trail. The trailhead is tantalizingly close and the beers and group arrive simultaneously.
Shortly after the group returned to the lake camp for a cold dip, Paleo Pete, a geologist with the Burgess Shale Foundation arrived after leading a tour to the Cambrian Fossil site which is only one of three sites in the world known to contain rare soft-bodied animals form the Cambrian Age. Paleo stripped off his shirt, revealing a six pack to rival our cold Kokanees, then shorts and dove into the lake under the gazes of Trail Bunny and Snow Nymph who could barely contain themselves. They eventually retained their composure, but not after burning through 200 gigabytes on their cameras.
The men’s patience was rewarded shortly thereafter when a German couple tested the waters off a nearby rocky point. Upon exciting the water, the woman bared her bosom to the appreciative campers across the lake and changed into a dry T-shirt.
After all the excitement we settled into the last evening last evening on the trail and worked our way through the cold beer we had sunk in the lake earlier.

Saturday Aug 16th - A short exit trail, down to complete the loop at Takakkaw Falls. We headed to Field for ales and lunch at the pub in the Kicking Horse Lodge. Then we were off to the West Lake Louise Lodge for showers. Before dinner in Lake Louise we toured the Chalet and were overwhelmed by tourists, so much so that we located another pub for more beer. Eventually we made our way to yet another pub, the Post and have dinner with our beer and a rousing rendition of "Oh Canada"”

“Ummm .... Thanks for looking after the trip report Aero. You certainly covered the highlights LOL !!

I got some good photos back, today. I should have a group web page set up pretty soon”

“eighteen hours on the road and we're finally home. Smoke-filled skies the entire trip home.

Photos are downloaded and
I'll sort through them and get them on Webshots as soon as possible.

Aero, great trip report.

Hodge, great fun. Thanks so much.

The entire Yoho gang, thanks for making this a very special trip.”

“Hey Geezr - Glad to see you two are home safe. Looking forward tothe photos !”

“Geezr, glad to hear you & Melinda made it home safely. And oh ya, it's almost 9:30 pm here, Geezr's bedtime!”

“T-Bunny, I took a lonnnnnng nap and stayed up until 10:00 p.m. ;-)”