The past week I was graced with the opportunity to travel once again to the Canadian Rockies in search of wilderness, solitude and whatever the mountains would give me. My travelling companion was Mountain Mike and we had a fantastic time! As I am short on time these days, I have provided an abridged trip report that includes mostly my faviourite photos of the trip.
We started our journey at the Nigel Creek Trailhead in Jasper National Park and hiked far into the wild and remote White Goat Wilderness for a 6 day journey.
We woke at 3am local time and made our way 3.5hrs northwest of Calgary towards the trailhead. A cotton candy sunrise blanketed the sky as we wound our way through the mountain roads. Upon arriving at the trailhead we made our way towards Nigel Pass and then onwards to the Cataract Pass area and White Goat Wilderness beyond.
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| Nigel Pass area |
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| Looking towards Cataract Pass |
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| White-tailed Ptarmigan |
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| Fledged White-tailed Ptarmigan |
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| Campsite at the lake near Cataract Pass |
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| Camp 1 at Cataract Pass - it is actually lake front |
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| Baird's Sandpipers |
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| Cataract Pass |
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| First look at Bighorn Sheep |
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| Cresting Cataract Pass |
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| Goodbye Jasper, hello White Goat Wilderness! |
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| Cline Pass area |
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| Least Sandpiper |
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| Snow near our campsite |
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| Campsite near Cline Pass area, note white tent in lower left |
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| View down valley towards Brazeau River |
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| Marmot eating flowers |
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| Golden Eagle |
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| Astrophotography - caught a shooting star in the mid-right! |
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| Gray-crowned Rosy-Finches (adult and young) |
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| Clark's Nutcracker |
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| Climbing Cline Pass |
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| Top of Cline Pass - 9,000+ft |
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| Cline Pass- not sure why its called a pass, looks like only goats could pass this. |
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| Cold Blue |
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| American Dipper |
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| Window on the West - after the rain |
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| Least Sandpiper |
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| Bighorn Sheep! |
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| A long way down |
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| They made it down - apparently for fun as they could have just walked around |
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| Last night camping. Valley paradise! |
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| Bumble Bee at 1/8000th of a second. |
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| Aurora Borealis intermingled with a late sunset and stars - 1230am |
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| Bighorn Sheep kids |
What an amazing trip! I look forward to the next time I can get out again to spots that are still wild!
