This is Castelnau Falls, 770 ft. high. It can be seen right beside Petain Falls.
A thunderstorm rolled through in the night. It rained pretty heavily for quite awhile. We were dry but I’m not feeling too keen about the new tent: the Big Agnes Tiger Wall. I had to buy a new tent for this trip because the Durston is not big enough for two people plus a dog. This new one was put through a trial by fire (or water). The problem I have with it is that when you enter or exit the tent the wet fly flaps into the inside and water gets in. We also had this problem on the first night when it did not rain because the fly was wet with condensation. You have to be very careful which is basically impossible. The Durston is miles better in this regard.
In the morning I checked the forecast. It was going to start raining at 10am and essentially rain all day.
It was now impossible to go up to the basin and upper falls. This was a huge part of my planned itinerary but I certainly could not be up in the basin in a thunderstorm and heavy rain. I was very bummed about it but the weather just didn’t allow me to complete my goals. The weather always wins. That’s the problem when you have to make plans months ahead of time. The weather can make or break the trip. At least I made it to the lower falls.
Tara did not even make it to the lower falls. I gave her the choice. We could do a day hike to the waterfall and stay another night. Or hike out today. She decided to retreat and hike out. It was unfortunate but I think it was the best decision. In addition to the rain her sleeping pad had a leak. It was perfectly good the night before but all of a sudden it now has at least three holes in it. What the heck? She would have had a cold night.
It was gorgeous in the morning when we woke up and we had a wonderful breakfast beside the creek. Then we packed up the wet tent and then started the hike back. It started raining at 10am as scheduled. It was light at first but eventually became quite strong. I was perfectly fine with my rain jacket and waterproof gloves but Tara was hiking in a t shirt. She did not have a proper rain jacket with her. Another good reason to not stay another night.
We got back to the car at noon and started the long slow drive back on the horrible road. I swear the drive took a lot longer this time. Along the way we came across a herd of horses and mules blocking our passage on the road. Not wild but free ranging. It was rather interesting to see them. We drove back to my sister’s place in Cranbrook where we would spend the next few days. It was a cold and rainy but still very beautiful Day 3 on the Canada road trip in Elk Lakes Provincial Park.
The road from Elkford to the Elk Lakes Provincial Park is 40 miles of dirt road. 40 miles of hell. The potholes were horrendous. It took 1.5 hours to drive the 40 miles. Tara said she enjoyed it. What? Ok dear, next time you are driving. Along the way we saw a moose and also picked up a hitchhiker, a through hiker who was doing section B of the Great Divide Trail. I knew the GDT ran through here but did not know it went along this road. He was grateful he did not have to walk the very boring road.
We finally made it to the trailhead and started the hike. It was an hour later than I wanted. I gave the GDT hiker one of my Cokes and we parted ways.
There are plenty of park signs along the trail pointing the way to Petain Falls or Petain Basin or similar. Some of them are scratched out. Some are not scratched out. Why are they scratched out, you ask? Well let me tell you! There are five namesakes in this area: Petain Mountain, Petain Glacier, Petain Creek, Petain Basin, Petain Falls. They are (were) named after General Phillipe Petain, a commander of the French Army in WWI. In WWII, he collaborated with the Nazis and was convicted of treason in 1945. The landmarks were named in 1918 or 1919 by the British Columbia government. The name was rescinded around the year 2021.
There are two really stupid things about this: Firstly, why did it take 75 years for the BC government to figure out that Petain was a Nazi ally and revoke the name? Really? They did not know before 2021 that Petain was a Nazi? It is all because of the idiotic wokeness in the world today that they finally decided to rescind the name, I am certain. Ok so great, they rescinded the name. Here is the second stupid thing: give these major landmarks a new name! Don’t just say they are “unnamed” (which is what they did). This is a major mountain, major glacier, and a major creek and they are all now officially “unnamed”. Well … the (reliable) map I am currently using still says Petain Creek (though it does say the mountain and glacier is unnamed). If the creek is still Petain then the waterfall is still Petain Falls. I am going to continue calling the waterfall Petain Falls until the BC government wakes up and gives it a proper name (it might be a long time).
Enough of that dumbness, let’s get to the hike now, shall we? This is Grizzly country. I read multiple reports that people had seen grizzly bears on this hike. I have never backpacked in Grizzly country before. I remember I did one day hike in Alaska where there was a mother grizzly in the area with a cub and the mom had been reported to charge some hikers. I did not have bear spray then but I did the hike quickly and did not see anything. We all had bear spray for this hike. I felt that it was safe enough for Journey to be off leash for the most part. She hiked right beside Tara or myself or in between us for 100% of the hike. She never strayed off the trail. There was just one section where I put her on leash because it was quite a brushy area. Other than that, she was perfectly fine. It has been annoying me recently when I hear non dog owners tell dog owners what to do. Your dog must be on leash! Don’t be a schmuck. I am a responsible dog owner and I know my dog is perfect off leash and deserves to be off leash. The other thing that is apparently abundant on this trail is porcupines. I read that some people saw as many as six porcupines on this trail! I certainly did not want Journey to get up too close to one of those. Yikes. Did we see any porcupines or bears? Keep reading.
Tara’s pack was only 20 pounds or so but she was struggling with it. Lynal offered to carry it for her. It was incredibly nice of him but in a way I wish he hadn’t. They hiked on ahead of us to the waterfall. Tara did not make it. We found a lovely spot by the creek and decided to camp there. But Lynal had her pack. I ran up the trail to find them, almost all the way to the waterfall. They were just on the way back down. We walked back to camp and I set up the tent and we made dinner. We filtered water from the creek. The water from the Elkford campground the night before was horrible but this 4000 year old glacier water tasted amazingly good. After dinner, I hiked back up to the waterfall by myself. I could have (should have) taken Journey but decided to leave her with Tara at camp.
Petain Falls is 305 ft. high and it is absolutely massive. There is a great overlook for the waterfall. You can also go right up to the base of it as well (which I did of course). The mist was tremendous, making it difficult to photograph from up close. Other waterfalls were pouring off the cliff as well from different glaciers. Crossing the creek was not possible. It was absolutely roaring. All of this from glacier melt. I wanted to cross because it’s the only way to see the upper tiers of the falls (it’s over 1200 ft. high in total). I was bummed about that but I expected it. I did walk back along the ridge as far as I could and was at least able to glimpse the upper tiers.
On the hike back to camp I saw a porcupine. This was very cool. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one before. No grizzy bears though. It was a remarkable (and prickly) Day 2 on the Canada road trip in Elk Lakes Provincial Park.
Canada road trip! I’ve wanted to do this backpacking trip to Petain Falls in the Canadian Rockies for a long time. I had a great plan to backpack here with my wife Tara and my sister and brother in law. Tania and Lynal did not want to backpack but they said they’d do it as a day hike. We met up with them at the campground in Elkford for the first night.
There were a lot of fire trucks on the road to Elkford. At least I thought they were fire trucks. There was smoke on the horizon. Was there a new fire in the area? It looked pretty thick up ahead, the exact location where we would be hiking the next day. This would completely ruin the trip. Well I found out they were not fire trucks but mining trucks! There is a huge coal mining operation here and they work day and night, seven days a week. The traffic is constant 24 hours of the day. That certainly explains all the noise throughout the night in the campground with cars driving back and forth, and drag racing in the night as well! Argh!
After setting up camp and eating dinner I took Journey on an evening hike to Josephine Falls. Everyone else was saving their energy for the next day so it was just the two of us going on this five mile hike.
I would likely never be back in Elkford again so I wanted to do this hike while I had the chance. I was not sure where to start the hike. It should be obvious but there was no place to park and there were no signs. Although I’m sure my planned route would have worked fine I was at the wrong location. A ranger happened to be there and he told me where the proper trailhead was located. Perfect. Thank you sir.
It was a pretty easy to hike to the main waterfall. Josephine Falls is 73 ft high. It is a gorgeous drop on the Fording River. You cannot see the falls from the fence along the cliff so I had to cross over it and scramble down to a spot where I could photograph it. It was too sketchy for Journey so I left her up at the fence line. She waited perfectly for me as usual. There’s also a middle and lower falls which I went down to. The middle falls was a smallish 47 ft. drop and unfortunately there was no view of the lower falls. We hiked back up to the car, drove back to the campground, and went to bed (or tried to!). It was a beautiful Day 1 on the Canada road trip in the Canadian Rockies.
My daughter Nekoda decided she wanted to go to Montreal for the summer to dance. Since neither my wife nor daughter had ever been there before I had a crazy idea to fly out there for the weekend to see the sights together, and then my wife and I would leave Nekoda there for her dancing and fly back home. It would be a whirlwind weekend. When I was a student I worked in Ottawa for a year and my company did occasional trips, and some of these I went on: skiing in Vermont, skiing in Lake Placid NY, and to Montreal to see the sights and a hockey game in the old Forum. However, I skipped the trip to Quebec City. I was a student and money was probably the reason I did not go, but I regretted not going on that trip. Now 36 years later I had a second chance to go to Quebec City. We would fly into Montreal, drive to Quebec City for the day (a 3 hour drive), and then back to Montreal and spend the next day touring around that city.
First I will talk about Montreal briefly. Sunday was a rainy day but we had a very enjoyable time walking around old Montreal. We saw a number of cathedrals (2 in Quebec City, 3 in Montreal) but one of them stood out: The Notre Dame Basilica of Montreal (built in 1824). Without a doubt it is the most magnificent thing I have ever seen in my life. My wife and daughter agreed although they said they saw a couple in Spain that were equal to it. It was so incredibly beautiful and I could feel God’s presence in the church for certain. I admit I didn’t like that we had to pay $16 each to go inside (it should be by donation in my opinion), but nonetheless I think (and you may not agree) but my thoughts are that whoever built the church did it all for God’s glory and they did it to the absolute best of their ability. Not that He needs it but God deserves our best. I think of the song “I played my drums for Him, I played my best for Him”. That is how I feel whenever I play drums in church. I always try to play my best (for God). To me, this cathedral exemplified this.
Anyway, back to Quebec City. Our flight was an overnight and we arrived in Montreal early on Saturday morning. There was no leg room for me on the plane and I just could not could not could not get my legs into a comfortable position. I got maybe a few minutes of sleep. We picked up our rental car and found a fantastic place for breakfast near the airport. I had a lot of coffee but it is a 3 hour drive and I did not make it. I had to pull over for a 10 minute power nap. That refreshed me enough to drive the rest of the way to Quebec City. All the signs in Quebec are in French, they do not bother with English at all (even though it is an official language). That does not concern me because I can read the signs (for the most part). One thing did bug me, though: Quebec drivers are absolutely the rudest drivers in the world (at least out of all those that I have seen). I remember knowing this fact from my student days but I had forgotten. Almost all of them drive too fast. If you think Californians drive too fast, Quebec drivers are worse. They are extremely impatient. If you are driving too slow (even if you are not driving slow, but too slow for them), they will tailgate you and honk their horn at you. I can’t even tell you how many times I was honked at. Get out of my way, Yankee! (how do you say that in French?)
We arrived in Quebec City around noon, found a fantastic pizza place for lunch, and walked around the old city. It is a very beautiful city and I am so glad we made this trip even though it was a lot to handle on such a short weekend. It was 36 years in the making and it was worth it all.
Of course the trip would not be complete without a waterfall. Quebec City has a few of them but we only had time to visit magnificent Montmorency Falls. The official height of the waterfall is 272 ft. although it did not seem that high to me in reality. It is a popular park and you do have to pay to enter. We arrived in the late afternoon. I thought of taking a nap first but there were clouds in the area and I thought I could take my photos right away. It is a fairly long walk from the parking area up to the waterfall so I left my wife and daughter in the car (to nap) and I ran up the path to the bottom of the falls. I made it and was able to take pictures while clouds shaded out the sun. I spent some time enjoying the waterfall then walked back to the car. Now it was my wife and daughter’s turn to go up to the waterfall. While they did that I was able to take an awesome nap. It was perfect. Now I had the energy to drive back to Montreal. We got to our hotel around 9:30PM very tired and had a great sleep. It was a whirlwind and amazing weekend trip to Quebec, Canada.
The wind was supposed to stop at midnight. It did not. It continued all night long. Occasional large gusts battered the tent throughout the night. I got no sleep. I do not think Journey slept much either as I could hear her tossing and turning all night long.
It was still windy in the morning. I expected there to be mosquitoes and I bought a new device which supposedly would keep them away but I did not get to test it out because there were none, thanks to the wind. I had to make our breakfast in the tent vestibule again. Journey enjoyed her special breakfast but I could not eat much. We packed up and left early, at 7:30AM.
The photo is Lake Lois Falls. You can tell it is a pretty big cascade but there is still snow covering some of it. If I had waited to come later when the snow was all gone, by then the waterfall would be much reduced in flow. Maybe if I had come a couple weeks later it would be better but I doubt I will ever come back here again even though it is a beautiful place.
Both Journey and I were very tired on the hike back. Due to lack of sleep? Due to the hike being so hard? Due to me still recovering from sickness? Due to all of the above?
There were no mosquitoes so I was very happy about that. The snow was hard and icy on the climb up to the pass. Spikes would have been proper but I did not have mine. Journey was running on ahead in the snow and had no issues. From below it looked pretty treacherous but it really was not because there were footprints I could walk in and dig my feet into the snow.
It was all downhill from the top of the pass but I was just so tired. We stopped at Maud Lake for water and rest. A good decision because there were no mosquitoes there (I figured there would be some at the Silver Creek crossing where we stopped on the way up). Shortly after Maud Lake I stopped for lunch. It was very early for lunch but as I said I was tired. And hungry. After this rest I seemed to gain some energy and was ok for the rest of the hike. Journey, however, was not. She was tired and lagging. Whenever we stopped for a rest, even a short one, she plopped down on the ground. We took quite a few rest breaks and eventually we made it back to the car. It was 2PM. Journey needed the rest of the day and the next one as well to recover completely. I bought her a hamburger on the way home. She deserved it. It was a marvelous overnight trip in the Desolation Wilderness.
