Eating Caribou: A Traverse Through Mount Edziza

UPDA T E : See the bottom of this stor y for a br ief account of an
extended tr aver se we did thr ough M ount E dziza Pr ovincial Par k in
A ugust 2010
E ating C ar ibou: A T r aver se T hr ough M ount E dziza Pr ovincial Par k in
Nor thwest B .C . – A ugust 11-17, 2007
Synopsis: This trip blows away the Grand Canyon and most other highlytouted, crowded backpacking destinations. There’s caribou, grizzlies, wolves
and seemingly a different landscape every day – volcanic peaks and cones,
lava flows and pumice cinder fields, obsidian quarries, great green plateaus,
glaciers and wetlands. Sure, you’ve got to lug a fair-sized pack for close to a
week, and the last half day is through boot-sucking mud and bog. But where
else are you going to see caribou trotting up a glacier to inspect you?
Approaching Mount E dziza from the south
The preparatory research, as usual, is meticulous. After failing to find a
satisfactory exploratory trip in the Canadian Rockies, Colin and I move our
last-minute attention to northern B.C., where a random Internet search leads
to Mount Edziza Provincial Park. Hmmm…. volcanic cones, a glaciated
peak, caribou, a 75-kilometre traverse – Let’s go!!
Seventeen hours of driving (from Canmore) later, four of us pull into
Tatogga Lake Resort and pile into a 1950s’-era Beaver floatplane that’s
experienced only a handful of emergency landings. As we load, our pilot
entertains us with stories, such as the one about the rich, fly-in hunter who
missed his first two rifle shots at a stone sheep and, before he could squeeze
off a third, dropped dead of a heart attack. “We scored it sheep one, hunters
nothing.”
After a late afternoon flight over much of our route and above steep green
slopes alive with scrambling goats and sheep, we land softly on Buckley
Lake, near the northwest corner of Mount Edziza Provincial Park, where we
camp for the night. Most people start the 75-kilometre trek from here, rather
than at Mowdade Lake, the latter starting with a long, steady climb through
enough boot-sopping wetness to make the fainthearted turn around in the
first half hour. As our erstwhile pilot quips: “Only one guy I flew in started
at Mowdade Lake, and when he got out, he apologized.”
The next morning dawns clear, with a dazzling view across the misty
Buckley Lake to the glaciated summit of Mount Edziza, named, I believe,
for a famous hat maker. We’re off before eight, hoping to gain a bit of
distance on a guided group of teenagers, who have flown to the lake from
Alaska the evening before. It’s the last people we see for three days.
E arly morning at Buckley Lake
After a steady climb on a good though occasionally muddy trail, we break
out of the trees and began paralleling an old lava flow. Ahead, beyond scrub
brush that includes Arctic birch and plenty of mountain monkshood, we can
see Eve Cone.
While the volcanic eruption that created the Mount Edziza massif began
some four million years ago, some of the 30 surrounding volcanic cones
were formed no more than 1,300 years ago. Some of these cones are
unaltered by erosion and devoid of vegetation.
Moose antlers above Oasis Camp
We set up camp in mid-afternoon at an oasis, containing the last water for a
fair stretch, and explore our surroundings. We’ve passed a number of moose
and caribou antlers but have seen no live critters attached to them. But after
scanning the surrounding rolling terrain with binoculars that evening, we
spot our first two Osborne caribou.
It’s the first of many caribou sightings over the next few days – including
two magnificent bulls and a herd of about two dozen, the latter at close
range. These frequent sightings spawn a running joke about a book we’re
going to write, entitled E ating Caribou – Recipes F rom the Outback. A
sample of the in-poor-taste humour: “We followed a herd of 25 caribou until
there was only one left, and since it couldn’t breed, we ate him, too.”
Curious caribou – part of a herd of about 24
Seriously, though, the caribou is a lovely animal, prancing elegantly with
head tilted up. Its most endearing quality is its naivety, its curiosity, which
will prompt a young caribou to venture close – to inspect these odd, twolegged creatures with big humps on their backs – before dashing away.
Unfortunately caribou, with their low reproduction rates and sensitivity to
industrial encroachment and wolf predation, have seen their numbers
plummet in many forested, mountainous parts of Canada.
Early on day two, we drop our packs for a quick side trip up the bare,
blackened slopes of Eve Cone to its crater rim. Soon thereafter, the trail
disappears, and we swing south over hummocky terrain, featuring patches of
vegetation surrounded by lava gravels. After going up Tsekone Ridge
(featuring a lone caribou high on the ridgeline), we continue a long traverse
south, with the Edziza glacier high on our left and the great green swath of
Big Raven Plateau on our right, with a pearly string of glaciated Coast
Mountain peaks in the distance.
These magnificent vistas help ease the shoulder pain of carrying 60-pluspound packs. The extra weight is glacier gear – rope, harness, crampons and
ice axe – needed to go up Mount Edziza, at 2787 metres the highest volcanic
peak in Canada. I suspect most backpackers don’t bother with the peak, and
given the cloud cover on the glacier and summit on days two and three, I’m
wondering if this extra burden will be in vain. It doesn’t help that we have
inadvertently brought two ropes instead of one, something we don’t discover
until the day before our summit attempt.
Given the heavy loads, it’s nice to stop on our second day at around two in
the afternoon, setting up camp in a small valley containing a lovely stream
and flowers – one of a number of small drainages bisecting the plateau. This
early stop allows exploratory strolls in mid-afternoon and after supper. On
the latter, we’re scanning the vast surroundings when we spy an enormous
grizzly on the plateau rim, perhaps two kilometres away. When it turns to
catch the evening sun, its whole flank turns a brilliant white, an awesome,
though, rectum-tightening sight. After it disappears into the deep valley
beyond, we scurry to hang our food from prussiks off a nearby cliff face and
sleep fitfully, with bear spray and bear bangers close at hand.
Scanning the slopes above Sezill Creek
The next day, we continue along the left edge of the plateau, following the
odd cairn and angling up to a higher side valley so as to camp closer to the
south end of the glacier, from where we hope to make an attempt on the
peak. Fortunately, the following day dawns cloudless, and we’re off at six,
reaching the glacier toe within an hour and cramponing up the hard surface
to the rock summit towers in another two. We swing around the left edge of
these towers and, from the back, front point up a short, steep slope to a col.
After scampering up the left tower, mistakenly thinking it’s the higher of the
two, we go up the right one in a few minutes of exposed scrambling on loose
blocks to the true summit. From here, we can look across the glaciated crater
to the snowy south summit and, in the opposite direction, inspect the barren
cinder cones we’ll be traveling past the following day.
F ront pointing below the summit of E dziza (summit tower on right)
The descent is a leisurely walk down softening snow, highlighted by the
delightfully unexpected sight of two caribou bounding past us on the lower
glacier. Back at camp, we’re quite amazed to see a sizable herd of caribou
lounging on the glacier, further to the right, for several hours.
Day five. Time to get motoring, as we’ve got some 25 kilometres to cover in
two days, and the packs don’t feel much lighter. Still, there’s sufficient time
to occasionally stop to scan the plateau with binoculars for more caribou and
other wildlife. Bingo. We spot three wolves trotting along the distant plateau
rim. (Advice: Don’t do this trip without at least one good pair of binoculars,
and use them frequently.)
While we’re soon sorry to leave this magnificent plateau behind, the
replacement ain’t too shabby – the barren world of pumice fields and cinder
cones. We hike up the reddish slopes of Cocoa Crater but unfortunately
don’t have time for Coffee Crater.
F ootprints in the pumice
Surveying the barren landscape from near Cocoa Crater
Beyond the latter, we come across a valley flats strewn with obsidian, a
black, glasslike rock formed from quickly-cooling lava and prized by early
natives, who quarried and traded it, as spear points and sharp tools, up and
down the west coast. Soon thereafter, we take a wrong trail south (easy to do
as we’re still following cairns) and end up at a pass too far south of Cartoona
Peak. The descent into a narrow valley beyond leads to some side-hill
bashing as we traverse left to gain another narrow valley that leads up to a
broad plateau, eventually taking us to our intended route.
A final night up high is punctuated by a prolonged thunderstorm that,
thankfully, we just catch the edge of. The next morning, we plunge into a
verdant valley and then climb steeply to Chakima Pass, our last high point.
Meadowy flowers in Chakima Creek Valley
As we descend towards the woods, Colin and I pull over for a last binocular
scan, and as I look down the trail, I see a large grizzly bear coming up it.
Gabrielle, however, has already forged ahead and after we scream to catch
her attention, we get the hell off the trail onto a grassy hillside, giving the
bear plenty of room to pass. As it gains a slope perhaps 200 metres away, it
turns to peer at these intruders, hesitates a few seconds, then continues
ambling up the slopes.
This excitement over, we continue our descent through chest-high fields of
flowers and, increasingly, swampy flats. As it’s our last day, we leave our
boots on to thrash through the wet reeds and to cross a couple of knee-deep
streams where the bridges have washed away. By the time we reach a kneedeep pond created by beaver, we just slosh straight ahead rather than thrash
through bush to the side.
A last slosh, in leather mountaineering boots, through a beaver pond
The rain is falling by the time we reach Mowdade Lake at around 4 o’clock,
but we catch up to our pilot flying another group out. Within an hour, we’re
winging back to civilization.
We celebrate with a lovely feast on bison burgers at the resort restaurant. We
are, however, reminded of the slower pace up north when, after waiting at a
table for 20 minutes, we ask for menus. “Oh, you want to eat?”
We also chat with the renowned ethno botanist Wade Davis, who has a
family fishing lodge nearby. We had run into him just before we flew in and
figured he was just a local fisherman, albeit with a nice haircut. Turns out he
spends half his year in Washington D.C. as an explorer-in-residence with
National Geographic. Sounds cool, minus the Washington bit.
The next day, we begin the long drive back south, taking a detour west off
the Cassiar Highway to go through Stewart and briefly into Alaska to watch
grizzlies feeding on spawning salmon. After paying our $5 per person fee to
walk along the crowded boardwalk overlooking the stream, we snap a few
pictures in the rain of a young grizzly dining disinterestedly on several spent
salmon. Though we’re mere metres from this bear, it feels like being at a zoo
and a world away from the trepidation and amazement we felt the day before
at the sight of a more distant, passing grizzly on its own, wild turf.
Links: http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/bcparks/explore/parkpgs/mtedziza.html
This park site provides most of the information you’ll need to plan a trip.
UPDA T E
In August 2010, five of us did a 10-day traverse through Mount Edziza
Provincial Park. We started in the southeast corner of the park and worked
our way north till we hooked up with our earlier route, finishing at Buckley
Lake (where we had started our 2007 trip).
For the first three-fifths of our trip, we travelled through the Spectrum
Range, an unbelievably colourful land of vivid orange, red, purple, green
and yellow mountain slopes. There were also occasional deposits of
obsidian, where the glass-like black (and some green) rocks were scattered
profusely across the ground, to the point where we hardly noticed them after
awhile.
Spectacular colours in the Spectrum Range
Like the more popular northern part of the park, wildlife is abundant
throughout the Spectrum Range. We saw one grizzly bear up close, lots of
sheep, two wolves and some caribou (though not nearly as many as further
north). Because nearly the entire trip was above treeline, we were at the
mercy of bears not discovering our overnight food stashes and potentially
ending our trip.
After getting dropped off at Little Ball Lake at the tail end of a driving rain
storm, we were blessed with 10 days of clear weather, though nearby forest
fires produced occasionally smoky skies and caused one participant’s asthma
to periodically flare up. We contemplated taking a direct northwest line
through the Spectrum Range towards Raspberry Pass but weren’t sure what
the glacial travel might be like and didn’t want to add glacier gear to packs
that were already 50-60 pounds (in retrospect, I think we could have got
through without crampons or ice axes). Instead, we ascended west-southwest
to a pass, dropping onto a broad, wet plateau east of Tadekho Hill (grizzly
sighting) and then working our way north towards Kitsu Plateau.
It was lovely alpine rambling, with lots of big ups and downs over rocky
terrain and no trails to follow, though the route finding was pretty
straightforward. The occasional creek crossings weren’t bad when we did
them, though we’d heard of a group the previous year who had problems
with one crossing below a glacier.
The worst part of the trip was the nearly 2,000-foot ascent on back-sliding,
loose rock over Yagi Ridge. This torture was, however, rewarded by the
sight of two nearby mountain sheep and the great expanses of Kitsu and Big
Raven Plateaus to the north. Another reward of the considerable exertion
with big packs was the fabulous camping, often alongside flowery, lakeside
meadows.
Descending to a lakeside camp
Above all, the greatest pleasure was wandering through this spectacular
country without seeing another human for the better part of a week. Later, in
the more northern, popular part of the park near Mount Edziza we did see,
from a distance, a large horse pack train. And as we continued north, the
horse track seemed deeper and more entrenched than a few years earlier, a
potentially disturbing trend. But for those who want a more remote
experience, navigating the (so far) trail-less terrain around the Spectrum
Range is highly recommended.
Approaching Cocoa Crater, south of Mount E diza