Rae Lake

After my first overnight of the spring season, I was left wanting more of the upcoming nice weather. With most of Banff and Jasper National Parks still under snow, Kananaskis Country was a perfect area to feed my wilderness cravings. In the spring, the mountain ranges close to Calgary are the first one to offer a glimpse of summer weather. This time, I left home for a 3-day trip in an area I had yet to explore: the Elbow Valley. While the trailhead is located in Peter Lougheed Provincial Park, all I had to do was hike 2KM to reach the boundary of Elbow-Sheep Wildland Provincial Park and enjoy legal random camping pretty much anywhere (Kananaskis Random Camping Rules).

Elbow Lake was beautiful. After crossing a few day hikers on their way back to the trailhead, I was finally alone on the trail. The occasional muddy and snowy sections got me worried for what was next. But at the time, I was still not aware that something else was going to make this trip very challenging.

Here and there, the trail was engulfed in the trees, far from any rays of sunlight. The consequences were snowbanks standing tall. Fortunately for me, the snow was hard-packed and footprints from previous hikers had left a well defined path in what could have been a very sketchy post-holing nightmare.

The more I hike in Wildland Provincial Parks, the more I enjoy it. I always see the yellow boundary sign as an invitation to “roam freely” and it makes me happy. The vast wilderness on the other side of this sign was all mine to discover, with almost no restrictions or red tape like the ones in National or Provincial Parks.

Now, this area is extremely popular and while Wildland PP don’t usually have official trails, there are a few well worn ones and for once I was glad I was walking on an established path. It made me move faster and allowed me to cover more ground in less time.

Not that I was in a hurry, but even with a late sunset, my late evening departure wasn’t giving me much free time to explore the Rae Lake area before the nightfall.

Piper Pass, the darker brown slope, is on my list for this summer.

Snow, slippery snow and more slippery snow. What a challenge it was trying to navigate this portion of the trail. I had a heavy backpack, loaded with comfort items to keep me warm during nights where the temperature would hoover around the freezing point. But these comfort items didn’t include micro-spikes. And on top of this, the wind was picking up. Not slightly… heavily. It had been windy since I started but nothing unusual for an area like this where the wind is kind of funneled between the mountains. But the wind gusts were now making me question my idea to visit and even camp at Rae Lake.

The only thing I had to guide me up to the lake was the GPS track of an older trail found online. From what I had heard, it wasn’t much of a trail but more what is called a “wilderness route”. The first hundred meters were easy to follow, but the trail quickly faded.

Where the trail stopped.

A larch tree, the only coniferous that grows new needles every year after shedding the old ones in the fall.

Looking back to where I came from, to the left of the small grassy bump with the rocks exposed on top of it.

I had a general direction of travel to follow, but the terrain was rough. Rocks, branches, steep sections, bushwacking and the wind… the damn wind. At least when climbing the side of a mountain, you have a nice view if you look back. It was the case here with a nice overview of the Elbow Valley down below.

This route sucked! Having to cross this drainage surrounded by cliffs just didn’t make sense. There had to be a better way… But for now I had no other choice but to down-climb an almost vertical slope, cross a stream and climb it back up again. The ground was soft, wet and littered with small willows. The definition of Type 2 fun.

The bushwacking was over and done. Gaining the last ridge was precarious. I tried standing still on top of it to snap pictures but the wind was this close to knock me over. [2:20 in the video!] I just couldn’t face it without having a hard time breathing and keeping my balance.

I happily came down from the ridge and finally laid my eyes on Rae Lake. My options were limited in terms of camping locations. Most of perimeter of the lake was still covered in snow. I was left with an open area. Not ideal, but with the sun about to disappear behind the mountains, I had no other choice but to set up my tent now and as close to the trees as possible to minimize the wind impact.

As I walked down to the water edge to fill my water bottle, all I could think about was how on earth would I be able to sleep at 7,160’ with constant wind gusts hitting my tent? Back at my tent, I witness one of my tent peg getting pulled off the ground by the force of the wind. It was insane. I got into my tent, pulled my GPS and requested a weather forecast report. Nothing indicated that a windstorm was passing by the area so my guess was that this is just a wind-prone place. Sure the small and twisted trees along the way were a hint that the slopes of Mount Rae are exposed to constant wind, but still… I thought I would have been able to enjoy a calm night.

My tent in the background, minutes before I took it down.

It was so ridiculously windy that I had to call it a day (or a night?) at the lake. In no time, my tent and gear was loosely packed up and I intended to find a camping spot near the Elbow River, almost a thousand feet lower. It was 9PM. I still had approximately an hour and a half before total darkness. With the snow, the bushwacking and the uphill, it had taken me a little more than two hours to get here from the trailhead. I was confident I had enough time to find a place to camp before having to use my headlamp.

While leaving the lake, I came upon a trail that was going down the ridge but not in the same direction I came in. My instinct was telling me that this was the most recent trail that everyone was using to visit Rae Lake. I packed my cameras and took a few layers off as I planned to hike as fast as I could. I had all the mountains around me as a point of reference and knew which way I had to go. The minutes passed and the sky kept getting darker. But as long as I was heading in the right direction, I was ok. The wind was still furious and this combined with the lack of a flat spot to camp, I now had no intentions of stopping along the way and aimed for the trailhead.

Back on the main trail along the Elbow River.

The clouds were flying by, it’s almost like I was watching a movie in fast-forward. Despite the wind blowing in my face, I also made the kilometers fly by with a fast and steady hiking pace.

The last 1.6KM after Elbow Lake was a downhill in the trees. It was getting colder but I knew I was close and I made it just as the light faded for good behind the mountains.

I checked out a few spots along the highway to camp for the night but it was clear that the windy weather was here to stay and ended driving home that night with plans to come back the next day. Rae Lake will be for another time!