Valley of a Thousand Peaks : Fernie to beyond Elko

This morning began in the very best of ways - with coffee and not one, but two blueberry scones that were fresh out of the oven and still warm.  As we sat on the patio of Freshies Cafe and enjoyed our feast, we watched in fascination as the sun came up and played across the mountain peaks above Fernie, making them appear different from one moment to the next.

When we headed back to the Trans Canada Trail we were faced with two options.  The first was to take the upper route out of town, which was designed for mountain bikes, which wove up and down the hills through a maze of other biking trails.  This pathway – as we have been repeatedly told in town at the visitor centre and outdoors shops - is a dedicated mountain bike route and that we would be in the way.   The second option was to take the lower route, designed for touring bikes, and in our opinion, long distance hikers.  We chose the lower route, and followed the TCT signs south out of town.

The first part of the morning was a pleasant walk down a relatively quiet paved road that ran along the bottom of the valley, parallel to the railway tracks and to the Elk River.  We walked through the neighbourhoods of Fernie, passing custom built homes with huge windows, older houses on large properties, log cabins, and gorgeous ranches with picturesque barns and outbuildings.  Across the valley we could see some of the many downhill ski slopes on the mountains opposite.  The chairlifts in the highest peaks were hidden by clouds as we walked along.

As we made our way down the valley quite a few cars and trucks with mountain bikes strapped to the back passed us by.  Two cyclists with heavily laden bikes also pedalled past, giving us a friendly wave as they went by.  Eventually we came to the trailhead for several mountain bike paths, where a very generous resident had provided a picnic table on their own private property.  We gratefully took a break, sending out a silent thank you for the opportunity to rest.   Sitting here we were stunned at the number of vehicles toting bikes and the endless stream of cyclists coming off the hills.  Undoubtedly the advice we received in Fernie about the upper trail was correct.  With so much traffic on the hills two slow hikers would have been an annoyance to mountain cyclists on the weekend.

After this point the road turned to gravel and became narrower, and there was much less traffic on it.  As we began to climb we continued to enjoy beautiful views down the valley and of the Lizard mountain range opposite.

As we walked we could see Highway 3 down in the valley below us, and we noticed how strangely sound travelled throughout the region.  Although we were trekking more or less parallel to the highway, at times the traffic sounded very loud, and at others we couldn't hear it at all, presumably because a hill or slope was blocking the sound.  As we progressed we also noticed that in the places where we couldn't hear the traffic or see the road, the slopes around us had been logged.  In the areas that were visible from Highway 3, the slopes were pristine looking and un-logged allowing drivers and visitors to feel as though they were in pristine woodlands.   

Although the highway below us seemed to be sloping gently downwards, we climbed and climbed and climbed on the narrow, winding road.  At one point we heard yelling on the road ahead, and saw a pickup truck parked on the forestry road in front of us.  A woman in the back was shouting, and a group of cows was slowly gathering around the truck, materializing out of the trees on either side of the road.  She was literally calling the cows home off the mountainside!   More impressively cows were emerging from every direction!

Although today was pleasant, it was largely uneventful.  We followed the winding forestry road up and down the sides of the valley, at times walking right beside the railway tracks, at others walking below a hydro corridor, and occasionally following the river, catching glimpses of its turquoise waters through the trees surrounding us.

Around noon we came to Morrissey, which is now largely a ghost town.  It arose with the coal mines in the area, but largely died once the coal resources were exhausted.  The abandoned town also used to be the site of an internment camp during WWI.  Apparently, at that time Canadian miners refused to work alongside Austrian, German, and other nationals that were interned at the camp.

On a more upbeat note, Morrissey is also known for having a grove of the world's oldest black cottonwood trees.  Some of the trees are rumoured to be over 400 years old, more than 10 m in diameter, and to stand 8 storeys tall, rivalling the famous coastal cedars and firs.  The ancient cottonwood interpretive trail is a 1.5 km loop along the banks of the Elk River that showcases this ancient grove.

When we arrived in Morrissey we came to a kiosk for the Elk Valley Trail, opposite which was a bridge over the river.  It was located at a very busy intersection of several gravel roads.  A lot of the fast moving vehicles were from Surerus Murphy Joint Ventures, the construction contractors for the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion Project.  Luckily, when we left the intersection at Morrissey we followed a quieter track.

We deviated off the TCT onto the Ancient Grove Cottonwood Trail, and followed the very narrow, wet, extremely muddy footpath along the riverbank.  We walked for a few minutes, but never saw any cottonwoods of the size mentioned in the write-ups.  Perhaps we just didn't go far enough, but we could see down the river, and didn't spot any trees that looked eight storeys tall.  Two other couples were walking the trail as well, and they didn't find the ancient trees either.  One lady mentioned a review she read from a few years ago that mentioned seeing the trees before they were all gone.  Perhaps that sad day has passed.

We continued on from Morrissey on a quieter track that bordered the railway line.  It too soon began to climb, and then to follow the hydro corridor through the hot sunny afternoon.

As we walked, we passed many Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC) signs.  We were walking beside the Mount Broadwood Conservation Area.   This 21,000 acre property was donated to NCC by Shell Canada in 1992, and is home to a wide variety of species. The conservation area protects the wintering grounds of bighorn sheep, elk, and mule deer.  It also provides habitat for moose, elk, grizzly, and black bear, grey wolf, cougar, wolverine, badger, fisher, and the Rocky Mountain tailed frog.  Sadly, none of these spectacular sounding made an appearance for us as we walked past.

After a few more hours of walking we came to a sign saying 'Danger' and mentioning that live grizzly traps had been deployed in the area.  Almost immediately we saw two researchers in their pickup truck.  As they got out to check on one of the traps they said hello and asked what we were up to.  It brought back fond memories of doing field research on migratory songbirds, which suddenly seems a lot more tame than trapping grizzlies! 

We didn't really have a specific destination in mind for tonight, not being sure how far we would get.  One of the options we had considered was stopping at the Silver Springs Lakes just before Elko. This series of three lakes can be reached by a 3.7 km trail, and apparently camping is allowed at two of them.  When we got to the trailhead around 4 pm there were about two dozen cars parked at it, and the footpath looked like it went straight up the side of an extremely steep forested slope.  Today is Saturday, and we weren't sure how many people would stay to camp, and how many were day users.  Not wanting to climb a steep hill and add 3.7 km to our day only to find the place full, we decided to continue on.

A few kilometres farther along the gravel road, which at this point was quite busy again, we came to the tiny community of Elko.  Our first indication of the settlement was coming to a bridge over the Elk River, where the final kiosk marking the end of the lovely Elk Valley Trail was located. Down below, on the rocky shores of the river, a few people were fishing in the early afternoon sunshine.

It was quite a beautiful spot.  The hills and mountains that rose up around us were different than the ones we've seen so far.  For one thing, they were very colourful.  The soil was a rich, terracotta red, and dark crimson lichen grew on the rocks under the dark green trees.  The yellows and reds of the ground cover made for very colourful red slopes.

We briefly considered camping on the banks of the river.  However, there was a lot of traffic on the road, and quite a few people out fishing, so we again decided to continue onward, climbing up out of the river valley and following the paved road through Elko.

Elko is a sawmill town located on the Crowsnest Highway, just north of the US border and at the edge of the Rocky Mountain Trench.  When the Canadian Pacific Railway built a station near Elko in 1898, the town began to grow as Charles Ayre's North Star Lumber Company commenced operations in the nearby woods.  North Star soon built a mill near Elko to finish the lumber coming out of their mill near Jaffrey.  By around 1910 harvesting and forest fires had exhausted most  of the easy timber in the area, and the Great Depression caused many of the smaller sawmills to close, bringing an end to Elko's prosperity.  Today a Canfor mill still operates nearby.

We wove our way through the tiny community of Elko, which was little more than a few streets of homes.  When we reached Highway 3, or the Crowsnest Highway, we made a stop at the gas station for ice cream and iced tea. We asked the owners if there was anywhere to camp nearby, but they didn't seem to know.

After our short break we followed the Trans Canada Trail down the shoulder of the extremely busy highway for a very unnerving kilometre. We had been thinking maybe we could camp at the Elko Provincial Park, but the busy highway made us have second thoughts.  Instead, we diverted off it onto a completely unmarked track that was the TCT.  Here the landscape suddenly seemed completely different transitioning from dense mountain forests into grasslands and scrub brush.

At Elko we passed out of the Rocky Mountains and into the Rocky Mountain Trench, or the Valley of a Thousand Peaks. This cartographically and visually striking valley extends 1,600 km from Flathead Lake, Montana to the Liard River, just south of the British Columbia - Yukon border.  The bottom of the trench is 3-16 km wide, and is 600 - 900 m above sea level.  The general orientation of the trench is almost straight 150/330° geographic north, making it a convenient visual guide for aviators.  It also seems to have a completely different landscape than the mountains on either side.

For the next few hours we walked through a flat savanna.  Tall, bleached blond grasses covered the ground under a forest of pine trees.  The red and black bark on the trunks of the ponderosa pines contrasted with the light grasses, creating a very colourful landscape.  It was a flat, dry landscape that that reminded us of deserts, or of Africa.  So completely different than the mountainous slopes of this morning!

The presence of grasslands in BC is determined by the climate and the landforms. Thousands of years ago, glaciers crept out of the mountains on either side of the Rocky Mountain Trench, filling the valley with over one kilometre of ice.  As the glaciers moved and then retreated, they deposited gravel, sand, and clay that were rich in minerals and nutrients. This is the perfect soil for grasses, and the ones in the Trench have adapted to a climate where water evaporation is generally higher than accumulated rainfall, and groundwater is collected in small hollows and ponds.

The grassy track led out to a gravel forestry road with a surprising amount of traffic on it, for a road that literally lead nowhere.  However, as the sun began to sink towards the horizon and turn the sky a lovely yellow, we decided to simply stop walking and pitch the tent under the trees.

As we fall asleep in the dark, quiet forest we can hear the sounds of frogs calling all around us. If you had told me this morning that we would end up walking past Elko today I would have crawled back into my sleeping bag and told you to bugger off.  Sometimes things don't work out as expected, but they work out nonetheless.  Although today was extremely long, it was also incredibly beautiful. 

See you on the trail!

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