Riding Banff’s Rugged Rockies

“That’s the pass we’re heading for,” Greg Olesky, our guide, said. He was pointing out a cleft in the peaks at the far end of the valley. “We’ll camp in the valley on the other side tonight.”

Ken, a fellow traveler, and I stared into the postcard-perfect landscape as our horses nibbled grass. Lush alpine meadows, sparkling creeks and shimmering waterfalls were bowled in by jagged, snow-dusted peaks. “No way,” Ken said.

This made me feel better, because I was thinking the same thing. I was the rookie rider here, but Ken is an experienced horseman, and he knows how to judge horse distance. He comes from the flatlands of Minnesota, however, and Banff is Rocky Mountain territory.

This was our fourth day out, and I was finally feeling at home in the saddle. Lunch was an hour ago, though, and it just didn’t seem possible to ride through all that dramatic landscape before nightfall.

There were seven of us on horseback here deep in the backcountry of Banff National Park, a 2,564-square-mile expanse of mountain wilderness. We were on one of Ron Warner’s six-day wilderness expeditions. The brochure for this horse-packing adventure recommended experienced riders only. I figured my experience spanned about 35 years and totaled--not counting time on camels--perhaps five full hours in the saddle. I hoped it would do. Although I knew we might encounter bears or cougars, my biggest worry was whether I’d be able to sit in the saddle up to six hours a day. But if that was the price for getting into the legendary backcountry of Banff, I was willing to chance it.

Eighty miles west of Calgary, just inside Alberta near the British Columbia border, Banff was originally set aside for protection in 1885. Banff, Canada’s first national park, is the most popular of this country’s 40 national parks and reserves, welcoming more than 4.5 million visitors annually.

“Banff is the monumental landscape of the Canadian Rockies,” Canadian historian Robert Sandford says. “And one of the finest accomplishments of ecosystem preservation in the world.”

To preserve this natural habitat, there are no roads in the interior and no wheeled vehicles of any kind are permitted on the trails (mountain bike access is restricted to designated trails). The park’s vast backcountry wilderness is accessible only on foot or by horseback.

Backcountry permits are required for overnight stays and, according to park statistics, less than 1% of all park visitors ever venture deeper into the backcountry than a day’s hike or horse ride. Those fortunate few leave far behind every trace of the summer crowds, who can make Banff feel at times like another Yellowstone.

Hiking into the backcountry requires physical stamina and wilderness skills, but travel by horse and pack train is readily accessible to most people. In fact, heading into the backcountry on horseback for a week or more has been the preferred way for discerning visitors to enjoy the wild charms of Banff since the park opened.

Our group met at 8 a.m. in Ron Warner’s Trail Rider Store in the middle of Banff, which is in the park itself. Warner, the only outfitter licensed to operate year-round within the park boundaries, has been guiding and outfitting in Banff for more than 40 years. He has a stable of 300 horses and came highly recommended by a local friend.

As we signed disclaimer forms and backcountry permits in the store, our personal gear was being driven to the trailhead, where it would be packed on the mules. A van dropped us off at a small barn and corral at the edge of the forest, where our horses were already saddled and waiting. Greg had read the questionnaire we had each filled out when we signed on. He knew our riding experience (or lack thereof), horse preference and our height and weight, and he had chosen the most suitable horses from the Warner herd.

Being the tenderfoot, I had expected a docile, maybe smaller horse. No such luck. “You get Posse here,” Greg said, handing me the reins of the biggest horse there. Being the tallest rider, I got the tallest horse, whether I liked it or not.

As it turned out, my lack of riding experience didn’t matter much. These were not the lazy rent-by-the-hour sloths of my childhood. These horses were born and bred for the job, knew the terrain (they “loved getting out there,” Greg said), and were accustomed to the amazing feats they would be called upon to do. Many of them were Alberta-raised quarter horses, picked for their agility, sure-footedness and responsiveness to the rider. Before being assigned to trail-ride duty, each steed had been trained as a guide horse, learning to cross rivers, negotiate steep and uneven terrain, and become accustomed to wildlife scents and encounters.

We mounted up. Greg, riding Panther, with pack mule No. 77 behind him, led the way down the trail from the paddock area. Within minutes we were immersed in the dark, fragrant forest, heading for the mountainous valleys to the north.

A century ago and for several decades, Alberta cowboy Ralph Edwards worked as a guide and packer out of Banff. His clients would arrive by train (the only access back then), check into the Canadian Pacific’s Banff Springs hotel (“the castle in the Rockies”), and arrange for a two or three-week trail ride into the mountains. From his journals Edwards wrote a booklet, published in 1950, called “The Trail to the Charmed Land.” So little has Banff’s backcountry and trail riding changed since then that many of Edwards’ passages might have been written yesterday: “A guide picked up his party at some lonely station or water tank in the hills and, plunging into a country of rocky fastnesses and rushing waters, the guide and the dudes, for whose safety he was responsible, were as lost to civilization as if they had been transferred to another planet.”

Our own flight from civilization would take us deep into the backcountry, following first the Elk Lake and then the Cascade Valley trails to the Panther River. There we would switch back and cross the 8,000-foot North Fork Pass, then head west across the ridges before turning south again.

Trail riding, I discovered, is a pleasant mix of chatty camaraderie and quiet contemplation. The boisterous revelry started immediately as four of the riders--Ed, Curt, Betty, and her 17-year-old daughter, Michelle--were all close friends from Kansas and repeat customers. In fact, this was their fifth Banff trail ride together. Ed, who preferred riding last on the trail, was the most accomplished rider next to Greg (who has logged more than 12,000 backcountry miles as a guide). Ed was a serious horseman. Serious at least when he wasn’t doing his drunken horse “Cat Ballou” routine or reciting gunslinger lines from John Wayne movies. Ed could get the entire group laughing so hard it was a wonder we didn’t fall off.

Often, though, we rode for long stretches in appreciative silence--except for the bear bell hanging on the neck of mule No. 77. Greg stuffed a clump of weeds into the bell to quiet the clapper, but it still chimed. I once asked Greg why his mule had just a number for a name. “That 77 is something of a troublemaker,” Greg said. “That’s why he stays with me. He’s the only mule we have without a real name.”

From the outset, the trail was a never-ending succession of surprises. For every stretch of flat, dappled forest there was a ladder of roots and boulders to climb. For every soft-turfed meadow, a narrow canyon of sharp, flinty stones.

“My horse wouldn’t last 30 minutes out here,” Betty said at one point. Like the other riders, she and her daughter owned their own horses. Ed agreed that his wouldn’t either. But Posse and the other horses were obviously right at home.

Our daily routine varied little as we rode through the ever-changing landscape. We would head out after breakfast about 9 a.m., ride for 2 to 2 1/2 hours, then stop for lunch at some pleasant spot near a stream. Mule No. 77 carried our lunch food as well as a cast-iron portable grill and a bundle of kindling. Greg would start the fire, and one of us would fill the coffee pot and juice jug with water from the stream. Out here, far from any farms or pollution, the rivers ripple as clear as liquid glass. Soon coffee would be bubbling in the blackened pot and hamburgers and sausages sizzling on the grill. After lunch, we would lie in the grass using our saddlebags as pillows and snooze while the horses grazed nearby. Afternoons we would ride about three hours and arrive in camp around 5 or so. That was also the rhythm some 100 years back.

“Five hours of travel,” Edwards wrote, “at an average rate of 2 1/2 miles per hour was considered a regular pack train day.” We actually averaged slightly better than that, according to Greg. He figured we covered about 100 to 120 miles in the six days we were out.

It was always something of a surprise to find our pack train, led by packer Adam and accompanied by cooks Luanne and Natalie, waiting for us in camp at the end of each day. Each morning they left our previous camp after we did, yet we never saw them pass us on the trail. When asked about the apparent sleight-of-hand, Adam said they didn’t stop for breaks or lunch along the way. So while the rest of us were dozing on our lunch breaks, the pack train passed us by.

At camp, the first thing we did was tie our horses to the “high line” that Adam strung between two big trees. There the horses were unsaddled and fed alfalfa pellets. Greg would then let them loose to wander down by the river or out into the meadow, where they would graze for the night, never straying so far from the camp that they couldn’t be found the following morning.

We would find our personal gear, along with the tents. The tents were low-tech but roomy and provided by the outfitter, although we had to pitch them ourselves, which was something of a comedy for me on the first couple of evenings. I was so stiff and sore that I couldn’t bend over and had to crawl around on my knees. My back hurt, my butt hurt and even the inside of my knees hurt from wrapping my legs around Posse’s big belly.

By noon of the third day, however, all soreness was gone, and I was feeling perfectly comfortable. The awkwardness I had felt that first day climbing into the saddle seemed like ancient history. It now felt natural to ride Posse as he forded streams, threaded narrow hillside trails or even bushwhacked through untracked wilderness.

Luanne and Natalie always had big pots of hot water for washing up waiting for us at the camp. Just beyond the campfire, Luanne’s kitchen was set up beneath a large white canvas awning. Lining one side were a half-dozen bright red grub boxes. These sturdy wood crates, designed to hang from pack saddles, contained all our food and cooking gear.

Dinners were hearty servings of barbecued pork chops or chicken or Alberta steaks or spaghetti, with side dishes that might include salads, applesauce, potatoes or corn on the cob. For dessert there was always cake or pie. No matter how big an appetite we brought to the campfire, there was always more food than we could handle.

Evening entertainment was usually just trading tales around the campfire or watching sunset from a river bank. Everyone turned in early, unless there was a hot game of horseshoes. One game lasted until it was so dark we had to use flashlights to see the pegs.

Mornings always arrived early, especially if you happened to be sleeping between the camp and the meadow. Once I awoke at 4 a.m. from a dream about Burmese temples, then realized the temple bells were actually our mules wandering back into camp, clanging their bells just a few feet away.

By then I was no longer bothering with a tent but roughing it under the stars like a real cowboy. Adam had showed me how to turn my sleeping bag into a weatherproof bedroll by wrapping it inside two pack tarps. The Milky Way glowed without a hint of haze. The peaks on either side of the 5,000-foot valley were etched black against the star field.

Just after 5 a.m., Adam rode out to fetch the horses and mules that hadn’t returned on their own, and soon Greg had a crackling campfire going. Louanne and Natalie invariably found something to laugh about this early in the morning, and their jocularity was the sign that coffee was ready.

By 7, we had to have bedrolls, tents and personal gear ready to be packed on the mules. Breakfast was at 8: pancakes, omelets, hash browns and Canadian bacon. Before the rest of us had finished eating, Adam and Greg would be packing the mules.

Packing is an ancient craft, and the technique looks impossible to the uninitiated. Although just 23 years old, Adam was an expert packer, having grown up on a ranch and worked with horses all his life. A mule can carry up to 200 pounds, and Adam packed it all with no wasted motions. The 50-foot lash rope was a blur as he tied our cargo onto the wooden pack saddles, finishing with the famous diamond hitch, which historians tell us has been used since at least the time of Genghis Khan.

Luanne burned a lot of food--intentionally. If it couldn’t be eaten at one sitting, into the fire it went and was burned down to ashes, leaving nothing to tempt bears or cougars or even bighorn sheep. Our passage would not alter the behavior of the park’s wild animals by having them associate humans as the source of an easy meal.

Even without the scent of food, encountering bears in backcountry Banff is not uncommon, and we saw our share of black bears and a few grizzlies too. Fortunately the bears took little notice of riders on horseback, and our mounts had been trained not to spook at the scent of their natural enemy.

Grizzlies are big, powerful and voracious and require large spaces of unspoiled habitat. Unlike black bears, grizzlies will not live in disturbed areas and thus are prime indicators of a healthy wilderness. Banff is a bear paradise, and spotting them from horseback was always a thrill. After cresting the North Fork Pass and dropping down to the Cascade River, Greg spotted a grizzly sow playing with her cubs in a clearing just ahead of us, across a creek we had to ford. Mother and cubs ignored us as we stopped to watch and wait for them to move on. As we rode through the clearing where the grizzlies had been, Greg swiveled around in his saddle. “Betty,” he said, “you still want to make a pit stop?” “I’m OK,” she said quickly. “Just keep going.”

We did not always ride trails. Sometimes we bushwhacked. One afternoon as we started to ford a wide stream, Greg turned upstream. We rode up the middle over smooth river stones in water swirling knee deep on the horses. On either side the banks were steep and overgrown. Finally Greg turned his mount toward the right bank and Panther plunged through the thick vegetation. Mule No. 77 dutifully followed, and a moment later the three of them were lost to view. I was the next rider and, not quite sure how this would work, gave Posse a gentle nudge with my heel and clucked my tongue. Posse pawed the muddy bank looking for a foothold but didn’t find one, so he just reared back and rocketed up. Greg hadn’t left any path that I could see, and the ground wasn’t visible through the bushes and tree branches anyway.

Posse pushed his way through, climbing slowly as the lay of the land rose from the creek valley. Fifteen minutes later we emerged onto a relatively clear horse trail. “I knew it was here somewhere,” Greg said. We had crossed the valley and were finally climbing toward the high pass Greg had pointed out earlier. Balsam poplar and fir gave way to altitude-loving larch, and then we were above the tree line. The trail dwindled to little more than a thin trace of beveled scree snaking up the 40-degree slope. On top we gave the horses a long rest and stretched our legs. A vast world of wilderness spread below us on both sides. As we mounted, fellow traveler Curt twisted around in his saddle, taking in the long view one last time. Dressed in leather chaps and worn boots, and unshaven below his dusty cowboy hat, he looked like an outlaw from the Old West. As he glanced over with a strange focus to his eyes, I fully expected one of his gruff, irreverent comments. Instead, he surprised me.

“Not many people get to see scenes like this,” he said in a horse whisper. “We’re very blessed.”

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GUIDEBOOK

Saddling Up in Banff’s Backcountry

Prices: Hotel rates are for a double for one night. Meal prices are for two people without wine.

Getting there: From LAX, nonstop service to Calgary is available on Air Canada and Alaska Airlines, and connecting service (change of plane) is offered on Air Canada, Alaska, United, American, Delta (connecting to Horizon), America West and Northwest. Shuttles for Banff depart from Calgary International Airport seven days a week. Call ahead to confirm space and departure time: Banff Airporter, (888) 449-2901; Brewster Airport Shuttle, (800) 661-1152; Rocky Mountain Sky Shuttle, (888) 762-8754.

When to go: Banff backcountry trail riding season is mid-June to mid-October.

Where to stay: Fairmont Banff Springs; (800) 441-1414; www.fairmont.com. The Fairmont is Banff’s historic, elegant “Castle in the Rockies,” with 770 rooms, 12 restaurants and 15 upscale shops. Rate: Summer prices start at $406.

Banff Ptarmigan Inn; (800) 661-8310, fax (403) 760-8287. Pool, restaurant, bar. Rate: In summer, about $140.

Elkhorn Lodge; (403) 762- 2299, fax (403) 762-0646, www.elkhornbanff.ca. Rustic and friendly; within walking distance of downtown. Rate: In summer, about $80.

Guided horse-packing trips: Ron Warner’s Holiday on Horseback, Warner Guiding and Outfitting Ltd., 132 Banff Ave., Box 2280, Banff, Alberta T1L 1C1; (403) 762-4551, fax (403) 762-8130, www.horseback.com. The six-day Adventure Expedition costs about $1,036. Designed for the experienced rider and camper. Maximum of nine guests per trip. The first expedition departs on June 26 and the last one on Sept. 18.

Warner also has Backcountry Lodge Rides of anywhere from two to six days in duration where riders make day trips from two different rustic wilderness lodges.

For more information: Banff Lake Louise Tourism Bureau, (403) 762-8421, www.banfflakelouise.com. Canadian Tourism Commission, 550 S. Hope St., 9th Floor, Los Angeles, Calif., 90071; (213) 346-2700, www.canadatourism.com. Additional lodging information available at www.banffhotels.tv.