Gros Morne National Park, Newfoundland Canada

Bob's Hiking Adventures

Trip 1630: Gros Morne, North Rim Traverse, Ancient Crust & Cultures  Saturday August 13 to Sunday August 21, 2016
AMC Adventure Travel sponsored trip to backpack the North Rim Traverse in Gros Morne NP, Newfoundland, Canada.  AMC AT leaders Bob Knudsen and Elizabeth Ryan guided the group on four days of backpacking and five additional days of day hikes, and visits to cultural attractions.  
Trip Description
Trip to western Newfoundland and Gros Morne NP included backpacking, day hiking, and visits to UNESCO world heritage natural and cultural sites. We arrived in Deer Lake the first day and purchased food for our camp meals and backpack.  Sunday we drove to the park for a short pre-backpack briefing with the rangers, picked up our permits and ferry tickets, and spent the remainder of the day hiking in the Tablelands.  The Tablelands is an UNESCO world heritage site featuring a beautiful landscape with 500 million year old crust.  We camped overnight in the park. On Monday we were ferried across the scenic Western Brook Pond to the start of our four day backpack. Western Brook Pond is a Fjord with thousand foot cliffs surrounding it on three sides and spectacular views. We were dropped at the head of the pond to start our four day backpack (the North Rim Traverse) across the trailless tundra and tuckamore. Thursday took us to Port au Choix to see 5000 years of human settlement on display at the museum and on to L’Anse aux Meadows at the north tip of Newfoundland to camp overnight. On Friday we visited the L’Anse aux Meadows site to see the only authenticated Viking settlement in North America. We returned to Gros Morne NP late in the day to camp. Saturday we day hiked Gros Morne Mountain and other areas in the park. Saturday night we had our last group dinner.  Sunday morning we packed up, departed the park by noon and returned home.

MT Assiniboine Provincial Park, BC Canada.

Canadian Rockies Backpack: Lake Louise and The Rockwall

 Saturday August 7 to Sunday August 15, 2010

Our entire backpack route is within Kootenay National Park.  We start and finish at points about 7 miles apart on the Banff-Windemere highway. Our first day will see us climbing 2,350 vertical feet over 7 miles through forest to Floe Lake.  Nestling below the 3,000 foot high cliffs of the Rockwall, the pale blue lake is dotted in summer with small ice floes which break off the ribbon of glacier running along the base of the cliffs. From Floe Lake, the Rockwall Trail runs north for nearly 20 miles along the base of the limestone cliffs.  It’s a marvelous roller coaster of a trail, past waterfalls, flower-filled cirques, and hanging glaciers.  On our second day, we climb over Numa Pass, under the pyramid of Foster Peak, and down to a campsite on Numa Creek.  The next day it’s up and over Tumbling Pass to another campsite at Tumbling Creek, on the edge of a meadow, from where the evening light can be watched as it highlights the curving aretes and blocks of snow high on Tumbling Glacier. The Rockwall above Numa Creek On our fourth day, we climb to Wolverine Plateau, stay high over Rockwall Pass and Limestone Summit, and drop down to Helmet Creek.  During the descent, we will hear the growing roar of 1,200 foot Helmet Falls tumbling down a vast amphitheatre which marks the northern end of the Rockwall. On our final day, we descend through sub-alpine forest along Helmet and Ochre Creeks, past the Ochre springs to arrive at the Paint Pots Parking Lot after a full day of hiking.