I had heard a lot about this trail, with its beauty and its dangers, and so when Blserp and I met for an adventure the next Saturday, Yamnuska was the first thing that passed my mind (followed by the fact that I still needed a sense of direction in life). At this point Blserp had officially become my adventure partner and we arrived at the trail to find the parking lot full of cars. We parked beside a very large garbage disposal and started the hike from that wonderful view.
As we started up the trail, I noticed two rather nicely shaped wooden swords (in reality they were just branches) sticking out beckoning me to come and have a medieval brawl in the middle of a forest. So before one of the more difficult hikes in Alberta even started, we exerted all of our energy into fighting a battle surrounded by a muddy trail, a running creek, bushes and many pot holes. I of course won the duel (Blserp would say other wise, but since he doesn’t have a blog, whatever I say is the truth). (Random thought: Is history really shaped by the victor or is it shaped by the writers who decide to make whoever they desire the victor?). Once we got the first 10% of the hike done, for some odd reason the trail started going down rather than up and that odd reason was discovered soon enough when we ran into a dead end. We had made a wrong turn.
After climbing back up and going through a dense as well as steep forest trail we came in to a clearing with an amazing view of the prairies, mountains and a lake that was shaped exactly like a heart. It was actually a better heart than I could ever draw so natures architecture was inspiring once again. As we were going up the trail, everyone passing us on their way down warned us that the trail was impossible to cross at one point without having metal grippers on your shoes. We of course laughed in the face of this and ignored everyone and everything other than the breathtaking landscapes ahead of us. At one point we decided to ignore where the trail was going and instead walked on the edge of the mountain where the wind was blowing at us like a Bollywood movie scene and the views were amazing. We continued on our own path for a while until we realized there was no other choice but to join the actual trekking path taken by people, as the snow was starting to get really deep.
It was a struggle getting back up to the trail, and after many slips and slides we managed to make it. The path was now getting covered in snow as the altitude was increasing. At one point after that, we came across a beautiful valley and a striking contrast between the snow, the forest and the rocks. No camera and no words can do justice to how marvellous it was. We then came across the point most people were avoiding going further from, as there was just one small really steep space between two large rocks in order to go up, and if by chance you slipped, there was a hole at the bottom waiting for you to fly out. We on the other hand were as stubborn as brown aunties trying to get a discount out of a shopkeeper and went ahead looking only above. I was really surprised at Blserp because with little difficulty, he managed to get through and so did I. It looked much worse than it actually was. We finally made it to the top of the mountain and walked across it to another one where we sat and marvelled at the views.
We thought we must be close to finishing the hike at this point but once I looked at the map, I realized we were barely past the half point. It was getting late however as we had started the trail late and did not have time to go further so, Yumnuska will be an adventure that has yet to be completed fully. The way back was much faster because we literally slid down half the mountain and managed to come back in one piece.
Hasnain Raza Baloach 