In August of 2021, we drove more than 9000 km from Vancouver, BC to The Yukon and back. One of the highlights of our road trip was a 5-day backcountry trek in Tombstone Territorial Park.
Tombstone territorial Park is a 2200 square kilometre area of protected wilderness, offering stunning views of tundra landscape, incredibly rugged peaks, and home to abundant wildlife. The park lies within the Traditional Territory of the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in First nation and is a legacy of the Land Claim Agreement. It is managed in collaboration between the territorial government and the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in First nation, with particular efforts on protection and preservation.
The park offers a wide range of hiking opportunities, including a 48km out-and-back backcountry circuit.
Dawson City
We got to Dawson City a bit after 3pm, and quickly looked for an outdoor gear place, after realizing that our small backpacking stove was out of commission – not ideal since we were about to head off for 5 days in the backcountry.
We found what we needed at the Trading Post, a neat shop that sells modern outdoor gear as well as a bunch of antique ones. It’s one of those stores that make you want to buy everything! I also bought a small sewing kit to fix up a hole in one of my gloves.
After that we headed to the airbnb booked for the right, a good way to comfortably reset and get our backpacking stuff ready for the next 5 days of t hiking and backcountry camping.
One thing we hadn’t quite sorted before arriving were bear canisters. They are required to go into Tombstone, to protect both the wildlife and people. We hadn’t bought or rented any as I had read somewhere that the park could lend us some, for a $60 deposit.
As I did a final check on the park website, I got a bit nervous as about being able to indeed borrow them so I ended up calling the Interpretive Center minutes before it closed at 5pm, and the confirmed that although they no longer rented them, they still had some on hand to lend. The park is quite far from Dawson so I guess they would still prefer people go in with the proper bear safety equipment than go without. There wasn’t really anywhere else to find bear canister in and around Dawson City. I don’t actually think the Trading Post sold them (but maybe they do) and the only possible rental was with the local adventure guides in town, but they wouldn’t open until 10am the next day – too late for us as we were headed to Tombstone at 7:30.
We had already purchased a number of dehydrated meals, so we put them and all other energy bars and snacks in ziploc bags, as was suggested in the park guidelines, to contain food smell as much as possible.
Once we were relatively ready for the next day, we went out to try and find a place to eat. At 9pm on a Monday, the only place we found open was the Drunken Goat and that night they appeared to be making pizza only – which we didn’t mind. It took 45 min to get our food, (we had been warned by the waitress from the get go, but there weren’t many other restaurant options). In the end the pizzas were pretty substantial and we took left overs home with us.
Day 1 – Hike to Grizzly Lake
There is a 1.5 hour drive from Dawson City to the Tombstone Interpretive center, which is actually 20km past the trail head for the backcountry circuit. We left around 8am and were there at 9:30am to collect a couple of bear canister in exchange for a cash deposit. In hindsight, although convenient when you show up without them, I would probably acquire bear cans before hand, as the only reason we drove to the center was to pick them up and return them – which also meant we had to be back before 5 pm on our last day, otherwise taking the risk of having to camp at the front country site and return them in the morning.
In any case, by 10am we were at the trail head and we organized all the food into the two cans. They seemed pretty full but we might have been able to squeeze in a few extra snacks, I know I felt like I could have had more food during the 5 days, but of course that would also mean more weight. In the end we did alright with enough trail food, afternoon snacks and a couple extra lunch packs to complement protein and energy bars during the day. We had an assortment of dehydrated meals from several brands, which all turned out to be tasty very (especially so after hiking in the rain!)
The first day involved a 12km hike in to Grizzly lake, with 750m of elevation gain. The first 2.3 km were on a relatively flat single track trail, albeit very muddy and with lots of roots and rocks. Then we left the trees and started climbing to the ridge on exposed terrain, which was probably the most challenging part. It was rainy and windy, with zero visibility and for a moment I thought “what the hell are we doing, is it going to be miserable this way the whole time?”. But then I literally had another moment when I thought “Well, I could be grumpy the whole way, or I could NOT be grumpy the whole way” and just like that my mood changed. We stopped at some point, about 4km in, as we were both feeling the ass-kicking from that climb. and had a Naak bar to boost us up (which, as always, it did).
The trail continued to climb more gradually along the slope, just below the ridge, and eventually we started to descend into the valley. The lower part of the trail wasn’t necessarily easier, it even got a bit more technical with rocky areas to cross at regular interval, and not a lot of smooth ground. Eventually though we made it to the campground, which, on a clear day, can actually be seen from quite a distance.
The campground was set up with a dozen or so tent pads along a well defined trail. Setting up a tent anywhere else is prohibited, as the ground is covered in very delicate tundra vegetation, moss and shrubs that take a long time to grow in this harsh environment.
The tent pads are some distance from the lake, and the trail continues down to its shore, passing a couple of outhouses on the way. The cooking tables and tents are set up near the lake, along with bear caches. All food must be prepared there, and stored in the caches, to avoid attracting animals and especially bears, to the sleeping areas.
The cooking tents were pretty convenient shelters from the rain and provided good opportunity to chat with other hikers. We had a snack and got our tent set up. Since the weather was still pretty cold and wet, we tuckered in with a book until dinner time.
At dinner we chatted with two twenty-something guys from Quebec, who were planning on hiking to Talus lakes the next day (passing through Divide lake) to spend the night.
After dinner there wasn’t much to do other than go back to the tent and read for a bit, so we were pretty much in bed by 9pm. It rained overnight, but stopped in the morning.
Day 2 – Hiking to Divide Lake through Glissade pass
Second leg of the circuit, we hiked to Divide lake via Glissade Pass. The pass is only about 1km from Grizzly lake, but has an elevation gain of 450 m over 1/2 km. So it’s STEEP! The trail on the Grizzly lake side was a muddy path going through grassy areas and some rock patches. We pretty much put our head down and climbed on, passing hikers returning from the other side, trying not to slip down the muddy trail. This is when I thought to myself that hiking poles might be useful on the way back down, but oh well, let’s focus on getting to the top for now. Eventually we did, and although there were a bit of clouds on the summits we could see clearly the valley on the other side. The trail now descended just as steeply but this time through thick, loose shale, which turned out to be very fun, as the ground was loose enough that you could slide a bit but not so loose that you would lose balance and fall. It only took us 5-10 min to come down.
After that we had another 4km to go to Divide lake, around a slope to the left. Although relatively short, the trail was once again a mixture of technical dirt, rocky, boulder crossings, and we felt pretty happy when we arrived. We found a tent pad, set up camp and went for a snack in the cooking tent.
This time we chatted with Kendra and her mom Edie. We first thought they had hiked in the same way we did but soon found out they had been dropped off by helicopter at Talus lake, the furthest of the three lakes on the circuit, and were now hiking out over 5 days, taking a couple of rest days in the process,
Kendra was in her forties (I’m guessing), and her mom probably close to 70, so we were curious how she would fare on the pass and the hike out, having so far only covered the easiest 6km of the circuit. Kendra was being quite motherly with her own mom, and half-jokingly expressing concerns that she hadn’t been eating all the allotted food, so Kendra had to keep carrying it.
They very generously offered us some desert a couple of tortillas, and later some coffee packets when I thought we were out, all the while thanking us for taking that weight off their pack. They were a pretty amusing pair and we ended up chatting with them on several occasions, as we found them again at Grizzly lake on the same night we came back and hiked out the same day as us.
Weather being on the colder side, we retreated once again to the tent to relax between 5pm and 7pm, then had dinner before going to bed early- definitely earlier than what we had been doing while car camping, staying up by the campfire until 11 or 11:30pm since it was light out so late.
