On day 4 of our Rockies road trip, we had decided to run the Iceline trail, one of the most scenic hikes in Yoho National Park. Our plan was to cover roughly 25km in a loop, starting in the forest along the river, then climbing up to the alpine to the Stanley Mitchell Hut, and finally taking the Iceline trail across the alpine and down back to the start of our loop.

We started at the base of the Takakkaw Falls, at the end of Yoho Valley Road, in a balmy -2 degres almost-fall morning. We had spent the night before at the Kicking Horse campground, located right off the highway, conveniently near the start of the road.

We first ran along the Laughing Falls trail, following the river passed a few waterfalls. We took a wrong turn and ended up further up the trail than planed, but made our way back on the Twin Falls trail. On the way we stumbled upon the Twin Falls Chalet, built in the early 1900’s by the Canadian Pacific Railway to serve as a Tea House, and later turned into a backcountry lodge. The Chalet has been operated by the same owner since the 1960’s, Fran Drummond, who still today in her eighties spends the summer season hosting guests wanting to enjoy a few days in the beautiful surroundings of the park and enjoying views of the Twin Falls from their room.

Once we were back on track we continued up Little Yoho Valley Trail to the Stanley Mitchell Hut. We crossed a boulder field for a while, then continued up the packed trail. The climb wasn’t very arduous, and with a full stomach we probably could have run it, but we were running low on fuel, and dragging our feet. Finally we reached the hut, which is actually really cozy and well stocked, with fireplace, kitchen and  sleeping quarters on the top level.

After lunch, we headed back out to continue towards the top of the Iceline trail. After a number of switchbacks, we arrived above the tree line and started running through the moon-like expense of dirt and rock, only broken up every so often by small patches of water.

We passed a few people hiking the opposite way, which seems to be the most popular way to approach the trail as a day hike. Brice and I both agreed that we preferred doing the loop in the direction we did it that day – starting with a more gradual incline through the forest and along the river, and coming down on the steep switchbacks that rapidly took us back to the parking lot.

We were pretty happy about the hot shower available at the campground after a day of running, and were even able to enjoy a campfire as the ban was just lifted that night, after some rain fall had made the forest humid and less likely to catch on fire.