Berg Lake Trail is back – and better than ever

By Abigail Popple, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, RMG

The Berg Lake campgrounds welcomed visitors for the first time in four years last month. After being closed in July 2021 due to a flash flood that led to the evacuation of several campers and many washed-out trails and bridges, the trail is back with new-and-improved infrastructure. 

The Goat made the 20-kilometre trek up to the lake to speak to campers about their experience.

A handful of campers on reopening day had planned trips to the lake for late summer 2021, and had to cancel their trips when the trail washed out that June. One such camper, Kevin O’Shea, travelled from Ireland with his Canadian partner, Emma Scholefield.

“Being in Ireland for the last nine or 10 months and missing Canada and the mountains, and then seeing this, is unbelievable,” said Scholefield. 

The pair were part of a seven-person group huddled under the roof of the Hargreaves Shelter, a cabin near the lake, on the drizzly opening day. Their friend, Evan Byrne, coordinated the whole group so they could reserve a site as soon as bookings opened.

“We’ve all done some of the best trails [in Canada],” Byrne said of the group’s experience. “This is by far in the top few.”

Companion Stephen Deluca added that the group appreciated how much work went into rebuilding the trail.

“You could tell that the trail was built to last. It was done so intentionally and with such good planning,” he said.

Likewise, hiker Selena Daviss and her husband Brad made the trek up to Berg after Selena’s 2021 trip was cancelled.

“It’s pretty magical up here,” she said. “All the trails are really well maintained. It’s incredible. You basically cannot get lost.”

For distance runner Misty Palm, who travelled to the reopening from Kamloops, the site holds an especially important significance. In 2015 she ran the Mount Robson 50K, and brought her father’s ashes with her to scatter near the lake. She and her friend Jen Closs have made it a point to run the Berg Lake Trail annually ever since, and returned as soon as they could after the four-year hiatus.

“Every year we come up on Father’s Day to see his ashes as part of the run,” Palm told The Goat. “It was my first time back in four years to go and see where the ashes are, right here,” she gestured at the shoreline.

Tackling mountains and molehills

Berg Lake was carved out by thousands of years of glacial movement and exposure to the alpine elements – all things considered, four years of rebuilding the trail is a blip on the radar. Park Ranger Elliott Ingles says every bit of that time was important to make sure his team could safely build a trail that would withstand the changing climate for decades to come.

Imagine building a bridge: assembling a team of engineers and a construction crew, sourcing materials, making sure the project stays on budget. Now take that whole process and add climate change projections, mountainous terrain, and having helicopters fly in all your materials –  all this while balancing unpredictable weather conditions and the occasional wildfire.

Rinse and repeat about ten times and you have an idea of what it’s like to build all the new, complex infrastructure on the trail.

“I don’t think a lot of people realize how challenging backcountry construction is. If one piece is missing, that can set you back a day. Or if your excavator goes down and you need a part, think about the logistics of getting something here with helicopters.”

All told, the trail rebuilding took nearly 100 people working together, Ingles says. They kept climate change in mind throughout the planning and designing process, and have contingency plans in place for future severe weather events – for example, rangers have hidden quick-deploy bridges in strategic places around the trail that can easily be set up by one person if a normal bridge becomes inaccessible due to flooding.

While the entire team had to think big – taking into account climate change projections for decades into the future and building bigger, stronger bridges – they also had to keep minute details of the trail in mind ahead of opening day, Ingles said.

“I think what gets undersold is how many little things there are to do,” he said. “Because it was closed for so long, all of the areas up there were overgrown… and porcupines do a lot of damage when there’s not people around. My employees in the last five to six weeks, I can’t even count the hours of work they put in and how dedicated they were to all the little things.”

Ingles added that he appreciates how many local businesses could support the project.

“I think in Valemount, sometimes we don’t realize how lucky we are to have the skillsets we have in such a small community,” he said.

While getting to work with a small crew on the more remote parts of the closed trail was a unique experience, Ingles says he spent much of that time eager to have campers return.

“Being up at Berg Lake is such a special thing to be able to do. But being up there alone – although it was really beautiful and serene and surreal – it feels like a place that needs people to enjoy it,” he said. “Every time I was up there, it was hard to feel at peace because it felt like we needed people up there to enjoy it with us.”

Ingles agrees it’s hard to put a finger on what gives the trail such wide appeal, but a few things that come to mind are the variety of scenery, the cultural and historic significance of the area to Simpcw First Nation, and park staff’s dedication to maintaining the trail.

“There’s not a lot of places in the world where you have people on the trail, almost daily, cleaning washrooms and raking tent pads and ensuring all the garbage is picked up,” Ingles said. “That’s a really special part of this place. Maybe you’re not the most confident hiker, but you have rangers and staff out here to make sure that you’re going to be okay.”

Ask campers what it feels like to be at Berg and they’ll likely rattle off adjectives you’d find under the thesaurus entries for “beautiful” or “inspiring” – many told The Goat it was magical, amazing, or left them breathless.

For Ingles, Berg leaves him feeling awash with gratitude.

“I’m just so grateful – that’s the word that’s come up so many times,” he said. “Grateful for this place and for the people that work in it with me. I have such a neat team of people that have unique skills and personalities, and they had so much fun together.”

He added, “I just hope people get up there and have as much fun as we had getting it ready for them.”