Roche Bonhomme, or a Good Old Hubby

Roche Bonhomme, 2498 m, is a popular mountain near Jasper, in Jasper National Park. The name is often translated from French as meaning "Rock of an Old Good Fellow." In a book describing the trail to the mountain (unfortunately, I didn't record the author), it is referred to as "off-trail hike," with round-trip distance of 10 km, and altitude gain of 1300 m. As my story will try to illustrate, only the last information is correct.

We parked at Maligne Canyon parking lot and looked into the trail description to identify the beginning of the trail.

My companions were lovely Ela and Basia, along with the Club Harpagons: Mike, Piotr and Roman. Though somewhat confused after a hot night, we quickly established that the description was incorrect. It asked us to "walk back on Maligne Lake Road for 350 m." In fact, the beginning of the trail is about 300 m UP the road, not down.

Nevertheless, we hit the trail, enjoying somewhat cooler and rainy morning. The first challenge of the trail happened to be ... mosquitoes. These relentless pests attacked us with such a passion, in spite of all kind of repellents being in use, that they were making it almost impossible for us to stop. I remember that right after I sprayed, in desperation, my own face (!), three mosquitoes sat on it right away, and one landed in my mouth!

Having hard time stopping, we slowly lost cohesion as a group. Initially, these were Roman, Ela and Mike being at the front. 

With time, it was me, Barbara and Piotr who moved ahead. 

Part of our success was the skill, with which we attacked the trail-blocks, quite numerous in the lower part. 

And here, one could notice some gender differences. Piotr prefered to have these obstacles under his bum ...

... while Barbara opted to have them between her legs!

Whatever works! It seems I used a combination of these two styles. 

Otherwise, the trail was quite decent. It started getting quite steep around this creek. Luckily, because of the morning shower, the trail was not dusty, and it was not muddy. In slightly more muddy conditions, it would likely become very unpleasant. 

Having a charming woman among ourselves, with Piotr, we started noticing what Barbara was referring to as "monuments of Nature" ("pomniki Przyrody"). The concept gained traction, and, all of sudden, where before we would just see "darn flowers" we now had "monuments" of Beauty. 

One couldn't not notice that Barbara was blending with these "monuments" very well. 

Finally, after much strife, overcoming very steep, upper part of the forest, we got to some open space, ... 

... from which we could see Jasper. We rested a bit before tackling the upper part of the mountain - a rather nasty looking scree! 

We still had about 400 m of altitude to gain. That is why, I believe, naming the trail as "off-trail hike" is a misrepresentation. The upper part is definitely a "scramble" and probably at least a "moderate scramble." 

Loose rocks make scrambling very tiresomeing. I was literally close to "spitting my lungs" and ...

... quite spent by the time we reached the summit ridge. This made me even more impressed that the other team - Mike, Ela and Roman - trailing behind us by about 45 minutes, kept pushing through the scree. 

The summit ridge is where Barbara called it quits. She was afraid of the ridge's exposure toward East. As she appeared, psychologically, fully integrated with her decision, only two Piotrs went toward the summit. 

However, to honor Barbara's contribution to the hike, we photographed a few "monuments of Nature." 

We reached the summit of Roche Bonhomme around 1 pm, after roughly 5 hours of action. My GPS was showing the distance of 7.68 km, which means that the round trip is, in fact, over 15 km long. 

We mingled with some nice, young people at the top, while admiring the views in all directions. 

Shortly before 2 pm, our stellar club member - Roman - caught up with us. At 74, Roman appears to be the strongest among us. 

We took some pictures together ... 

... and left a note in the register. Piotr was somewhat uneasy that it included words from the languages he didn't know. 

On the way down, Piotr and Roman had enough energy to engage in a snow ball fight. 

Soon we discovered that Mike also reached the ridge and was keeping Barbara company. 

Going down the scree was not a small matter. It is slippery and one, not careful step may result in unpleasant injury. 

Ela showed a truly fighting spirit on the scree that day. But she was already quite tired, and relying on her husband, Roman, to guide her through the most of the terrain. This was making their descent much slower than the rest of the group. 

Piotr was helping Barbara in some spots. In return, he got some water from her. Going down in scorching afternoon sun is often more tiresoming than going up. I am glad Barbara listened to my recommendation and had 2L of water. She shared some of this water with Piotr who was so dehydrated toward the end of our hike that he couldn't move his tongue. 

With Piotr and Barbara, we reached the parking lot around 7 pm, after 9 hours of action, on our "last water." Mike, reportedly, was down at 9 pm, and Roman with Ela close to midnight. Concerned, we already called the park ranger, and they were ready to look for them. Luckily, the "Good Old Hubby" happened to be strong enough to bring his wife to safety! It must have been the Spirit of the Mountain that was on his side!  

Roman ... chapeau bas! 

(PR)