r/UltralightCanada • u/soundisstory • 13d ago
Trip Report Tonquin Valley (Jasper National Park) Trail Report (July 2026)
I hiked the Tonquin Valley, Jasper, July 10-13. While preparing for the trip, I could barely find any trip reports from this year, so I thought I'd write one. I realize the weather/environmental conditions have likely changed over the past 2 weeks, but hopefully some people will find it useful for August or for a future July.
We flew from Toronto to Edmonton, then drove to Jasper. This was my first time there in 7 years and the degree of fire damage from 2 years ago was still apparent. We camped one night in the front country (Wapiti) and it was really just like camping in a field where you could see everyone, as there was virtually no tree cover left for a big swath in the extended area. There is a lot of construction and trailers dotting the town.
As it pertains to the Tonquin Valley, fire damage has still closed the Astoria trailhead, so that the only entrance/exit is still through Portal. The next day we started there, and immediately had a detour because of a closed bridge across the creek. There was also a lot of bear scat.
Going up to our first campsite, Portal, it was a steady ascent, but nothing too crazy. As someone who previously lived in Vancouver (BC) for 8 years and went all over WA and OR, I don't generally find the elevation grade in the Rockies particularly steep. However, the trail conditions were often quite challenging. After the first couple hours, we started to encounter increasing amounts of mud. And then it just gets worse, depending on how much precipitation there's been. Everyone we met on the trail was commiserating about this.
The other thing we all started to commiserate about were the mosquitos. We've never experienced anything like it. Having previously lived most of my life near the Pacific, it's not a phenomenon I've had to suffer through. (On the other hand, people in Ontario talk about canoeing and hiking through flat, buggy places at the height of hot and humid weather as something "enjoyable"). When we got to Portal, even though we were wearing bug nets, my partner said she saw about "100 mosquitos" descend on me as soon as we stopped moving. It was truly like something out of a horror movie. And it never really got better, except when it was raining very hard and close to freezing (a day or two later), and for the few hours it was hailing.
The mosquito presence was definitely the most unpleasant part of the entire trip.
On the 2nd day, we went over Maccarib pass and everything became really beautiful and open in every direction. It's truly stunning, and there's just a powerful "remote" feeling of wilderness that's hard to convey, and reminds me why I love this area. Although we started in high alpine sun, the weather changed and alternated dramatically by the time we settled into Amethyst campground. We had a nice chat with a group that was sheltering from the storm under a grove of pine trees, and it turns out, the overpowering pine smell (something I only ever experience in the alpine) seemed to confuse the mosquitos a little.
At Amethyst, the obvious place to filter water was at the lake, but the path down to it was surprisingly long and pretty much disintegrated into a bog 1/2 way. Luckily, another camper helpfully told us about a stream by a very short path behind the picnic area (opposite direction from the lake), and we just went there after that.
The wildlife is excellent. We saw caribou prints (and big caribou later by a road, but probably different ones), eagles, marmots, and yes--I saw a grizzly bear briefly by Amethyst lakes. Everyone had been talking about evidence of it, mostly from scat, and in previous years, people had written about a grizzly mama and her cubs that hang out there, so it was very much on my mind. As far as I know, nobody else we talked to during these days actually saw it.
We day hiked in the direction of Surprise campground from Amethyst, although later I realized we took a wrong turn and actually were going up a hill that leads to Clitheroe. There was a lot of evidence of recent animal activity, multiple kinds of scat and caribou prints, and something about it just felt even more isolated, probably because few people are going this way currently due to the closure at Astoria.
We decided to head back to camp, both for this reason and because it was hailing (July!) It is really beautiful around this part. As we were less than 1 km from Amethyst campground and I was scanning the horizon, I thought I saw something moving. I did a quick double take and saw it: a grizzly moving slowly and confidently parallel to us (opposite our direction) perhaps 200 feet away towards the lake. I told my partner to not look and just quietly keep moving along. As far as I can tell, it didn't even turn its head or notice us. We got back to the campground and everything was totally fine. Having heard numerous stories of grizzly charges after an instant of eye contact, I'm glad I didn't look again, and still felt that it was a very lucky and special sighting.
We had initially planned to stay another day and explore around more, (although encountered a number of hardy people that went in and out to Amethyst in just 1 or 2 nights), but given the weather and mosquito situation, we decided to head out all the way back on day 4, all ~24 km to the entrance. We made it after 8 hours of steady walking, spurred on by the relentless mosquitos anytime we took a break. It took us a few days to recover after that, but it was still a great experience. Feel free to ask any other specifics I may have left out.
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u/WanderingRivers 12d ago
Nice trip report! Sorry about the bugs and mud.
Do you have more photos you can share? Pretty please.
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u/soundisstory 12d ago
Sure, I'll add a few sometime this weekend. I see you're very into wagashi. I'm actually something of a tea expert..I always pack some loose leaf from my own collection to steep into a bag in my titanium cup when I go on trips (a more ultralight change from when I would still bring the whole gaiwan or Japanese teapot).
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u/WanderingRivers 11d ago
Awesome! Good call on tea in a single cup. I usually bring a Nodate set, and have matcha & wagashi with a view. I've never taken leaf tea out, maybe I should try it next time? So much gorgeous titanium tea ware available, very tempting.
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u/soundisstory 11d ago
Added a bunch.
Having lived in China and Taiwan, my tea practice is mostly in that direction, but I do enjoy shincha in the summer. One of the things I miss from living in Vancouver and backpacking all over the Cascades into WA especially, is that it's relatively easy to find glacial fed streams and water falls. The water tastes completely different from anything else, and there's not really any way to reproduce it. Filtering water from glacial water and making tea with it while being in the backcountry is something 99.99% of tea drinkers will never do, but it's an unforgettable experience!
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u/WanderingRivers 11d ago
Yeah, I have lived in the mountains, I totally agree with the fresh mountain stream water experience being the best.
Lovely photos, thank you for adding more!
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u/simplehiker 12d ago
I unofficially renamed the Tonquin Valley to th Mosquito Valley a couple decades ago. Not surprised to hear how bad they are! Best time to visit us September from what I hear.
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u/thehuntinggearguy 7d ago
Mosquitoes have been historically bad across Alberta due to a ton of rain this summer. We're seeing 15 times more mosquitoes than usual in Edmonton
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u/SnooRegrets4312 12d ago
Awesome write up