Kluane National Reserve - King's Throne Walk

[Veloepic]

Here is a walk report from Canada (which I had promissed to do after posting walk reports in the Highlands during our vacation last year...).

I am currently on vacation in the Yukon Territory, in the north-western part of Canada. This area is what we call "Larger Than Life" Wilderness. To give an idea, Yukon is 482 443 km² (roughly twice the size of all UK) and is home to less than 35 thousand people. It is also home of the Kluane National Park and Reserve (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kluane_National_Park_and_Reserve), one of the largest UNESCO World Heritage Natural sites in the world. It's main inhabitants are Grizzly bears, Dall sheep and Bull Moose. No humans actually live within the park limits. And this is where we were up walking two days ago, on July 29 2014

The route is called King's Throne and is comprised of two sections: The first part brings you up half-way, to what is called King's Seat. The second part is a super-steep climb up rock scrambles to the top ridge of the mountain.

The first two kilometers are quite mellow, as the trail follows Katleen Lake. Then it abruptly starts climbing... We began our walk early to avoid the forecasted afternoon rain.


The morning fog is still quite present, which makes for a "spooky" climb...


Four young climbers are ahead of us...


Made it to the ridge... Temperature is just below freezing and patches of snow are still resisting the summer sun...




We waited at the top for approx 30-40 minutes hoping for the clounds to move away and allow us the grandiose view of the mountains and glaciers of Kluane...


As we started our descent, the lower clouds had moved up and away, giving us beautiful views of Katleen Lake below us...






The return trip is just under 15km. With the first 2km being almost flat, and the top ridge more mellow, most of the 1407 meters in elevation is gained over less than 4 kilometers. This means an average 35% grade!!


Hope you enjoy this report and pictures... And if any of you intend to visit Canada one day, this is definetly a place to visit and walk.

Cheers!

Dan

[litljortindan]

Thanks for posting. Always interesting to see another part of the world, especially a an impressive area like this. Doubt I'll ever go there but you never know...