Stalking a Jökulhlaup, … walking the Elko Gorge … and trailing trout over the Rocky Mountains
The view looks east across the Elko Gorge toward golden larches on the flanks of Mount Broadwood.
The floodwaters that created the Elko Gorge flowed south toward today's Wigwam River valley, seen here in the distance.
The western rim of the Elko Gorge offers dramatic views. Here, a hiker looks "upstream" (north) along the jökulhlaup-carved gorge. A chain of lakes connects the floodwater-excavated landscape. The Elk River valley appears in the distance and, beyond it, the southern ramparts of the Lizard Range command the skyline.
Holy jumpin' catfish!
Is it true that Alberta's native trout swam over the Rocky Mountains
to arrive at our doorstep?
"Yes, Virginia, it's true."
Bull trout and pure-strain westslope cutthroat trout likely swam into Alberta 10,000 years ago thanks to a colossal ice dam near present-day Elko, BC. The "hard-water" dam created Glacial Lake Elk, a large body of water that, for some time, inundated the Elk Valley and drained into Alberta at Crowsnest Pass.
Trout living in Glacial Lake Elk were thereby given the opportunity to swim over the Rocky Mountains into Alberta.
Port of entry: Crowsnest Pass
Alberta's bull trout and pure-strain westslope cutthroat trout have a storied past. They came and, for 10,000 years, they prospered, but during the last century they've been reduced to a small fraction of their former abundance. This is a story—it's sad—that's still in transition. Expansive logging operations, a sprawling network of access roads and the resultant in-stream sedimentation appear to be the primary killers of Alberta's native trout.
Glacial Lake Elk, in addition to its outlet into Alberta, held water that was occasionally released via violent jökulhlaups (YO-kull-opes)—glacially-spawned floods—that tore across the land near Elko, BC. These massive flows of turbulent floodwater excavated the Elko Gorge, a 4.5 km-long trench cut through gorgeous—the pun proved irresistible—green-banded argillite, rock of profound beauty.
The "gorge'-us" Elko Gorge, beautiful, dramatic and stunning any time of year, is perhaps particularly breathtaking during late October. That's when the region's western larches, in poignant reflection of autumn's fleeting beauty, paint the landscape gold.
The accompanying images, taken on Oct. 20th of this year, reveal no trout, but think of trout in their over-the-Rockies swim as you look at the jökulhlaup-carved Elko Gorge.
Jökulhlaup: a glacial outburst flood. The term, Icelandic in origin, translates literally as "glacier run." (A jökulhlaup is never to be confused with a jackalope, a loping, long-eared mythical beast that, some say, is a cross between a pygmy deer—or antelope—and a killer jackrabbit.)
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