Berg Lake trail reservations and options
Berg Lake can be visited on a day hike, as a short backpacking trip, or as part of the
65+ mile-long Moose River Route. I've done it twice, once as a day hike and then more recently as a 2 night camping trip. The Berg Lake hiking season is limited by snow, and how early you can hike the trail will
depend on what sort of winter its been. Unless you're planning on trudging through snow, mid-June is probably the earliest plausible
date, though Snowbird Pass is closed for both May and June to protect wildlife. All things considered, July and August are probably
the best time of year for hiking the Berg Lake trail.
Berg Lake day hike: A day hike to Berg Lake is at least 24 miles roundtrip (if
you turn around at the shore of the lake), and more like 26 miles if you want to get the best views of the Berg glacier. It sounds
like a pretty hard core endeavour, but you don't have to hike the whole way! Mountain bikes are both allowed and very
useful on the first 4.4 miles of trail, up to about the Kinney Lake campground, which is generally wide and quite bikeable
(though there are some steep sections). 17 miles of hiking plus 9 miles of biking is eminently doable in the long summer days
this far north - it took us about 11 hours moving fairly briskly but also stopping often for photos! Mountain bikes can be rented
readily in Jasper (just to the east in Alberta), and you can save a few pounds of weight by filtering water which is in
munificent abundance along the trail.
2-3 night backpack: The advantage of backpacking - aside from any spiritual
joys of camping out in the wilderness - is that from a camp at Berg Lake you can hike on to further spectacular scenery beyond.
Aside from the Snowbird Pass route we tackled, there are shorter day hikes to Hargreaves Lake and glacier, to Toboggan Falls,
and into the Mumm Basin. There are almost 100 tent sites in the various campgrounds along the trail, which can be reserved
through the Discover Camping site. The campgrounds
tend to fill up on busy weekends, but at other times you can likely hike the trail on short notice. Be sure to take
good raingear, and a stove if you plan on cooking as camp fires are not allowed. Dogs are OK on day hikes, but not on
overnight trips.
Moose River Route: Mount Robson park has other backpacking routes, including,
for serious hikers only, the 65+ miles of the Moose River Route, which passes Berg Lake and includes sections in Jasper National
Park in Alberta. I've not done this, but the Patton / Robinson guide
has more details if you're interested.
Bears: Robson and the Berg Lake trail are grizzly country, and a sign in 2011
noted that grizzly bears had been sighted traversing the trail corridor. My unscientific guess is that bears are thicker on the
ground elsewhere (in parts of Jasper, for example, or in
Kluane), but some care is warranted: all the campsites have
bear-proof food lockers (no canisters or tree-hanging gymnastics needed), and we made plenty of noise and carried bear spray while on trail.
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