My new friend Hailey reached out to me last minute to see if I wanted to join her on a one night trip into the Fryatt valley. I didn’t know much about the trail but I’m a yes person so my answer was yes. We were new friends and I was stoked to hang out with her more. The trailhead starts 2km from Athabasca Falls in Jasper National Park. You have to drive up the very start of the Geraldine Lakes fire road. The road can be rough but the start is normally fine for a 2wd vehicle.
For the Parks Canada backcountry guide click the link below
The start of the trail from the parking lot to the first campground is quite boring and you are in the trees the majority of the time. We saw people mountain biking this first section and if I was to go back I would consider this as an open. Or alternatively raft or canoe across the river to cut off the first section. We saw a huge pile of fresh bear scat just as we started hiking which is always a great sign at the start of a trip.
After the first campground (Lower Fryatt) we crossed the river and started to gain elevation. The views started improving as we gained elevation. At the next river crossing, you start hiking in an open valley and the views are great from here onwards.
Not long after we reached our campsite for the night, Brussels which is 18km from the trailhead. We set up our camp for the night and secured everything sweaty away from the local porcupine that had been terrorising the campers all summer. Porcupines like to chew on sweaty items because of the salt so backpack straps, boots, walking pole handles are all hot commodities for the porcupine. We did see the porcupine in question and it was a lot smaller then we had imagined and we really cute with its big spiky butt.
As we were only staying one night we decided to continue hiking up to the ACCC hut that is on top of the headwall. First, we hiked up to Fryatt Lake which is the same colour as Lake Louise but without 1,000 tourists.
After the lake, we reached Headwall campground, which was really forested and kind of dark and probably filled with mozzies. We weren’t really sure where the ‘headwall’ was and on my map, it said we had under 1km until the hut. Then we realised that the waterfall that was above us is the headwall and we had to hike up next to it to get to the top of the waterfall which is where the hut is located. Even though it’s short in km’s it is steep!
Getting up to the top of the waterfalls we found the ‘fairy pools’ which are stunning and we found the ACCC hut. We decided to continue hiking past the hut to another lake that I could see on my map. The wildflowers up here were incredible, once reaching the lake we quickly turned around and headed back to camp.
On this trip I was extremely hungry, I had plenty of food and Hailey had extra food as well but all I was thinking about was cheese burgers and poutine, I don’t know what was wrong with me.
We got back to camp pretty late and pretty much just ate and went to sleep. It must have been almost a 30 km day in total.
We hiked out back to the trailhead the next day and just like that we had hiked over 44km in two days!
For any reservations in Jasper National Park head to the reservations system to check availability.
All information about the ACCC hut check out the website for booking information.