It will take us a day and a half to hike into base camp, on a subalpine meadow at Kakwa Lake’s south end. We’ll pitch tents en route at Mount Wishaw before continuing our trek up through McGregor Pass and over the Continental Divide. Once in the mountain-ringed camp, we’ll have three days to explore the alpine meadows, to hike to beautiful Babette and La Glace alpine lakes, and to spot wildlife, everything from marmots and marten to elk, mountain goats, and grizzlies.

Mary Jobe, one of the earliest non-natives to explore this area, wrote about her 1914 expedition to the peak for the Canadian Alpine Journal and American Geographical Society . . . Jobe, with companion Margaret Springate and guides Donald Phillips and Bert Wilkins, failed to reach the summit on this occasion. Undeterred, she and Phillips returned in 1917 for a two-month winter exploration of the Porcupine River area, or “Kakwa” as the Cree called it.

Native to the Andean countries of South America, llamas have been used for thousands of years as pack animals and their use for backpacking in North America is on the rise. Atypical 135-kilo llama can lessen the hiker’s load dramatically by carrying up to a third of its body weight.

I awake the next morning to the alarming sound of chewing outside my tent . . . a bear? I burst out to discover Six-Pack grazing contentedly at my doorstep. He offers a friendly sniff. Intelligent, protective, territorial, our llamas are always nearby.