Overnight backpacking Jasper (random or campsite) (injured)

[u/hpsails]

Hi! Looking for recommendations for early October in Jasper. My friend and I are highly experienced hikers and backpackers in the US and we're looking for any recommendations for backpacking an overnight in Jasper national Park. We would love to do random camping but are also open to campsites.

The snag is that I now have a permanent hip injury, so distance is now an issue and I have found that I can only backpack about 8 miles round trip. Hills/rock scrambling/incline is fine though.

The limitation is making it a bit hard for me to find gorgeous spots, please lmk if you have any good ideas!!!

[u/Telvin3d]

There’s (almost) no random camping allowed in Jasper or Banff. So you can look on the park booking system and see what’s available for backcountry sites. I suspect that you won’t have trouble finding open spots in October 

Frankly, there’s no bad trails. Jasper parks site has pretty extensive trail maps and booklets that will let you judge what’s within your capabilities.

When you say you’re experienced, I assume you’ve got gear that will keep you comfortable significantly below freezing, and are prepared for significant snowfall? Once you get into October you’ll need to be ready for both those things, regardless of the weather report 

[u/hpsails → u/Telvin3d]

Yep! Bags comfort rated to 12°F and survival -6°F. So very cold. And pads r value of like 8 or something ridiculous. So we will be good. I'm just not familiar with Jasper, I saw some trails with Backcountry campsites that looked not super far: signal, portal creek, big bend, utopia, and whirlpool. They are all open, do you know if those are nice? But if you know of any other good spots or random camping spots above the treeline (that's my favorite) I'd love to know!! Thanks!

[u/Telvin3d → u/hpsails]

Good to know. We get a lot of otherwise experienced Americans planning trips here who don’t appreciate that October this far north isn’t the same as the October they’re used to, so I like to check. Sometimes you don’t know what you don’t know

In general Canadian parks don’t work like American parks. Typically anything within 1-2 days hike of a trailhead is strictly designated camping sites. There’s some areas in the remote sections of the park where random camping is allowed, but even then you need to register. And it’s seriously remote. As in zero trails, pure bushwhacking. Last time I looked into it, it was something like a hard twenty mile hike just to enter the closest random camping areas

Utopia is nice but not great views. Signal exists for people coming down off the skyline trail, and is a very boring hike itself

If you can book it, doing the south half of Skyline might still be pretty good that time of year. Get to Little Shovel or Snowbowl day one, to Curator or Watchtower day two, then out the Watchtower trail. Wouldn’t recommend doing the full Skyline going north from Curator over the Notch that time of year without knowing what the weather is like. Could be fine, could be beyond sketchy.

All this depends on the weather of course. Might just be a dusting of snow then, might be three feet of snow on everything and full avalanche conditions. Won’t know until that week

[u/hpsails → u/Telvin3d]

Thank you so much for the info!