GDT 3.5: Theory vs Practice

Field to Saskatchewan Crossing Resort

The blog is officially a section behind now. Oh well! I haven't had enough energy to write in camp every night, and there are too many chores in town. You'll have to wait a bit for my updates from this point on - we've got eight days to reach my van, and then we have to drive home. Here we go.

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Field was not quite the disappointment of Boulton Creek Camp, but very quickly we came to understand that it was not the town stop we'd dreamed of. A small place in regular times, Field's services were now reduced to a single edifice - namely the hotel in which we sat. And there was no breakfast to be had anywhere.

Around nine o'clock, we trooped off to the Trading Post Gas Station for muffins and coffee, but discovered that the posted hours were subject to the whim of its surly operator. So, doubling back, we paid a visit to the post office and had our spirits restored by the cheery French clerk, who was quite delighted and bit astonished to see thru-hikers coming by so early in the season. Patrick (pronounce this in a continental way, pah-TRIQ, to get the full effect of his humour) was a friendly laughing man with a quintessentially Gallic face, and I got the impression that he was an accidental transplant who had come to climb some peak or other and found himself stuck.

The whole of Field gave that impression, in fact - it was pleasant, sleepy, and extremely small, and all the residents had the air of Europeans on extended holiday. During normal times, it might have been a lovely little Brigadoon. But though the pandemic could not defeat the genial atmosphere, it had succeeded in shutting down all but the least commerce. I was thoroughly grateful to have sent a resupply box.

King of the Hill was on television - my favourite comfort show, which I will watch and re-watch in the same way as some people return to Seinfeld or The Office - and the confinement to our hotel room allowed me to post updates and make repairs on my pack and shoes. We had fortunately sent ourselves some extra cookies and town snacks in the box previously destined for Peter Lougheed, but by ten forty-five we were extremely hungry and set out for the Trading Post once more. Theoretically, we should have been able to order room service around ten, but there was no sign of any hotel staff and the laundry room door remained closed. The bistro at Truffle Pigs Lodge was mainly expensive dinner food anyhow, and our desire for a $7 plate of eggs and bacon went unfulfilled. The coffee machine in our room was either uncooperative or out-and-out broken.

The Trading Post's selection was grim, but we managed to find ourselves some coffee and pastries, and I scavenged up a replacement for my broken headphones. They were tinny and awful, but they'd do the trick in a pinch. We stuffed another bag with chips and soda for lunch, and I grabbed a pair of allegedly waterproof gloves to replace my soakable woolly ones. Then it was back to the hotel's front lawn, where we ate ice cream and enjoyed the warm weather. My hair was all in tangles after ten days without a wash, and neither the Trading Post nor the hotel had conditioner in supply, so I spent a good deal of time attempting to break up the thick matted clumps that swung against my neck, with little success.

The next day was a rush out the door as always. The voicemail I so dreaded was from the Jasper National Park service, informing us that a bridge was out and we should call them back to arrange a different campsite on the re-routed trail. I called a few different numbers but never got through, and we had to get going. We'd figure it out. Stopping by the post office again to send home my Whippet and some extra food, Patrick was impressed that we planned to hike despite the rain. It was a clear, cloudless day, and I didn't know what he was talking about.

"Yes, it will rain tonight and the next two days! You are very strong hikers to be going out."

"Well, that's thru-hiking. We'll just be wet, I suppose. We'll be over Amiskwi Pass by the end of today, maybe it will stay to this side of the valley."

The older mountaineer looked skeptical, but didn't warn us off as I said goodbye.

We trotted off down the highway in the direction of trail, and the day was sunny and fine. After we reached the tour bus lot at Amiskwi Trailhead, our trail became a retired forest service road, and we were optimistic that we would make good time and maybe even do some miles beyond our planned camp spot. Random camping was allowed in this section of the park, so we could do whatever miles we chose, and it seemed possible that we could get in a 30 and reduce the next couple of days to twenties or below before we were required to stay at our designated permit sites.

The road soon turned into a tangled mess of blowdown, however. We cursed good-naturedly as we climbed and crawled and crept around trees, our pace falling to two miles per hour. Every so often we would spot a trail sign and start to hope that it would be maintained, but as the road ascended gently to Amiskwi Pass, the conditions only got worse. It began to spit down rain, and then it poured, and the dripping branches soaked us further as we pushed through dense undergrowth. We had ascended to a sub-alpine spruce forest zone, so the blowdowns became few and then non-existent, only to be replaced by completely brush-choked trail.

"Well, at least we got through the bad blowdown before it rained," I observed to Constantine.

"Yeah, that would be so much worse. The trail should get better near the pass, I think. There's a lodge not far from there."

"And once we're over the pass, there's a good gravel road."

The undergrowth increased, and the trail beneath our feet was turned to a stream. I was relieved to have sent my Whippet home. Even with an unencumbered pack, I was feeling claustrophobic and almost panicky when we reached the first ford of Amiskwi River. It was perilously deep and strong, and the water was ice-cold. I always seem to forget to eat leaving town, and the shock of the cold water combined with the hunger and the fear of being swept under made me hyperventilate in a childish way. It was too cold to stop and eat, though - I could see Constantine beginning to stumble and shake through the freezing rain, and I was getting chilled too.

I don't exactly recall who brought up stopping early, but we were both soaked to the bone and exhausted when we settled on a plan to make camp after the second river ford. We were four miles short of our goal - a respectable 22 mile day.

"We'll make it up tomorrow. It's only five miles of this to the road, and then we can cruise for thirteen more. It should be pretty easy."

"In theory."

It did not stop raining all night long, and we waited in the tent the next morning until eight, when there was a brief break in the weather that allowed us to pack up. It was intensely cold and wet. Our breath steamed all around us, not because it was below zero but because the moisture simply had no where to go - the air was fully saturated, and the freezing rain was not so much falling on us as condensing into our clothes. Within minutes of hiking, we were completely drenched. The bad trail was fully overgrown, and the vegetation dumped even more cold water and sleet on us as we fought towards our final ford.

An unmarked tributary presented another obstacle. It was a deep, narrow channel, maybe eight feet across, and the water was further accelerated by a gravel bar mid-stream. We scouted up and down the creek bed, but the trail crossing looked like the safest place to try, so we had no choice. Constantine went first and I lingered anxiously on the bank, ready to reach out with my trekking pole and haul him back to safety if he fell. It was a near thing. The torrent of water nearly swept him off his feet, but he staggered up the gravel bar and looked back at me with an expression of deep concern.

"It's fast!" He yelled over the roar of the stream. "Be careful!"

I took a first timid step in and the rushing water crested my knees. Planting my trekking pole, I braced and struggled on for second step. The water rose past my waist and I pushed hard to keep my footing. It was incredibly strong at the bottom, and I felt rocks shifting beneath my feet. Trying for a third, a large round rock rolled under me and in an instant I was down. The world blurred. I was face-first in the water, being dragged along the bottom as I fought to gain my feet. The current held me down for a fearful second, then slammed me hard into the side of the gravel bar as I gasped above the waterline and drew a breath that was half-liquid. Coughing and spluttering, I reached desperately for Constantine's outstretched trekking pole and managed to swing myself farther onto the gravel and onto hands and knees. "I'm good, I'm good!" I cried, as he rushed over and pulled me to my feet. "Holy shit." I darted across the shallower side of the stream to the opposite bank and threw my pack down, shaking. I was flushed with adrenaline, and my body felt hot beneath my soaking, freezing clothes. "Are you okay?" Constantine asked, "What can I do to help? I wish I could give you something dry but all my stuff is wet too."

"I'm okay, I'm okay. Just let me sit for a second and recover. Hoo." I forced my breath to slow, trying to stop hyperventilating. The side of my body that had hit the gravel bar was extremely sore and bruised, but I flexed each joint in turn and found that they all worked. My left elbow was painful to move, but I could turn my wrist and rotate the shoulder, so I figured there was nothing broken. "That was cold. I'm glad you were there to rescue me."

"You're tough. If that happened to me I would need to set up the tent immediately."

"I'm freezing. Let's get over the pass and hope it's better on the other side."

My pack had been fully submerged along with me and now everything was soaked and heavy. There was no point putting on another layer to get warm - my puffy, when I pulled it out, was dripping and useless. Our only option was to move, but the thick vegetation prevented us from moving quickly, and we were both very, very cold. My inundated gloves were frigid when I put them on, but the creek bottom had cut a circular chunk out of the knuckle of my thumb and I was dimly concious that I didn't want it to get infected.

Our third official ford was the most intimidating of all. It took us nearly an hour to reach it through the thorny brush, and when we did, we saw that the Amiskwi River was just as much of a torrent as the tributary stream. Wide, deep, and fast, and so opaque with silt that we couldn't see the bottom. "Fuck, I'm scared." I said to Constantine.

"Yeah," he said.

We scouted up and down the bank, but it all looked bad. After a discussion, we decided on the least-risky crossing and I took out my rope and prepared. The river was so wide that we would not be able to rescue each other in the middle of the current unless we were tied in, so I looped the rope around Constantine's wrist and held it in a fireman's belay as he pushed through the tumbling water. After a short struggle, he reached the opposite bank and gave me a thumbs up. My turn. I inhaled deeply and stepped in, clutching the rope knot against my palm in fear. It was swifter but less turbulent than the narrow tributary, and after a harrowing moment where the water rose to my chest and I stumbled, I was across and safe.

Panic struck. The submersion in fast icy water had shocked me into another adrenaline spike, and I scrambled up to a convenient rock and sobbed tearlessly. "What's wrong? What's wrong? Are you okay?!" Constantine rushed over to me.

"Ye-heh-es," I gasped out between sobs. "I just! Body freaked out - reminded of the - fall in the trib - utary." I took another deep shaking breath and reassured myself that I was safe. This phase of adrenaline had me feeling cold and exhausted, and my skin crawled with shivers. "Two miles - to the pass. Maybe - the weather - will lift."

It did not look likely. Amiskwi Pass was not much of a pass at all, entirely below treeline, and the clouds hung thick and heavy as far as we could see. It was sleeting down hard, and we were still getting thrashed by the wet bushes. We stumbled up the flooded trail and at last reached a passable bit of single-track near the crest of the saddle. Naturally, it soon disappeared under snow, and I stayed in the lead so Constantine could follow in my tracks. He was looking frozen and confused, and every time I glanced back he was further behind.

"You okay, baby?" I called.

"Cold. Gotta keep moving."

"One mile to the road!" It was time for me to put on my cheerful act again, and the effort of keeping him going warmed me a bit. I high-stepped us quickly over the last ascent and down to the road.

"You need to get warm immediately," I told him when we reached the dead-end of the road. "Let's find a flat spot and set up the tent, and get you out of those wet clothes." I also needed to get warm immediately, but he was in no shape to worry about me just then, so I held my shivering voice under control. He didn't respond, only stared down at his hands as if he was uncertain about what they were for.

"Sweetheart? We need to set up the tent. Can you make it to a flat spot? I need your input here."

"But the lodge..."

There was a heli-accessed fishing lodge a mile up on a gravel ATV road, but a quick glance at the wet brushy track told me we wouldn't get there; and anyway, I vaguely recalled reading that it was closed.

"It's closed for the pandemic. And it's steeply uphill. Come on, let's get down the road a little and warm you up."

He grunted his assent and in a moment began shuffling after me as I took quick scouting strides downhill. I was caught between wanting to wait and make sure he was okay and the necessity that I keep going fast to stay warm. I was shaking so hard that I could barely keep myself upright, and massive hypothermic yawns told me I was in trouble. Sleepiness was turning my limbs to lead, and I was only moving forward by momentum and force of will.

I sighted a flat clearing in the road where piles of timber had once been stacked and paced in circles around the spot while Constantine caught up. He was truly in danger. He had stopped shaking completely and was dragging his trekking poles on the ground behind him as he walked, barely able to lift his feet clear of the ground. I had to repeat my questions two or three times before he would respond, and when I pointed out the flat spot where I had dropped my pack, he just stared at me confused until I took him by the elbow and guided him over. I touched his face with a bare hand - he was clammy and pale, and his skin was deathly cold. "Come on!" I said, forcing a false note of cheer through gritted teeth. "Get the tent out and I'll set it up. Take off your jacket and put on your puffy."

He couldn't use his hands to get the pack open, so I sat him on a rock and took out the tent myself. He followed me around like a duckling as I busied myself with the poles and the tent body, mumbling offers of help but mainly getting in the way. "Get in the tent baby! I've got it, I'm just making sure the fly's secure." I shepherded him into the tent bodily and chucked his gear in on top of him, then finished securing the fly with trembling hands. I knew we would not be getting out of the tent for a long while once we were in it and the sleet was blowing hard, so I took my time to make sure that the fly stakes would not pull out and drench us further. This task done, I ducked beneath the vestibule and started pulling wet gear out of my pack until I found the waterproof bag containing the mattress and sleeping bag. It was damp inside - the humidity had made everything chilly and wet, but the down still had some loft and I spread the mattress uninflated on the floor to give us a dry surface. Constantine was still fumbling off his shoes, but at least he had his puffy on. Stripping out of my rain jacket and sodden thermal was the hardest thing I've ever done, but I put on my less-damp synthetic pullover and wet puffy,and pulled Constantine close to me under my open sleeping bag. Guiding his legs inside by the ankle, I put my cold feet in after his and got fully on top of him, tucking the ends of my sleeping bag under his shoulders and pulling the hood over our heads. We laid like this for two hours as the sleet and hail pounded down on the tent in a roar, and I held him close as he shook uncontrollably. "Shh, it's okay, I've got you. We're going to get warm." After we had both dried a bit, I reached over our heads and unstuffed his still-dry sleeping bag, draping the second layer loosely over the first one. I was shivering at the same rate he was by now, an excruciating bone-rattling shake. Once we could feel the heat in our chests, I untangled myself from his feet and legs and blew a few breaths into the mattress to get more comfortable. Another hour passed in the re-arranged nest of sleeping bags, and he gradually recovered the ability to speak and think.

"We should do more miles if the rain stops."

"Yeah... the rain's not gonna stop, sweetheart."

"We can't go out in this." He stuck his head out the tent door to look and a blast of frigid air blew in from under the fly.

"Ah! No, we can't."

"So we stay here."

"Yes. We only did five miles today, so we're off permit, but what else can we do? We'll explain it if we meet a ranger, they'll understand it was a safety issue."

Eventually, my puffy dried enough that it was insulating again, and I tucked my feet into their own seperate chamber of warmth so we could spoon with the sleeping bags open on top of us. It was just past one o'clock and the skies showed no sign of mercy, so I opened my phone to the file of public domain books I had saved and began to read aloud. I chose a collection of Hercule Poirot stories, and put on the silliest accents I could muster. My shrillest Lady Inglethorpe was no match for Constantine's sleepiness however, and he began to drift into a nap as I got to the murder in The Mysterious Affair at Styles. I would pause when his breathing took the rhythm of sleep, but he would assure me he was listening and beg me to continue, saying my voice was soothing. He was warm enough now that I judged him to be in no danger if he fell asleep, so I kept on reading more quietly, switching to Wuthering Heights when my voice tired of squeaking out Poirot. I enjoyed the texture of Joseph's gutteral Scottish growl on my tongue, and the melancholy gothic seemed appropriate to our situation. The last time I had been this badly hypothermic, I had been in the Sierra on the PCT and reading Jane Eyre.

Constantine began to snore solidly, and I kept on reading silently to myself. Just as Heathcliff was storming out after Catherine's hearthside confession, my own wave of sleepiness overcame me and I curled deep into the sleeping bag to join Constantine's nap. We woke up again around six and cooked dinner - Constantine was out of fuel and hadn't been able to find any in Field, so we were boiling water in my pot and splitting it into our seperate meals. "Aw fuck, the reservation in Jasper's for the sixth. Do you have service?" I did not. "Shit. That's like two hundred bucks."

The rain was still thundering down the next morning, so we checked the weather on the InReach. 100% chance of sleet for the next few hours, and it was -2°c currently, with a windchill of -4°c. But around noon or one o'clock, the precipitation was forecasted as "light rain" and the temperature would rise above freezing, giving us a chance to hike out and drop some altitude. After a full twenty-four hours in the tent, we finally emerged. It was still horrible outside, but at least it felt survivable. We had set a new destination for the section - Saskatchewan Crossing, forty miles away. I couldn't remember whether it was open or not, but it would at least have payphones so we could re-book the hotel for a realistic date. If we were lucky, we could partially resupply from the camp store and have enough food to get to Jasper.

Sometime during the night, my body finally remembered its monthly appointment and the tent smelled of old blood and despair. Three weeks of extreme weight loss had made my period so late that I wasn't prepared, and my hands were as cold as a male gynecologist's, so I hiked on in my rain pants and thermal leggings. The chafe was terrible. A menstrual headache was pounding in my temples, adding a descant to a symphony of hurt. My entire left side was battered purple by the river fall, and the elbow was still weak. The circular gouge on my thumb made it impossible to use my right hand for anything nimble. My knees and thighs were mottled with blowdown bruises, my twice-bashed shin ached badly, and worst of all was the back of my left hip. The loose-hipbelt chafing on our Highway One sprint had proved to be more than just a skin wound; when we got to Field, I discovered that the pressure and impact of running on pavement had created a large, swollen bone bruise, and the iliac crest near my spine was reddish purple and protruded several centimetres. There was no comfortable configuration for my pack, so I cinched the hipbelt as tight as I could so I wouldn't be surprised by jolts of pain when the weight shifted. Everything hurt, and I was miserable. I hiked on.

Some kind of heavy logging vehicle on treads had churned the road into a soup of blonde mud. Within minutes, my threadbare shoes were utterly destroyed and the cold wet gravel surged in. Pebbles and rock shards pressed painfully into pressure points on my soles, but the wind and rain were too bitter to stop, so I just kept walking. We walked and we walked, grimacing and silent and grim, and the grey mists of cloud started to lift and take on individual forms. An encouraging sign, seeing them up in the sky where they belonged, and the rain was lessening. The guidebook called for another long bushwhack after this section of road, but recent comments on our maps said that the Dave Thompson Trail had been restored, giving us yet more reason for hope. We only had to do another ford, and then we'd be in National Park lands where the trail was better - at least in theory.

We couldn't stop to eat if we wanted to make it to Saskatchewan Crossing the next day, and pain was making me nauseous anyhow. Nothing felt right - my rain jacket rode up, my rain pants and leggings rode down. I was wearing a pair of hiking underwear that I'd owned since the CDT and the elastic was letting go, inveigling itself into all kinds of unfortunate places. My shoes were more or less sandals at this point, and my feet were stinging with cold. My thumb wound had opened up, refusing to scab over while soaked, and my nose had decided to join the party too, adding a coppery tang to my overall stench of ketogenic sweat. So I was uncomfortable and hungry and cranky and bleeding from multiple places when we finally reached the ford, and I couldn't use my hands at all.

It was deep and swift and dauntingly wide. Cairns marked the spot where a log bridge had once been, but this was either washed away or submerged. Floodwater was raging all around, but we managed to find a braided spot that was only ankle deep and crossed to a mid-stream gravel bar. My heart fluttered in my chest at the channel before us. It was ten feet across, opaque with silt and mud, and rushed downstream to a small standing wave. A young pine was tilted down into the water where the riverbank had washed away, and we had only to take two steps across the shallower part of the torrent and shimmy ourselves up the log. It was rooted in the bank firmly, and had few branches left to get in our way. It would work. It had to work. It was the only thing standing between us and civilization.

Constantine went first and I stood by to rescue him, but all went well. "It's stable!" He shouted over the roar of the creek. At least I think that's what he said - I could barely hear him at all. Shaking, I took a deep breath and steeled myself, overwhelmed with the memory of submersion. It would be so much worse to slip here and be dashed against the rocks in this powerful flow. Frightful images; I could easily drown. Focus. Concentrate. I stepped boldly into the stream and with two difficult, powerful strides I was leaning up against the log. Tricky, carefully now. The water was intense, it wanted to drag me under, but I used the current to my advantage and flung one leg over the tree. My saggy rainpants were catching on the bark and impeding my thighs, but I was safe now so long as my grip held. Awkwardly, I frog-paddled up and then slid chest-forward across the log, as if riding a trotting horse. Hop, grip, hop, grip, hop, hop, hop. The muddy, washed-out riverbank was studded with live roots, and I used these natural ropes to haul myself over the other side and out of the water. It was so deep that my feet couldn't even sense the bottom, but adrenaline made me strong and I pulled my full bodyweight out with my single good arm.

Panic struck again. I wasn't over the last fall, not nearly, and while I knew I was safe and okay on the far bank, the sensation of bottomless fast water set off a limbic alarm. The shakes again, the hyperventilating, the dizziness of a racing heart - it was honestly getting annoying. "Shut up body, we're fine," I snarled. "Drama queen." I ate a bar. I couldn't tell if it helped.

At least the rain had mostly stopped. At least there was good trail. At least we were both alive and relatively warm. The restoration work on the Dave Thompson Trail was beautifully done, and I tried to feel gratitude. I just felt tired. There was an enormous profusion of animal tracks in the muddy trail, lynx, deer, wolf, fox, moose, and most notably a lot of black bear. The bears lived around here, it was good habitat for sure. We were making decent time now and it was just past seven o' clock. Shy patches of blue sky began to poke out from behind the whitish clouds, and we actually jumped when we saw our shadows. It had been overcast or raining for almost the entire trail, and we weren't used to seeing them anymore. Constantine was revved, ready to fly now that he could charge up on sunshine, but I was exhausted and lagged behind. "Babe," I called to his back, and he turned around. "I think we should make camp at Lambe Creek. I'm sorry, I know that's only an eighteen mile day but I just can't go anymore."

"It's okay!" He said cheerfully. "I didn't think we'd even get out of the tent today, any miles beyond the road are bonus. You good for three miles to camp?" I was, so he set off.

But he didn't get far. The trail took us up a short rocky rise to a boulder field, and I found him there staring up at a pair of giant black bears on the slope. They were ambling around near a gnarled oak tree and not paying us any mind, so we watched them for a minute until one of the bears began to head downslope and away from us, but towards our trail. Time to go. A minute later, we walked past the large rectangular opening of a cave set in the hillside. The bear's den! We had caught them on the commute home. There was no sign of the bears yet though, so we pushed on quickly and got some distance.

"Those were some chonky black bears."

"Big ol' chonky boys. Do you think I should give one a hug?"

"Ummm, no. They were busy, hug the next one."

Close to the camp, I looked out across the river we were following and saw a metal and wood bridge stranded out in the middle of the stream. Oh no. Lambe Creek was a raging glacial outflow, and the bridge had only recently been replaced. The guidebook hadn't been updated since the trail was maintained and described the Lambe Creek ford with an uncharacteristic editorial. "Between the waterfalls, there's not much room to look for a ford. It all just looks bad, and it is bad. Be careful." I hoped with everything I had that this was the old Lambe Creek bridge that had washed out years ago, but still my heart sank. If it was bad in normal years, it would be impassible now.

But it was the old bridge! The thundering waterfall was crossed by a sturdy pair of logs with a handrail, so fresh-cut that the ends were beading sap. I usually hate log crossings, and reliably inform Constantine of this whenever we get to one, but I was so happy to see the bridge that I positively skipped across. He was just across the water in the trail crew's old camp, which had a couple of log benches and tables. We ate and retreated to the tent from the mosquitoes, and my energy promptly fell off a cliff. "I want to go home," I said. "I don't want to hike any more. I mean, we have to. But I don't want to. I want to go home."

"How seriously do you mean that?"

I considered. I have never seriously contemplated quitting a trail before, but on this night I was right at my limit and felt incapable of going on. I had never had such a collection of small injuries in such a short time, had never lost weight so rapidly, had never felt hypothermia so often. In addition to everything else, my ankle strain was flaring up - the supportive KT tape I'd bound it with had disintegrated in the wet conditions. But my beloved van was parked at Kakwa Trailhead, and I couldn't just leave her there. And was I really so weak-willed that I couldn't finish?

"Right now, if I could snap my fingers and be sitting on the couch at home, I would do it. But I don't want to quit at The Crossing, and I don't want to quit in Jasper. I don't want to quit. I just want to be at home."

"Ohhh, my poor cutie," Constantine said sympathetically, and gathered me up with a kiss on the forehead. "I don't want to hike tomorrow either."

"But we have to."

"We have to. Only twenty-two miles though, and it's flat, and it might be sunny."

"But I don't wanna go to school tomorrow!"

"Mo-om, I don't wanna!" And we indulged ourselves in a silly, cathartic whine as we fell asleep.

I woke up still aching to go home. The sky promised a beautiful sunny day and the trail was for the most part cruisey and maintained, but I just felt so incredibly done with it all. "I feel like I've been on trail for months," I told Constantine. "This trail isn't like a short CDT, it's a compressed CDT. What you get in a week out there, you do in a single day on the GDT."

"Yeah, it's like that. Wanna know something crazy? We only have ten hiking days left."

"Thank god. I feel like... I feel like I've got all the exhaustion of three months on trail, but none of the peace you get from being out that long. You know what I mean?"

"Yeah. If this was a long trail, we'd be like, wow ten days left? That's so short! But out here it feels like forever."

"At least we have some sun."

We followed our beautiful packed dirt trail over Howse Pass, which was not really a pass at all but a small rise to a clearing of trees, and were elated when we came to a historical information sign. "A sign! A sign! We're in a National Park now, people came here!" Dave Thompson had found this route while surveying for the Hudson's Bay Company in 1807 - with a lot of Native help, obviously, as a more recently installed addendum made clear. This land was the home of the Ktunaxa and they had known about the low pass through the Rockies for centuries, if not millenia. Still, it was named for a white "explorer" who had drawn the first trade maps of the area. As we followed our increasingly sketchy trail through a bog, I went on to Constantine about the history of Canadian colonialism, which somehow turned into a discussion of which Disney movies are racist. "We should watch Moana when we get to town. That's supposed to be a good one. And Dwayne The Rock Johnson is in it!"

We both love Dwayne The Rock Johnson. We dropped through a thick stand of spruce and walked along a creek for a few miles, crossing back and forth to avoid the dense grabby willows. As we came out of the forest, the view opened out to a broad glacial floodplain. Now *this was the Rockies! The valley was lined by a range of pyramidal peaks, stately in their eroded glory. A wide, lazy outflow meandered across the valley floor, here a pure glacial teal, there a silted milk-white. Grey puffs of cotton rainclouds drifted in the breeze and cooled the air with moisture, but the buttery sun shone down on our heads and we walked comfortably in light thermals. Simply put, it was perfection.

"Still wanna go home?" Constantine asked at our lunch break.

"Hell no! This is amazing. And the next two sections are just like this, mostly. Good trail, beautiful views, only one pass per day. I'm looking forward to Jasper, though." Jasper was turning out to be our only real town on this trail, at least our first town since Coleman. Three weeks without a good zero, no wonder I felt tired.

After ten miles of gorgeous cross-country, we picked up the trail again and hiked towards Highway 93. The GDT parallels this highway through all of the National Parks, and we had to roadwalk a bit to get to The Crossing. It was only a half-mile off trail, and we were sure we'd arrive well before it closed, if it was indeed open through the pandemic. I was hungry again and getting cranky, but I didn't want to stop for a break so close to town. My mood dipped and then completely bottomed out. "I hate this! Why do we have to go up? The topo looked flat!" Horseflies had gotten our scent and now we were pursued by a dozen or so each, flailing and slapping and shaking our trekking poles at our backs in the manner of flagellating monks. Having a snack now was out of the question - we'd be eaten alive. I felt my fatalistic exhaustion return. We were never going to get to town.

We crossed an invisible boundary and the rough trail turned to a wide tourist pathway. We were just a mile to the highway now, and began to encounter day-trippers with coffees and fresh laundry smells. They annoyed me, with their lack of trail etiquette and their judgmental stares. I was sunburnt and dirty and scratched, and I knew I smelled, but I couldn't summon magnanimity. I was so damn hungry, I fantasized about ripping the snacks right out of their clean indoorsy hands. I'm sure they could see the animal in my eyes, and flinched away from it, which only increased my growl. At last, we reached the highway and I scarfed down dried fruit without even tasting it. Three miles now, and we'd get to the resort around four pm. Bizzarely, there was a sign for Howse Pass at this trailhead, which made us snort with cynical laughter. There was absolutely no way that any of these tourists would ever see Howse Pass!

A roadwalk is a roadwalk. I scarcely even remember this now, but I do remember our joy upon seeing The Crossing Resort open for business. They had a payphone, they had some semblance of town food, they had benches. I expected to stay an hour and get gone, but Constantine had trouble trying to re-book the hotel in Jasper and at five-thirty it began to pour. "Damn, we have to hike out in this?" The wind was cold, and if we left we'd be bushwhacking again into altitude. And worse, all our stuff was still wet. Maybe it would blow over?

It didn't. At seven pm we were still sitting on a bench outside the general store, and Constantine went to get the weather forecast from the hotel staff. It was bad - this second blast of sleet and hail would last all night and into the next day, possibly even until the morning after. "She said the weather was really weird, this is the first sunny day they've had in weeks. But in two days, it'll be clear. And they have a deal on a hotel room..." He was giving me the puppy-dog eyes.

"You wanna stay, don't you?" I said. I hate spending money on anything unecessary, and taking another short day itched when we were behind schedule. But it was so, so cold already, and we were so wet and I was so sore. Maybe I could convince myself that this was necessary after all. "Well... I guess it's a safety issue. And we can dry all our stuff out and try to re-book the hotel again tomorrow. Maybe we can plead our case and get on the employee wifi."

And you know the rest by now - though I made up my mind to get up early and hike out the next day, we woke to more of the same horrible weather and couldn't find the grit to do it. So we stayed, and we zeroed, and we ate overpriced food from the resort cafe, and then two days behind schedule, we hiked out. And four days later we got to Jasper - but that's another story.