We packed up camp by 8am to start our hike Sleep was alright and we found the sound of commercial jets flying overhead to be somewhat comforting knowing there were people “nearby”.
There was a slight climb out of Beatty before beginning a descent on a rocky avalanche slope onto scree. The screen slope kept going for what ended up taking us about 45 mins to 1 hour, taking a big bite of our time. My knee felt better on this descent compared to the day before. I did take a tumble on the scree, but only landed on my backside, which is better than tumbling down the slope.
There were many ups and downs heading into Palliser Pass. I needed to stop every few feet. My left shoulder was hurting under my pack strap and I was exhausted from the ascent. There may have been tears, mostly trigged by the pain from the pack needing to be adjusted. We had to push through so much overgrown plants that our pants, shoes, and socks were soaked. Even though we had wet feet, we still made the switch to our water shoes (Crocs for me) for our first river crossing. Lee Roy creek was my first river/creek ford. The water was freezing and my feet were much happier when I stepped onto the shore on the opposite side.
We climbed for a while and thought we had reached the top of Palliser Pass, but we hadn’t. There were more climbs to go. On our travel up the switchbacks, we met a group of four from Montreal who going in the same direction, but had taken a different route and didn’t stay at Beatty Lake.
When we reached Palliser Pass Campground, there were no bear lockers and there was evidence that there had been a bear digging not too far away, with a large patch of dug up soil. We chose to keep going.
It was raining at the top of the Pass where we found the four from Quebec eating their dinner at the Pass marker. We continued on past wild flowers and scenic mountains. There were shrubs and berries along the way, making us feel better that the bears in this area were already full with the berries they found.
Around this time, we encountered some ultra trail runners who intended to complete 100km that day. They were running 50km into the park and would then turn around and run 50km back to their car, which they wouldn’t reach until sometime later that night. We thought they were brave as we had run across a lot of bear scat during our hike and wouldn’t want to be the one to surprise a bear while running down a trail.
The walk to Burstall Campground felt long, but we were the first to arrive and could pick from any of the sites. We chose campsite 2. There were bear lockers and an outhouse covered in chicken wire to keep the critters away. The four from Quebec arrived a few minutes after we had begun setting up our site and Oliver helped one of them patch up their backpack with some duct tape we had wrapped around our trekking poles incase we needed it. The poor guy’s pack had developed a tear and the contents were at risk of spilling out onto the trail.
The day before, we drove down to Lake Louise, Alberta and stayed in a nice hotel in the town. We had a great dinner and filled up for breakfast before driving down to Ottertail Trailhead in Field, British Columbia. I wrote a quick little note for the dashboard of our car to notify Parks staff that we were on Section C and we switched to our trail shoes as we waited for our trail angel to arrive and give us a lift to our starting point. We were among the first to park in the parking lot that morning, so we found a spot right by the trail information sign.
I was in great spirits this morning and full of excitement over starting my first section hike. We had been preparing for it, although for only a month or so after my husband found himself without a hiking partner and I stepped up to fill the vacancy. We had been reviewing the map of the route, which appeared to be a reasonable distance, but once we got in the car and we kept driving further and further down the highway and past Canmore, Alberta, I finally understood what I had truly signed up for. I thought for sure we were going to turn off of the highway sooner, but we didn’t, until we were well out of Canmore and finally reached the turn toward Kananaskis Lake.
After saying our goodbyes to our trail angel and freshening up at the parking lot restrooms, we started at Kananaskis Lake Trail at 11am. We strolled along the side of the lake for a short distance and then stepped into the trees, passing by a few small slides with crushed rock paths. The walk to Forks campground was quite easy and gave my legs a warm up. There was some elevation gain, but it was manageable. It was raining when we got there and stood under a tree while we ate our lunch.
As we exited Forks, we encountered our first pile of moose droppings. A lot of droppings and rather fresh. We agreed that neither were concerned about encountering black bears on the trail, but grizzlies and moose were entirely different beasts. Both of us had bear spray for grizzlies but had nothing to defend ourselves against a stupid moose that might charge at us if we spooked it.
After Forks, the trail began to climb almost immediately, taking a bit of effort to get up the slope. In increased in difficultly, requiring us to pull ourselves up at times and to use stairs with a chain to get up. Just as we were reaching the stairs, we heard some noise in the trees and below us and saw a moose with her calf. Luckily, we were far enough away that we didn’t spook her.
We finally made it to Three Isle Lakes where there was sunshine and we sat on the shore where we filled our water bottles and rested. There was another climb out of Three Isle, but not as bad as the route to get there.
There was off and on rain throughout the remainder of the day. My knee started to ache on the descent out of Three Isle, which I had never experienced before and I took my first tumble just before we reached Beatty Lake around 6pm. The campground was empty and we enjoyed a nice meal and got our tent set up before the rain hit around 7pm. There were was a bear locker with four cupboards and an outhouse with a door that had been chewed up by some critters. We got the best spot campsite, #1, right at the shore of the lake. It was a great start to our trip. Now I just had to adjust to the idea of being in grizzly bear country, get used to the sounds of the forest, and try to get some sleep.
Somehow writing this post slipped my mind for 3 years. Despite its importance in a number of ways – for one, I visited a bunch of times, and another – it was a critical part of our preparation for Section C of the Great Divide Trail. We spent most of 3 years in Cold Lake, AB and this was the longest and most accessible trail for us to hike locally.
During our time up there I always meant to thru-hike the trail. At 128km, it’s a nice length for a 4-5 day trip, though the trail is advertised as a 7 day trip. However, despite my shoes stepping on 90% of the trail, I never did get to do the thru-hike.
You can take a look at my previous post about how to book the Boreal Trail. However, since I wrote that post, they have released a better more current trail guide. It can be downloaded here. In my several trips out to it, I have learned that despite it feeling like it is administratively rigid, it is not. The park staff straight up told me that it’s fine to hike the trail, then retroactively pay for camp spots and such. This was as of 2022, so double check to see if they have tightened up the regulations.
On to my trips on the trail: first was a dayhike in the winter with a friend of mine. We wanted to do some “rucking” training, so we drove out to the park one Saturday with about 30lbs on our backs to walk the first 20km. We parked one car at one end and one at the other of the section we planned to do – the Cold River camp (BT1) to Sandy Beach, a frontcountry campsite on the trail. While on that walk we passed by BT2, a pretty little backcountry camping spot on a spit of land that juts out into Pierce Lake. It has a bear locker, elevated barbeque cooking spots, and several flat areas to pitch tents. It also has an adjacent “Green throne” privy set back from the camp.
My second trip was a spring overnight with one of my sons. We the the same route as the one I did in the winter, and camped at BT2 before hiking out to Sandy Beach, and the sunset was well worth it. Some swarms of mayflies liked the spot we pitched our tent, but that really was our only complaint. The way to Sandy Beach was more complicated in the spring than in the winter, as there was some beaver dam problems that flooded certain spots on the trail, but there was a way around.
My third trip was with the same son, another daytrip hike. We parked a little past Sandy Beach at the trailhead for Humphrey Lake and Humphrey Tower – the former location of a fire tower turned viewpoint on a knoll above the surrounding terrain. We hiked up to the tower site, skirting around one shore of Humphrey Lake, a little pond not really accessible for water (it’s swampy around the edges) but nice for waterfowl. The climb up the hill was brisk, and at the top, we were saddened to see that the tower had been burned down by vandals. But it was cleared in one direction, so we did have some nice views to enjoy a break at. We continued on to the narrows between Pierce Lake and Lapine Lake, where we had lunch before turning back to the car. On the return trip we did the other shore of Humphrey Lake which makes a nice little circle for dayhikers.
My fourth trip to the park was another overnight with that same son. He was a trooper that year! This time we had our sights set on a backcountry site set back from the rest – if you are thru-hiking you’d probably skip it as it’s up on a spur trail north of the main route. We parked the car at Grieg Lake near the east end of the park, and hiked up to BT9 on Fourth Mustus Lake. We chose this site because we brought my dog, Watson with us and he was a little unpredictable with people (he was an SPCA rescue) so we wanted to have a campsite with nobody around. The trail was sandy and mostly easygoing, and once again we were treated with a beautiful camping spot.
At that time (2021) there was no privy at that campground, and the picnic table was in bad repair but there was a working bear locker. But the tent sites were glorious and roomy, and we never saw another soul. We spent the evening after supper exploring some game trails on the north side of the lake, then tried to put the dog to bed. He didn’t go down easy, refusing to sleep in the vestibule. He ended up being off leash all night, and patrolled around us while we slept. Around midnight something got his attention because he bolted off barking at something, but he never left earshot and returned after being satisfied that whatever it was was not coming back. Glad there was nobody else there to be disturbed by him! Lesson learned.
My fifth trip was again with that same son, and we were aiming to do the whole trail. We started at Cold River this time, and once again camped at BT2. The next day we pushed pretty hard, and made it to BT3 by midafternoon. We could have gone further but the clouds had socked us in and the wind was blowing, and rain was beginning to make us miserable, so we set up our tents and hoped that the rain would slacken for some soggy dinner. The camping was down a rise next to the river, and the dinner spot with a firepit was at the top of the rise by the trail – so was the bear locker. After warming up a bit we came out and had an early dinner, but the weather was still miserable so we just hunkered down early for the night.
The next morning dawned sunny and nice, to the point where we could get a better sense of the place. It was an old forest fire clearing formed in 2011. The wind affected us because there were few large trees to break the wind. The river was quite nice though, and we took some snaps of a half dozen or so white pelicans who were punting around the rocks in the stream. Then we pushed on.
Sadly, my son’s feet were not as conditioned as mine to long trail days. By the time we pulled up in BT4 on Lac Des Iles he was pretty out of gas. We took a long break sunning ourselves on the functionally private beach there (Highly recommend this camp for a stop!) and then tried pushing on. We got to Murray Doell frontcountry camp (in the middle of another burn, so hot and sunny also beat us down) and then shortly after, we made it out to a road crossing and made the decision to call for an extraction. Still, got to see a lot of the park, and good quality time with my boy.
My sixth trip to the trail was in the training runup for our Great Divide Trail Section C trip. At this time my wife had decided to accompany me, but we needed to prepare her. So first order of business was to test her feet and our big four with an overnight. We selected a start at Jack Pine and hike into BT7 on the Waterhen River. We pitched my newly acquired, slightly used Durston XMid 2P above the river at sunset and it was lovely. The campsite had treed or open grassy field options, good fishing spots on the river, and well kept Bear Lockers. The trail used to go from BT7 east to the chalet and then north, but north of the chalet they had some beaver flooding issues, so they elected to close that part of the trail.
The following date we pushed for a longer day, crossing Mistohay Creek (nice views), passing the visitor center, and continuing on past BT5 to the Gold Creek area. There was some gravel roadwalking in this section, and the hot August sun beat down on us pretty ferociously. We had to hunt for water a few times in the drier stretches. Towards the end of our time in between the Murray Doell and BT5 area, it was quite hilly and nice. But we decided to call the trip there, almost connecting to where my son had left the trail on the previous trip.
All told, I probably got to see 80% of the trail, and the only significant backcountry stretch I didn’t get to hike was from Jack Pine to Kimball Lake area – most of the rest was roadwalk I was not sorry to miss.
I’d call it a well kept, well maintained set of trails for the most part, with well appointed campsites, though they frown on random camping. The challenge level is not Rocky Mountains, but there are hilly sections, and I’d definitely call it a good early season warmup hike, or late season final go before the snow flies. It is hikeable by May, and can still be done well into the fall (though make sure you hike in blaze orange in the fall!) If you’re in AB/SK, it’s definitely worth the trip!
Just about to the end folks! It has been a go hasn’t it? I had planned to take a friend of mine through two of the best trails in the Canadian Rockies, but instead I got to take my wife on her first multiday backpacking trip, which was even better! Our plan was this:
And if you want to read about how the first 9 days of the trip went, follow these links!
Day 10 dawned behind schedule. Our original itinerary had us bedding down 3 km and 300m above where we were. It doesn’t sound like much, but it was going to lead to the longest hiking day of our trip the next morning. The original plan:
Day 10 – Wolverine Pass to McArthur Creek Camp (Yoho National Park) – 21km, over Goodsir Pass.
Day 11 – McArthur Creek down to our car on the Trans-Canada Highway at Ottertail Trailhead – 15km.
It’s been a bit since I last worked on this report. Here we go again! If you aren’t up to speed, the Great Divide Trail is a stunning thru-hike in BC and Alberta, Canada starting where the Continental Divide Trail ends in Glacier National Park, MT and proceeding north for 600 miles of the wild Canadian Rockies. We didn’t do the whole trail: we only tackled 120 miles of the middle of the trail – Section C – the part that is perhaps hardest to book, though maybe easiest to hike, due to the popular National and Provincial Park trails that are well maintained. To catch you up on our trip so far, read days 5-6 here and follow the links back to our beginning.
When last we left off, we had hiked 6 days and heavily modified our itinerary, adding a camp on the fly using our Garmin Inreach to get family to book a site for us, then using an optional site I had foreseen we might need to get a night in the astonishing Mount Assiniboine basin. But we made it to Banff on schedule!
The plan was to get a hot meal and sleep the night in Banff in a hotel, then hit the trail bright and early the next day up Healy Pass. Like so:
Day 7 – Taxi up to Sunshine again, hike up Healy Pass, over Whistling Pass and camp at Ball Pass Camp (Banff) – probably 23km with two passes.
Day 8 – Ball Pass Camp to Floe Lake (Kootenay National Park) – 21km with a brutally steep ascent to start and end the day.
Day 9 – Floe Lake to Wolverine Pass – 20km over Numa Pass, Tumbling Pass, and Rockwall Pass.
Section C of the Great Divide Trail according to most information is a hair over 200km of hiking trails running through mostly National Parks. I’ve been dreaming about this hike for 3 years, and I finally got to go, despite my hiking partner once again canceling on me, because my wife signed up to go with me! You can read about our first two days on trail here, and days 3 and 4 here.
The story so far: no plan survives contact with the enemy. So far we had made changes to our itinerary almost every day. But thankfully we had only fudged one campground (and that was only because Parks Canada said the campground was fully booked when it was empty!) Today (spoiler alert!) would return us to our schedule.
Our original plan was:
Day 5: Marvel Lake to Porcupine (Mount Assiniboine Provincial Park) – 26km
Day 6: Porcupine to Sunshine Village (Banff) – and sleep in a hotel! – 14km
But we weren’t starting in Marvel Lake. We made it up to Magog Lake in Mount Assiniboine. So things were going to be different.
We woke up in the Magog Lake Campground, or at least I did. I’m an early riser – once my body starts getting achy or my bladder gets full, I am getting up. Thankfully I only beat the sunrise by about a half hour so it was light enough to find my way to the outhouse over the frozen grass without my headlamp. I then proceeded over to the covered cooking area in the frosty morning air to make myself some tea, and was struck by this view: