Adventures in Onionism

Today was beautiful, if a tad wet. I am alone out here in a huge wilderness. It is great.

Bailed from the high route after doing most of it, and taking the app guy's recommended route. It sucked below treeline, and the next 8km along the Jackpine River sucked to. The trail should end at Robson. Have I mentioned that? Trail should be better tomorrow. 75km to Kakwa, 30 km back up, 55km to Grand Cache. 160 in 4-5 days? If decent trail exists we're fine. If it's unmaintained unmarked horse trail from 30 years ago, something has to give.

Jackpine High Route! The route is amazing, the beta is terrible. Woefully inadequate to be part of a recognized alternate on an official trail. The guidebook description is 22 lines for 49km.  Which side of this lake should you go on? What compass bearing should I take? What elevation should I traverse at to avoid the cliffs? You shouldn't just throw up a half-ass GPX route that literally has you walking off a cliff and assume people can figure these things out. Fine, there's a warning that this is the hardest section, but really, if you're going to send people out a route you made up, you need to provide more detail. (Feel free to do a badass route, share no info, and have no one else do it. That's totally an option.)  Venting done. Need to conserve battery. And energy! Maybe halfway through route, much slower than regular trail and I have no time to spare!

Between Bess and Jackpine Pass. Long day. As always? As is my wont? Woke up late, after being cold and not sleeping well. Then my food was heavy. Most I've carried the whole trip. Spent a while at a campsite sorting it and it's seven generous days. Plus two pounds of peanut butter. What sort of amateur hour is this?  But if the trail keeps going like this, I might need it. Jasper's North Boundary Trail was decent, but then I turned up Chown Creek. No trail, which is fine since it's a nice flood plain. But fording it was bad. Cold, and I got swept a little. More like knocked down, and was about to get swept, but I was already most of the way, so just pushed and grabbed and crawled till I was on shore. No harm no foul. It was still warmish out (7:30pm) so I just switched shirts and kept walking. Definitely my worst ford experience of the GDT. The dumb thing is there's a bridge that you cross when you first come to the creek, so this is crossing *back* and you can stay

At Robson VC. Back up to the top! It's a 50-56km side trip to resupply today. On to Kakwa and Grand Cache!

Descended Colonel Creek, then climbed up Moose Creek in the mud all day. Some was a nice flood plain, other parts not so much. The pass itself was stupendous with wildflowers and glaciers, but also mosqies and a mom and cub griz. They were far away, so not threatening, but still probably not wise to hang out too long. Descended from Moose Pass to the Smokey River, one of the tougher fords. I thought I'd have to camp there to cross in the morning but at 10pm it was doable. Split in two, but totally opaque. The second half started pushing me downstream, but it was only a step or two more and I was across. Kept pushing for a legit campsite, but unfortunately it doesn't have much in the way of bear storage. I'm planning to leave my food (I carry the bear proof ursack, but I'm sure hanging it too would make others feel better) for a quick down and back up to Robson tomorrow. Mountain in view. It's huge! Also need to buy socks since a pair and a half fell off my pack yest

Rough day today but turned out well. Stayed dry after getting in my tent in a downpour last night. Woke up, and skies we're cloudy. All bushes were wet, and they stayed that way most of the day. So I was thoroughly soaked. The sun slowly came out more and more but it wasn't fun to stop for long since it was a bit cold. There were wild blueberries so that helped.  Loooong ascent up the Miette River, on brushy, overgrown horse trail, totally without views. Then at the top, the views were great, but the pass is a huge meadow/bog and mosquitos we're the worst I have ever experienced. Soooooo many. Could kill ~10 with one slap. Of course I was wearing long pants, long shirt, jacket, gloves, and a headnet, so they can really only penetrate one of my gloves, but sometimes they notice my pants don't totally go to my shoes so they swarm ankles, and all the covering can get hot, and the net makes it harder to see the trail, especially in direct sunlight. Fun to sit and let them s

Everything was dry, and now it's not! Wow, that was quite the downpour. Credit to the trusty Henry Shires Tarptent for going up quick and keeping me dry (once I'm inside) with such a thin and flimsy-appearing sil-nylon layer.  Spent the day in the town of Jasper doing errands. New shoes, waterproof pants I should've been carrying all along, new socks, plus less fun stuff like trying to roll over my retirement account so I don't get tax penalties, trying to change an investment account address so I don't get tax penalties, trying to get health insurance so I don't get tax penalties... I really had to stretch those to make it all about taxes; there are other totally non-tax things, but they're all Society, Man! Society! Why can't I just hit pause, make my credit card pay the balance automatically, and mountains for three months without having to do forms every three days? (Oh, yeh, moving your family, stuff, and job across the country takes effort. Forgot.

Leaving town of Jasper on long highway stretch to start next section. Mt. Robson Visitor Center in a few days.

Well, around 3pm the weather looked like it was maybe improving a bit, plus my tent was just smelling like farts really bad, so I decided to pack up an move on. The sun came out for a minute, but just before I made it to the ford of the Maligne it went away again for good. The trail got really brushy right before and for a while after the ford, it was pretty awful. But somehow my feet were fine, it was hands that were hating life. Regardless, I made it to Trapper Creek campground for 11km on the day. It is still raining hard. I have 6km to the parking lot for the Skyline Trail. If the weather tomorrow is good, well then all is well I hike the world famous Skyline Trail. If bad, I'm done. I'll try and bum a ride in to Jasper, buy water proof pants and long John's and wait for the weather to improve. No doubt it is snowing on the Skyline Trail right now, no point risking my life *and* missing the scenery. If I can't bum a ride there a several alternates into Jasper or dow

It's noon on Saturday and I have only left my tent twice to use the bathroom in the last 21 hours. It's still raining, not particularly hard, but quite cold. According to the navigation app I have 4 km until the trail enters forest and starts to improve. That's 4km of an icy full body car wash from extremely overgrown wet brush. It's not that far, but it also includes a waste deep but slow, ford, or so I'm told. So I'd be hypothermic by the end of it. And for what? To get closer to the start of the famous Skyline trail, which if I actually started, I'd miss all the scenery? I didn't expect to spend a day and a half in my tent, but I guess I have a book to read and can write emails to send later.

8pm and I'm just camped in the same spot. Toes seem OK, though my right big toe still feels like it remembers what happened. My eye also hurts; when I was crouched under a tree to avoid some of the hail, I got whacked hard by. Branch when I stood up to leave. I'm struggling to keep it open right now. Oh well. Getting sleep and eating Snickers is fun.

Oh my God. You remember that scene from the Abyss where Ed Harris is doing CPR on the woman and it's not working and eventually he's friggin beating her chest and he screams "BREATH, YOU BITCH!" That's how I feel about my toes right now. It's 3:30 and I'm in my tent already, which is only the second time I can think of that I have pulled up short because of weather, but it went from uncomfortable-miserable to get your ass in gear if you want to make it out of this-miserable really fast. Hail during the "most uncomfortable section of the GDT" because of overgrown brush became a full body icy car wash with nowhere to bail. Except the decomissioned campsite luckily only the longest 1.1km of my life away. Thank goodness for a dry set of sleeping clothes and socks. I think some feeling (other than pain) is returning to my feet now. It is of course better weather now, but I'm not going anywhere till the sun straight up knocks on my tent window and

Finally did a 50K+ day today. Started with the final climb up Cataract Pass entering Jasper NP. Then through a nice weird glacial lake and rock area, the climb up to Jonas Pass and over Jonas Shoulder, long and kind of boring/aggrivating descent on muddy horse trails to the Maligne Pass junction, and finished with a climb to Avalanche campsite, most of the way to Maligne Pass.  Town of Jasper is 90km away, with maybe the last 10k on perhaps easy trails to town. How'd it get so close? I thought this was a long stretch. The guide does I think say things are further apart than the GPS app. But if I get in Saturday night, I have to stay Sunday night because I need to get stuff from the Post Office Monday, and it's maps not just food, so it's worth the wait. Plus I've been pushing pretty hard so it would be nice to have a lazy Sunday, assuming Jasper has a hostel or a good library.

Wow. Slow day and a half. Slept late this morning (wind and rain kept waking me up) and then had a slow go of it, not even making 35km today. But I did hit the highest point on the trail, as well as two of the other top four, or something like that, so maybe there's a reason for it.  Saw two groups of bighorn up at the passes, one was 14+ head! I had never heard of a herd that large. Passed a friendly couple southbounding a section of the trail with their two school age kids. Impressive, since this trail is savage. A friend who did the trail last year said it was probably like the CDT was 10 years ago (I did the CDT 11 years ago). Nope, the GDT is harder! With the exception of snowshoeing through the San Juans in early June, the GDT is harder. Ok, maybe I'll have to think about that. But I don't remember so many totally unmaintained, or just totally trailess sections. And there's more moisture here, so bushwhacking means very dense undergrowth if you're below treeli

I've been in Canada 2+ weeks and I haven't been to Tim Horton's. Yeh, I'm vegan, but only vegetarian on this trip--the resupply would be too tough. What do I eat?  Ideally, Breakfast 1: Granola with protein powder Breakfast 2: Bars Lunch 1: Bars Lunch 2: Bars Lunch 3: Bars Dinner 1: Rehydrated beans, ideally with crushed corn chips. Bars means breakfast bars, cereal bars, granola bars, energy bars, candy bars, meal replacement bars. Also nuts, raisins, and sometimes dark chocolate, and sometimes Dark Chocolate Dreams (vegan chocolate peanut butter that is to die for). But some of that is hard to come by in small Canadian towns so switch out beans for instant mashed potatoes.  Beans/potatoes are soaked in cold water, since I don't carry a stove, just a tiny lighter in case of emergency. Holy crap Google pictures of Michele Lakes. So blue! 

Owen Creek was awesome. From the road crossing and the extremely narrow gorge to the beautiful pass via the trailless route it cuts. Camped just over the pass. 

Wow, the rest of today was wild. After the ford that wasn't so bad, I bushwhacked more up to Howse Pass, and there were two big monuments to the explorer who crossed it two hundred years ago. The pass is on the national historical register, but the signs feel way out of place since there's basically no trail so only GDT crazies go there. Anyway, the descent started along Conway Creek and then spilled into Howse River, and I spent the entire day splish splash shchwacking my way down the Howse River flood plain. The official trail is above the river in the woods but it is wildly overgrown, and walking in the river is incredible, as are the views. But you can't just cross the river (it's huge) and occasionally it bends such that you're cliffed out and you have to climb j to the woods, and you schwack your way around the cliff. Yeh, this is how all river hiking is, you say. It was just the scale of it. So immense. This would make an awesome packraft descent, the river w

Hiker friends, how do you hook your gaiters to your shoes? I use Dirty Girl gaiters, which have obvious Velcro tabs on the back, but come on, on a long hike you can't buy Velcro hooks and super glue for every new pair of shoes. (Don't tell me that a little Velcro sticker patch sticks to dirty shoes for longer than a day; you're lying.) So, safety pins? Annoying to hook and unhook every time you want to take your shoes off. Or is there a brand of gaiters that doesn't require Velcro? Maybe something by Salomon--I feel like I've seen something. (Also, non-runners, big bulky knee-high gaiters are not what I'm talking about, or even half high ones made of canvas. Minimalist stretchy ones that don't need a strap under your foot or go home.

Well, that actually wasn't that bad. Only because there was the broken remnants of a washed out bridge plus a tiny tree, so I barely got my feet wet, but holy cow that water was cold. My feet were in pain so I put on two layers of dry wool socks then put my feet in baggies (stuff sacks, actually) before putting on my shoes. What am I going to do in Alaska, where this will happen every twelve minutes? I have tried both neoprene socks and "waterproof" Seal Skinz socks before without much success. I was never convinced the SS were actually waterproof, as I could dump buckets of water out of them. Feet sweat a lot, but that much? Of court both of those are packed in storage so I'll have to order new ones. (And my sleeping bag, and trekking poles since a rat ate half the cork grip to one of my poles one night. And a PFD; still need a PFD to go with the raft.) Also, does any hiker friend have a SPOT (gen3+), InReach, PLB, or satphone they're not using for August to mid

Late day trying to get as close as possible to the next river crossing. It's glacial, and it's big. I'm just under 5K so hopefully I can hit it early in the morning when it's lower.  Did Amitskwi pass, walked a lot of road, memorized some poems, the usual. More tomorrow after I knock off this ford!

I think I'm spelling that right. Fun morning in Field. Ate four entrees, pooped indoors three times, drank two beers. It almost feels like I'm cheating, I was suffering so little. On my way out of town I stopped in a park to dry out my tent and saw some litter containing a half used thing of wet wipes. Cool, free shower, I thought, and had a sponge bath while my tent dried. This section started with a nice natural bridge over the powerful Kicking Horse river. Now I'm ascending the Amwiski on an old overgrown road. It's not the worst. Tomorrow is more of the same. Most of this section is not well maintained, plus there are a couple glacial fords to worry about. One thing I've not been on this trip is warm at night. I have to wear my fleece jacket most nights, which I never did on the triple crown. I am using my Enlightened Equipment synthetic quilt, I think rates to thirty degrees, but I think I may splurge and get the Western Mountaineering down bag I've been co

I'm camped in a van down by the river, figuratively, outside Field, BC. There is a nice hostel (full) and expensive guesthouses, and a post office, but it closed at 1:30 today. So tomorrow I will eat as much as I can at the cafe, then buy as much as I can from the gas station, and get out of town. Maybe I'll call or leave a note and see if my box can be forwarded. First half of today finishing the Rockwall was great. Wolverine Pass made me think of Red Dawn. Goodsir Pass was pretty too. The rest was just an old road, then a bit of scary highway shoulder to get to Field and another trailhead.  Not looking forward to this next section. It's very brushy, so I'll get wet like a carwash, because it is about to *dump* some rain, methinks. Maybe I'll see if there's a cool alternate, even if it involves disconnected sections.

Finished Banff this morning: Egypt Lake, Ball Pass, and Hawk Creek down to the highway. Then it was a huge climb up to Flow Lake and Kootenay's Rockwall. My expectations were way out of fline with reality. I expected to be hiking along a level trail blasted into a cliff face, like Glacier's Garden Wall or Highline or whatever. There is indeed a steep rock face here, but mostly I would describe the hike as three huge forested and overgrown climbs. Flow Lake is gorgeous, and the last descent paralleled the wall and also a terminal moraine. So there used to be huge glaciers on this wall? There are still bits of them (Tumbling Glacier), and they're pretty cool. Did a solid 48km today, in to camp before 10. I have 50 km to get to Field, the last 10km of which is garbage highway or train tracks. Still, there's no way I'll make it before the post office closes at 1:30. If there's even just a gas station I'll be fine to resupply and keep moving...

Google the Field, BC Post Office hours. Oh well. Such is life. I'll hit the cafe for a meal, bust ass, and make it work.

Hello from Sunshine Ski Resort outside Banff. I had a lot of errands to run in town but I managed to get in and out of B in an afternoon. Headed back to trail after this beer. (Future GDT hikers--dont bother with Banff, just mail food to Sunshine.) As I mentioned, crummy weather yesterday, but OK this morning and it's clear now.  Should be in Field in a couple days. Have to check Post Office hours because there's no stores there, just a package to pick up. Hope they're open Saturday! If not...maybe I can make it through to the next stop (another couple days) or... don't really want to just hang out until Monday.

Big day in the rain today. Pulled out all the stops (in the sense that I didn't stop to rest a single time--only to pee or once to make cold instant mashed potatoes) because it was raining all day. If I'd stopped to rest I would have gotten too cold. So I just put all my food bars in outer pack pockets, shoved the rest of my gear in the trash bag inside my pack, and walked. I saw the sun for about ten minutes at 8pm but it's raining again now. Apparently Marvel Lake and Wonder Pass are really pretty but I could barely tell. Also Assiniboine Mountain is tall and cool looking? And there's lakes name Og and Magog. Aren't the apocalyptic biblical ones Gog and Magog? I'll have to check all the views out online someday. I ended up with about 60km for the day and actually enjoyed myself quite a bit. I thought of the wittiest comebacks to years old arguments about zoning.  Guess you had to be there. I'm at Porcupine Campsite in Assiniboine Provincial Park and there

Wrote earlier today but thought I'd try nightly entries that upload when I get service. But now I'd rather be sleeping than typing. The trail was nice today. After the frustratingly bad WiFi but nice ranger visitor center, I hitched back to the trail, walked on easy flat trail around the Kananaskis lakes, then up and over north K pass by Maude and Lawson lakes. Google them. So pretty.  Met a nice hiking team called Sobo SAM (sisters and mother). They were having dinner at the pass and offered me some. They own a bison ranch and we talked about Ted Turner and I may or may not have nibbled on some of their homemade product. Hope for a big day tomorrow so I can get to Banff early Wednesday and get back out in the same day. Kinda wish I hadn't sent stuff there so I could just resupply at the ski resort on trail but such is life when you a) don't like planning and b) dont have any time to do it anyway.

Half good, half bad. The first half day out of Coleman sucked. Muddy ATV trails. But then the next day just as I was packing up in the morning a fellow thru hiker walked by. Gerald from Germany was rad, and has trekked basically everywhere. Google Wild Trekking, plus Gerald or something, to find his blog (which has been in English for the last few years, he said). But I'm a little more impatient than him, so we hiked about 2/3 of the day together and then he stayed back as I went up Tornado Pass and over Tornado Shoulder, where a lot of people say the trail starts getting good. It did. Views have been good (see Instagram.) But I also felt like I wasn't really *in* the mountains. I was on a lame rolly polly hill next to them and they (the High Rocks Range) was visible next to me. It's also weird, like the Canadian Rockies are only one real mountain wide and everything else is just foothills. And Alberta clear cuts right up to the treeline of the real mountains! I was having

Hi from the Crowsnest Pass area of Alberta. I'm already leaving town. Got in yesterday afternoon and stayed at a B and B recommended by GDTA et al. I think the hostess and I stressed each other out a bit (having someone watch me do resupply shopping is super stressful, though it is of course wonderfully helpful and nice that she drove me to the store in the first place.) Anyway, I sent three boxes ahead to more remote resupply places, leaving only one more to send later, and I should be good on resupply for most of the trip. The hiker box was FULL of ProBars. Score! Anyway, I successfully connected my steps from Waterton, without much of any pavement. May be the first hiker to do that this year. That just means I started early and came in shortly after Waterton opened some trails after last year's fire. (My opinion: the trail closures are probably mostly silly, since there did not seem to be any blowdowns or trail work that had been done to open them.) Waterton was nice, but I