119km to Kakwa

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 on the south side the whole time if you want, you just have to bushwhack more. Not sure what I'd advise to others--the Chown is braided so there might be an easier way across? Maybe earlier, closer after the bottle neck? Probably wise to get 2/3 of the way across right after the bottleneck (easy) then walk right along the last, southernmost nastiest channel the whole way and go if you see anything that looks doable. The path is definitely new this year, you can tell by the shrubbery.

Note: the guidebook mentions the inflow that comes from the south. I thought it made sense to not cross the last channel until after I was upstream of that. Forget that. That instream is so piddly you won't notice.

Bess Pass was a soggy mess. Climbing over a ridge towards Jackpine. Tough climb. Found a nice campspot right near the top.