So the South Boundary Trail is a long walk through the bush. Really. That’s pretty much it. But since elaboration is obviously necessary, I’ll lay out the “highlights” of each day, as best I remember them-with a little help from the trip log book I kept. The whole trip was 14 days long, and we covered 172 km of trail.
Day 1: Jacques Lake Camp (the camp we stayed at that night), 13 km (the approx. number of km we hiked that day). A hike on relatively flat ground to get to delightful camp with picnic tables, designated tent pads, and one of the famous “green thrones” Jasper is so famous for (for those who don’t hike the Jasper backcountry-a molded plastic toilet with no walls but an actual seat). I would later learn that that last amenity was few and far between on this trip, and quite a luxury. Not much happened on Day 1, really. Jacques lake is quite beautiful, though. I would go back there for an overnight or a day trip if I happened to be in Jasper for a while and needed something to do. Oh, and we had one of the more filling meals of the trip this day, 2 boxes of Kraft Dinner between the 3 of us.
Day 2: Grizzly Camp, 11 km (I’ll mention at this point that none of the distance markers on the trail were right-they didn’t even agree with each other. One would say it was 12 km to the next camp, but then you’d get there and the sign would say you’d just gone 14 km. And though my sister tried to estimate the distance, she was off by a few km most days, though we don’t blame her, since getting any information on this trail was extremely difficult.). It rained through the night, so as we walked through the bush for the first part of the morning, none of us wearing our rain pants, we got completely soaked from the brush overhanging the trail. Then we ended up in a burnt area that a forest fire had ripped through a couple years previous. There were signs before we got there warning of unstable trees that could fall at any time. One of the tips Slacker liked was to “spread out to prevent multiple casualties”. I actually didn’t mind this day so much. There was a little up, a little down, and the lack of trees meant you could see the surrounding mountains and scenery. Though the trees did creak rather ominously when the wind picked up and pieces of bark kept flying off them and hitting us. We also had to climb over a few fallen burnt trees, effectively covering our pants and hands in a lovely layer of black soot. One nice thing about this day was that fireweed had grown up in most of the area. So there were pretty flowers to look at, and as an added bonus, they don’t hurt when they whack you in the face like tree branches do. The campsite was another story. A fire pit plunked down next to the river, with a small cleared area to pitch your tent. The “privy”, as they were now being referred to, was a log nailed between two trees with a hole dug underneath it. Classy.
Just a note here, after the first 2 days my memory gets a bit fuzzy, so I’ll be relying on the log book to try and remember it. It’s not that I have a bad memory or anything, but with a total of 14 days hiking through bush that all looks the same and staying at campsites that are all basically the same, it all really starts to blur together.
Day 3: Climax Camp (or pleasure camp, as Jana calls it), 12 km. It rained the night before, so everything was wet again. The only really eventful thing that happened today was when we came to a river we thought we had to cross without a bridge. There was some significant profanity from Jana when we got there and didn’t see any bridge, or even any remains of a bridge. And it was a raging river, people. We’re talking one of those sub-zero, super fast flowing mountain rivers. Since I was the biggest, I had a go at crossing it with my sandals on. Yeah. I got about ½ a metre from the bank and it was suddenly at crotchular level. And when the water’s that cold, crotchular level is not good. Plus it was going way too fast and there’s no way I would’ve made it, since the damn thing was probably 6 or 8 metres across, I had only made it ½ a metre. So after some serious studying of the map I decided we had to go farther up the river, since it looked like the bridge went perpendicular to this one ridge, and where we were trying to cross we were parallel. So the boots went back on and we walked up the river-and hallelujah, there was a bridge! Thanks to the Flying Trail Crew of 1992 (there was a sign), we had a bridge to cross over. A rickety bridge with gaps between the boards big enough for Slacker to fit through, but a bridge nonetheless. That was pretty much our excitement for the day. After today we didn’t see people for 8 more days.
Day 4: Rocky Forks Camp, 10 km. This is the day I started to lose my ambition for hiking through the bush and the total boredom that comes with it. On this trail the actual trail itself is a deep rut-2 feet deep in places-through the bush. So you spend most of the day staring at your feet trying not to trip over tree roots and rocks. Super fun. This is also the day the conversation died a little, so there wasn’t much talking on the trail for the rest of the trip. One of the main reasons for this, though, is that the trail itself is really narrow, so you have to hike single file. And when there’s 3 of you all spread out, it’ hard to hear each other, no less carry on a conversation. So we didn’t do much talking after this. Rocky Forks camp wasn’t exactly stellar. The only water source was a really scungy looking, stagnant pond. It was as though they just picked a spot and plunked the camp down right there.
Day 5: Lagrace Camp, 18 km. Today was the longest day, but we had a break planned when we got to Medicine Tent Camp about halfway through the day’s hike. When we did get to Medicine Tent we felt pretty cheated. It was one of the nicer camps, it had benches, a rather comfy privy log, and it was next to one spot in the river where it went deep into a pool off to the side and the current wasn’t too strong, so you could’ve had a bath there if you wanted. But we only stopped for a bit to dry a few things out in the few minutes of sun we had and have a quick granola bar. Then it was on to Lagrace Camp, which wasn’t too bad. It started to rain just as we were starting dinner, so after we cleaned everything we got into the tent for shelter. I should say now that we had a crib board and cards to pass the time, and Slacker and I played quite a few games of crib and lying-down war. Lying-down war is when you’re both lying in the tent and too lazy to actually sit up, so instead up putting your cards down you hold them up above you so you can lie down and play. I don’t know what the final tally for wins and losses was between us for the trip, but I think it ended up fairly even in the end.
Day 6: Cairn Pass Camp, 12 km. Today I really started to smell the stench that is 3 unwashed people. The last night was easily the worst, but even today when I crawled into the tent I could smell us. It’s now wonder we didn’t see any animals, they probably smelled us a mile away. What’s that you smell Bob? I think it’s unshowered human. Maybe we should avoid that particular area today… Anyways, today we went over Cairn Pass, which is 2250 metres in elevation. It wasn’t actually too bad a climb, in my opinion anyways. The view was good from the pass, though it would’ve been even better if the cloud cover had been higher. It rained the night before, so everything was completely soaked, including us when we got to camp. There was a big fire pit at Cairn Pass Camp, though, and we decided that the rainy, miserable nature of the weather warranted starting a fire if we could actually get one going with wet wood. Well Slacker managed to get one started and we kept it going for a bit with some already chopped wood someone had left there previously. We dried out most of our socks, burnt a few of them, and this is where I burnt Glen’s camp towel. It still works, there’s just a brown spot on it that won’t wash out now. It was quite a sight to see our socks draped over the edge of the fire pit with steam coming off them. This was also the day I discovered that the hiking itself isn’t nearly so boring when you get a good daydream going. After today I didn’t have too many days where I was totally bored. Tired of trudging through the bush, yes, but not bored. Today was also the day Jana started whipping out songs from “Annie”. It’s actually quite fun belting out “Tomorrow” at the top of your lungs in the middle of nowhere.
Day 7: Cairn River Camp, 14 km. Half-way done. Finally! It had rained through the night, but we decided we didn’t want to wear our rain pants today. Big mistake. The trail was overgrown with bushes, so we all ended up totally soaked. And not just wet, but totally soaked, the kind of wet where your pants start sticking to your legs. Then we came to a river we had to cross. Not a very big one, easily crossable. Jana took her boots off to cross, but Slacker said hers, which actually had “waterproof” stamped right on them, were so wet there was no point taking them off. So she walked right through. I took one boot off and tested the rocks, but they were pretty slippery, and at that point all I wanted was to get to camp and crawl into my sleeping bag. Plus my boots were pretty wet already, so I put my boot back on and tromped through the creek with my boots on. It wasn’t so bad, actually. I poured the puddles out of my boots on the other side and we continued. We then crossed another creek and found camp. I decided that today was finally the day to wash my hair, since it had now been 7 days since I had done that. Plus my scalp was getting wicked itchy. So in the arctic fresh river I washed my hair. I swear it’s never felt so good to have clean hair.
Day 8: Southesk Camp, 9 km. Paradise. That’s how I would’ve described this camp the day we strolled into it. But I’ll get back to that later. It rained on us during the night and stopped just as we were straggling out of the tent in the morning. We hiked for a bit in the bush and then ended up in another burnt area, which we followed for quite a while. We then crossed a river, merely guessing that the trail continued on the other side. This was based on some ancient signs Jana spotted on the other side. Then we followed a sign that said “foot bridge”, hoping it would take us to a bridge so we could get across the bigger river. This trail wound up a hill, through the burnt area, and actually led us outside the national park boundary and into an area that had obviously been used by many, many quads. So there were a lot of trails to follow and not a lot of signs to tell us which to take. Thankfully I can read a map half-decent and we actually managed to make it to the foot bridge and across the river. Where our next challenge started. The bridge took us across the river, but the trail just sort of ended. And we were still in one of the burned parts, so it was even hard to guess. Then someone saw an axe mark cut into a tree just ahead. So far we’d seen them on trees just next to the trail-we figured they were for the parks people so they could find the trail after winter. So, like breadcrumbs, we followed the axe marks and finally caught up with the trail. At that point it turned into a clear-cut line that had been made as a firestop, which seemed to stretch forever. But then we made it to camp. Camp was a little piece of land that jutted out into a little shallow lake, and it had a pretty nice view. It just happened to be warm and sunny that day, so Slacker and I decided we were going for a swim. 8 days without a shower and you’d be thinking the same thing. It wasn’t too bad, actually. And the night we spent at Southesk was one of the 2 that it didn’t rain on us. As an added bonus, we also got to start the next day out with dry socks and boots, courtesy of the sun.
Day 9: Issac Creek Camp, 13 km. Just before we got to Issac Creek is where Jana had actually drawn in a part on the map, because it wasn’t actually there. Up until this point there’d been an actual dotted line that came on the map itself, but now we were basically guessing where the trail actually went, on the map anyways. I blanked out a good chunk of this day, since it was mostly through the bush, and boring as hell. Just before we got to camp we had to cross another creek, this one was a bit bigger than the ones that came before it. I was wandering around looking for a spot when Jana got tired of waiting and just gum-booted it right through. But it worked and we got to camp. Issac Creek was also a horse camp, thus there was a delightful green throne that I enjoyed a little too much, and benches to sit on. Well, the sitting wasn’t so great since they’d left the logs round, so they were a little hard on the arse, but it beats sitting on the ground.
Day 10: Arete Camp, 17 km. It rained on us during the night. There were actually 2 trails leading from Issac Creek Camp. One was pretty wide and well-used, the other was narrower but still well-used. The narrower one of the national park hiker/horse sings pointing to it. So two roads diverged in a wood… We discussed which to take, but I was pretty sure the parks people wouldn’t put that sign up for no reason, and I managed to convince Jana and Slacker of the same thing. So we took the road less traveled. This was still the part of the trail the map didn’t have on it, though this was the day we came back onto the established part of the map. The hike itself was mostly flat that day, but I was a little on edge since I wasn’t sure we had taken the right trail, and if we ended up having to backtrack, it was basically my fault. So I felt much better when we finally came across the Arete ranger cabin and I knew we were going in the right direction. And when I knew Jana and Slacker weren’t going to lose it on me. It sprinkled for a good portion of this day, and most of the time we were actually in camp, so we spent the better part of the day inside the tent. It was starting to get pretty cold today, and I think this is the first day the toques came out. This was also the day we decided would be good for the chicken noodle soup we brought. And for future reference, one packet of Lipton’s chicken noodle soup is not enough food for 3 hikers.
Day 11: Brazeau River Camp, 13 km. I had rained again during the night, so once again Jana was packing a wet tent. The hike to Brazeau River wasn’t so bad, though I though at one point Slacker was going to lose it when one sign said we still had 3 km left when we should’ve been almost there. Just before we got to camp we went by the Brazeau ranger cabin, and does that guy have it made! Stockpile of chopped wood, outhouse with walls, warm cabin, and to top it off, a nice little fence around his yard. It almost makes you want to become a park warden. Anyways, the sun broke through the clouds for a few hours once we got to camp, so Slacker and I managed to do a little washing in the river while it wasn’t too cold. Brazeau River Camp was pretty deluxe-2 picnic tables, actual tent pads and a green throne with a nice view to boot. We even managed to play a few games of cards on the picnic table before the weather turned and started to rain on us again.
Day 12: South Wolverine Camp, 9 km. This, in my opinion, was one of the two best days of the trip. It started out really terrible. It rained all night and as we were leaving in the morning it was so cold I think it may actually have been snowing. When we did get to our stop for the night we could see a fresh coat of snow on the mountains. And given that the cloud cover was pretty low but we could still see the snow from the valley, you can guess it was pretty cold. As we were nearing camp, Slacker pointed ahead and said she saw people. After 8 days, the sight of other people was actually quite strange. It was almost like, what are you doing out here? I thought we were the only ones out here in the bush. So we kept going, and it kept raining. We were so miserable when we got to camp that we set up the tent and crawled into our sleeping bags to warm up. After a nap we got up and made dinner, and as we were finishing, four guys strolled into camp, dripping wet. That was when the clouds started to break up and blue sky began appearing. It widened out over the whole valley, and soon we were literally basking in the sunlight. Literally. Jana has a video of the basking. Then, the guys managed to get a fire started, and invited us to enjoy-so we grabbed our wet socks and boots and dried everything as best we could. And at that point, dry socks were a luxury we thought we’d never get. And then, the piece de resistance, the icing on the cake, one of the guys offered us chocolate. That’s right, chocolate. After 12 days in the bush, chocolate. The look on Slacker’s face was priceless. We went to bed very happy that night.
Day 13: Boulder Creek Camp, 10 km. We woke up to frost and below zero temperatures. It was bloody cold, and really hard to get moving. Charlene’s boots, though drier than they’d been the previous day thanks to the fire, were basically frozen solid. The sky, however, was clear and blue, which gave us hope that the day might not totally suck like the many that had come before it. After some cold cereal (which paled in comparison to the feast the men brought), we went on our way. That day I decided not to wear my rain pants. I should have. I was soaked in seconds, and since the soaking agent just happened to be ice crystals, I was freezing. Not since I moved from Alberta have my thighs been so cold. The guys had warned us the day before that the trail disappeared and basically turned into a stream, and they didn’t lie. At one point, it was no longer trail, but us hopping between high points in a marsh, trying to figure out where to go next. We did find the trail again. The mountains, I might add, looked particularly nice that day because of their pristine new coat of white snow. The hike wasn’t too bad after we got out of the marsh, though it did start to go uphill in a big way. Boulder creek campground was a little windy, but not too bad. We had the one dessert we brought that night-a freeze-dried concoction called cherry blast. It was really more like goopy pie filling. I thought it wasn’t too bad, but Jana and Slacker didn’t really like it. Today, I might also mention, was gorge day. By that I mean that all the food we’d been rationing the whole trip because we didn’t want to run out we could eat. So we basically gorged and ate everything there was to eat except what we knew we weren’t going to need the next day on the hike out. It was awesome.
Day 14: Home. 10 km. This was one of the days it didn’t rain on us the night before, and trust me when I say Jana was ecstatic she didn’t have to carry a wet tent up over Nigel pass. We had breakfast at lightning speed and away we went. I might also mention this was probably the only day I was actually ready to go before Jana. The trail up the pass was just that, up. Up in a big way. There was no pussy-footing about it, you had to get over the pass, so you hike straight up the really steep hill. But it was worth it. Even though there were clouds there was a nice view and I may have gotten a little picture happy at this point. After the pass it was pretty much downhill through meadows and bush to the end. There was a few km’s of trail where we could hear the highway and almost see cars, but we were going parallel to the road. It was very frustrating that we could hear the cars but we weren’t there yet. Slacker almost had a breakdown from hunger, but once she got her fruit-to-go out and had that she was better. And did we get some looks from the tourists when we waltzed out of the bush. I think they may have been able to smell us. Let’s just say the bridge over Panther Falls cleared off pretty quick once we got there. Then we managed to convince Dad to go back through Jasper, and we had Jasper Pizza and beer, and everything was good again. Ahh, sweet civilization…
And now for everyone’s favorite, the little tidbits I feel the need to elaborate on:
Breakfast. Jana and Slacker had come up with this fantastic idea of putting cereal in a Ziploc bag with a tablespoon of powdered milk for breakfast. That way, it was just add water and voila, breakfast. It was actually pretty good most days. I found the Lucky Charms a little too sweet, but Slacker happily traded me for her share of the granola cereal. This carried the added bonus of being a really quick breakfast with no need to set up the stove or even do any dishes. Just rinse off your spork and the Ziploc bag and away you go. It was brilliant, really.
Food. I was hungry almost the entire time we were out. My stomach was making noises I haven’t ever really heard before. Strange grumblings, and pretty much all the time, not just when I was actually hungry. I think it may have been all the Lipton’s Sidekicks we were eating. Which, with the exception of some rice and mashed potatoes, was pretty much all we ever ate for dinner. Near the end I was actually missing meat. Me. But the up side of that would be that I actually lost 9 lbs on that trip. Granted, at least 3 of those were water weight from dehydration, but that’s still 6 lbs of actual weight. So there’s your answer for quick weight loss-go hiking in the middle of nowhere. But it’s not like we didn’t bring much food. When we left, we had 3 10 litre drybags and one 20 litre and they were so full we were almost having trouble closing them. This also made the first few days of pulling the food up to the bear pole on that skinny rope Jana brought a little unnerving. It also took 2 people pulling on the rope to hoist everything up until about 4 days from the end, when Jana managed it by herself.
Jana the camping nazi. So I realized after a few days that while hiking, my sister gets a little annoying. And here’s why. When Jana wakes up for the day she jumps out of her sleeping bag, packs all her stuff and has everything out of the tent before I even have time to roll over. After a while she started to whine that I took too long in the mornings. But what’s the rush? We got to most camps before 3 in the afternoon, so it’s not like we were pressed for time. And I’m on vacation. I’m allowed to move slow. I need time to lie there and just be thankful I didn’t get eaten or otherwise violated by a bear in the middle of the night. Is that so wrong?
TP. At one point in the trip I realized if I kept going the way I was with my toilet paper, I was going to run out. We had each brought 2 full rolls with us, and we figured that would be plenty. It wasn’t. Near the end, I was down to using maybe 3 or 4 squares in the hopes that the last little bit left on my roll would make it to the last day. It didn’t. But luckily Slacker doesn’t use nearly as much TP with each visit to the privy as a Damgaard, and she had a sizeable amount on her roll the second last day when I actually ran out. So she was more than generous when she said I could borrow for the next day if I had to go. Never before have I needed to “ration” my toilet paper. It wasn’t a pleasant experience. And I don’t want to experience it again. Though it did make me very grateful for a while afterwards that every time I went to use the facilities I could use as much as I wanted.
So there it is, my 2 weeks in the bush, summarized as best I can.
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