Well we’re stopped for a break at Boulder Campground.  It’s a nice little campground, its got picnic tables and fire pits.  Its got a bear pole with cables to hang up your food.  Its got outhouses and the tent spots are nice level soft kind of packed dirt spots.  Each has its own number.  Pretty fancy.  We’re about 3.5 km from the end of the day.    Looking forward to getting to camp make some nice supper.  But the day’s been just beautiful, the weather’s held so perfectly for us. Its actually hot out and the bugs are trying to bit but they’re not that bad.  A good day so far.

At the Boulder Campground, N 52 degrees 15.681 W 117 degrees 06.124 elevation 2012 m.

Four Point Campground,  N 52 degrees 16.834 W 117 degrees 04.640  elevation 1926 m.

We are at Four Point Campground.  It’s a nice little spot, pretty close to the Brazeau River.  And the valley’s nice and wide here.  Its beautiful.  The campground is in the trees.  We continue to have beautiful weather.  The campground is full tonight.  Lots of people to chat with.  We enjoyed our day VERY much.  It’s a very good start to our trip.  We’re really excited about going to Brazeau Lake tomorrow. 

We just crossed the Brazeau River and we’re at N 52 18.738 W117 02.341 1887 m

It Day 2, we’re having another beautiful day. The weather’s been just perfect, warm sunshine, with a few white clouds and a nice breeze to keep the bugs away.  We’re stopped now at Wolverine South campground, which is a beautiful spot, its7 got about 4 tenting sites.  Its right up above the Brazeau River which is just the most beautiful blue green colour running below.  And its fairly open this campground so that the breeze blows through it, keeps the bugs away.  There are some nice picnic tables again, some fire pits.  Oh, one fire pit is still smoldering here.  It’s a great day, we’re making some good time.  We’re doddling a little bit and enjoying the weather and the day and the scenery and enjoying the company.  So far its such a beautiful trip.  The valley that we’ve been walking up this morning is pretty open and we’ve been in the trees the first little bit and then we broke out in to willow meadows as we follow the river down towards Brazeau Lake and its been a pretty walk. 

Woverine Campground N 52 degrees 19.671 W 117 degrees 01.642 1872 m

Brazeau River Campground, N 52 degrees 23.614 W 1170 00.346 1739 m

Well we made it to Brazeau River Campground, and its not far from the river but its certainly not up to the Lake yet.  It’s a bit closed in and in the trees, not a bad campground.  There’s flat places and fire pits and lots of chopped fire wood which is kind of nice but I think we decided that we want to go for the money spot and head up to the Lake find a spot there at the campground there.  Hope we can find a really great spot and tomorrow should be only about 8.5 km  walking and we can do that in half a day so maybe if we find a really nice spot for tonight, we’ll hang out there all of  tomorrow morning as well and just enjoy the lake and the view and its been a pretty good day.  The mosquitos are crazy here though.  The last few kms have been through mostly trees and kind of undulating land but before that, it was nice and open and it was nice open views to the mountains around the valley.  So we’re about 2.5, maybe just 2 km to the campground and we’re very close to the junction with South Boundary Trail here so maybe one year we’ll come back and do South Boundary but for this year we’re going to head North, toward the Lake and find a nice place to sleep for tonight.  Its still early on in the day so lots of hours yet to walk, though we probably can cover that distance in one hour so we’ll saddle up here in a bit and do it.

Made it to Brazeau Lake campground in less than an hour.  The lake is beautiful but we’ve encountered a bit of a summer storm here, getting some rain.  Its still pretty warm outside though.  Hopefully it’ll blow over.  We are currently relaxing, our backs against a tree.  The kind with the big boughs that absorb a lot of the rain so we stay pretty dry and just waiting out the storm so we can get our camp set up.  We are the only people at this campsite and hopefully no more roll in but we’ll see, there’s probably some coming down from Jonas tonight.  So it’s a beautiful spot – a few picnic tables, firepits, and about seven campsites, all in the big trees but the picnic tables have a good view of the lake.  Hoping to see the lake after the weather clears up when its got some sunshine on it. 

At Brazeau Lake campground N 52 degrees 24.039 W117 degrees 02.129 1795 m

Well we woke up to another beautiful morning today.  Its Day 3, we’re waking up at Brazeau Lake.  We’re going to have a leisurely cup of coffee maybe two cups of coffee and some breakfast, hang around at the lake a bit.  Sky is mostly blue, its a little chilly this morning but nothing a hot cup of coffee and hot bowl of oatmeal won’t chase away.  Clothes on the line we did a bit of laundry last night, had a quick bath in the lake.  And when I say bath, I mean splashing water.  Washed some clothes, they’re almost dry and for now we’re sitting around the fire, there’s lots of great wood around here.  We’ve been having lots of nice warm cosy fires.  Got one going again this morning.  I was the last one up.  Had a bit of a sleep in, its good we’re relaxing, enjoying having good chats around the fire. 

We’ve had a good day of walking so far.  Walking up towards John John campground.  And its been a lot in the trees kind of as we left Brazeau Lake we climbed up above it on to sort of a wooded ridge.  Lots of up and down but through nice open forest, lots of lodgepole pine its really pretty Boy its brisk up here though and we’ve stopped for a break in the woods and then we crossed a bridge over what I assume is John John Creek. We’ve been heading fairly steady uphill.  We’ve come to a bit of a slide area.  The mountains are sort of narrowing together on each side of our path – it’s REALLY pretty.  There’s so many Indian Paintbrushes so nice and the creek below where we’ve stopped for our second break today.  We expect to be getting to camp after maybe another hour of walking.  Maybe not quite.  So probably wait and have lunch there.  It’s a pretty easy day today which is nice for  Day 3 which is typically one where people are more tired.  We passed over Brazeau Slide which is kind of neat. It’s a pretty big slide but not as big as the one that we crossed when we did the NBT between Chown and Adolphus.  Continues to be pretty, the weather is nice.  We did see a bit of a system it looked like coming up across Brazeau Lake.  When we looked up the lake it was misty at the end and we were catching a cold breeze from that direction so we figured maybe some rain was coming down the lake.  That’s kind of what happened yesterday afternoon when we stopped there at our camp.  It was raining.  The rain was blowing down the lake towards us.  It may just blow by.  It seems like we’ve tucked up inside this valley now and up John John Creek before any of that rain can hit.  So hopefully its missed us out completely.  We continue with mostly blue skies – beautiful day, beautiful hiking.

Well after a bunch more climbing, we find ourselves at John John camp.  Nice little camp, looks like four tent spots.  A couple of picnic tables, a couple of firepits, the luxuries we’ve come to expect out here, on this Park walk.  And the walk from the last break was mostly up hill.  But really nice through mostly open sub-alpine meadows.  Occasional stand of trees.  Now the campsite here is in a big stand of spruce trees.  Big peaks all around us with still snow hanging off the tops and I think behind us way up at the top is a glacier I think I can just see a little bit of it peaking over the edge there.  Very beautiful.  John John Creek is very big and full so tomorrow we’ll climb up and see what contributes to its fullness when we head over Poboktan Pass.  Very pretty spot. 

Its almost supper time at John John camp.  Boy you can still, you can sure feel the change in elevation in the temperature here.  Holy mole!  Its much cooler up here now that we’re up over 2,000 metres.  I put on my long underwear so we’ll see how that merino wool performs!  It’s a beautiful day, continuing on with our sunshine. Its windy and there’s a chill in that wind, I think it comes straight off the glacier.  There’s a few glaciers around us and patches of old snow not that high up above us.  So we’re starting to feel it, its going to be a little chillier tonight.  But we’ve got lots of clothes, lots of warm clothes.  Its nice and dry so no reason to have to be cold.  Hopefully, it’s a cozy night.

Morning at John John campground.  Another beautiful day.  Clear blue sky with not a cloud to be seen.  I think we must have been three very good people over this past year to deserve such good fortune here.  A beautiful day, we’ve been watching the sun slowly creep down the side of the hill.  Now its finally shining on our tents.  It was a chilly one last night, we woke up to frost on our tents, frost on a lot of the plants.  We were hoping it wasn’t going to get that cold up here but I guess that’s the price you pay for the clear skies.  We’d much rather have the clear blue skies and take the cold that comes with it then have any clouds or any threat of rain.  So we’re slowly milling around.  Going to make our ascent of Poboktan Pass.  Planning to leave camp probably by noon.  Just laze around by the fire a bit.  This campground has been such a great source of firewood.  We’ve really been enjoying it.  That helps too to keep the chill away.  Planning to take our time over Poboktan Pass.   We only have 8 km to do today but the campground that we’re going up to, Jonas Cutoff has a no campfire rule.  That will be our first night camping with no campfire.  It’s a bit of an experiment, we’ll see how that goes. 

John John Campground N 52 degrees 22.905 W 117 degrees 07.080 2,002 metres.  John John campground is about 20 metres away from John John Creek.  It’s kind of on the hillside. The tent pads are a little bit sloped, not bad though and it gets a nice morning sun at about 9:30 in August and allowed us to dry out all our gear.  Not that it got wet, it just got a little damp from the condensation and the frost last night.  Situated between two huge mountains, a very narrow valley looking up towards Jonas Shoulder.  A very pretty campsite but cool.  There’s glaciers on all the mountains around this campsite. 

We are hanging out in Poboktan Pass and it is absolutely beautiful!  The sun is shining, the sky is blue.  I can’t see a cloud for looking.  The path is wide open, a few little trees, its all alpine, beautiful flowers. We don’t…

We climbed up out of John John; did some switchback climbs up the side of a hill to get up in to the Pass.  Went through some forest and some pretty strong climbing there.  But after a couple km, we’re at the top.  Took us maybe half an hour and Duane barely broke a sweat on the whole climb.  Now we’re hanging, in the Pass.  Just relaxing, looking for animals.  Seeing some other hikers here and there, some new mountains on the horizon ahead of us. Getting some awesome views of the mountains behind us now that we’re up high.  Still hoping to spot some caribou.  We heard from some people who passed us a while back that there was a grizzly near Jonas Cutoff campground which is where we’re staying tonight.  We’ll have to be extra careful about our food and everything but hopefully we can, we’ll see one.

Poboktan Pass N 52 degrees 23.152 W 117 degrees 10.328 2,304 metres  Its sunny, its a nice pass, reminds me a little of Snake Indian Pass.  Glaciers on what, two, three sides and little patches of snow around and lots of those little marmots or something.  About ten inches long, real fat little guys.  Tails on them, look like a weasel, kind of. 

We’re right now laying in the sun on the side of a hill.  Just above the sign that says “Poboktan Pass 2,300 metres”.   And we spotted a group of caribou come over the ridge opposite, the opposite side of the pass.  There appears to be six of them.  We watched them run across the face of the hill on what looks to be a trail we can see from here.  Probably one of the trails that they use quite often to move around through this area.  And then they disappeared behind this small rise and we saw them come out again near a creek high up on the hillside.  They’re not close enough to make out very clearly.  But we can certainly see them when they move.  They are right now near a creek, having a drink and we’re hoping they’ll move closer.  What a sight though to see them come over the ridge, and be silhouetted against the bright blue sky in behind. 

Well we arrived at Jonas Cutoff Campsite around 3:30, 4:00 or so.  It’s a pretty little campsite right above a really clear running stream.  I wonder if its Jonas Creek, I’ll have to check on the map.  There’s eight campsites, of course a bathroom, which I’m assuming is going to be the Parks Canada green throne that we’ve seen everywhere.  Couple of spots are occupied.  We’ve taken a couple more.  There are nice picnic tables on a little flat spot overlooking the creek so that’s very pretty.  We’re looking down the valley towards Waterfalls campground, where we’re going tomorrow.  The Parks Canada sign has it at 8 km.  But I think its probably more like 10 km according to the guidebooks.  We’ll pull out the books and look again.  I think its 10.  Dustin Lynx has it at 10.1 km.  So we’re contemplating a little hike up the Jonas Shoulder.  Have a look over into the next valley.  Apparently, that’s very pretty.  We’ve got some time to kill here and of course, fires are not allowed at this site. So we need to find a way to kill the time between now and bedtime or supper time at least.  A nice hike for a couple hours would certainly do that.  We spent, back in Poboktan Pass about an hour at least, looking up, watching the hillside as the animals that we thought were caribou walked over the ridge and grazed and drank water from the stream, played and hopped around and some researchers came along.  We thought they were just other backpackers but when we told them that we were watching caribou, they said, “oh we’re researching caribou.” So they came and sat up with us and talked to us for quite a while.  They set up some equipment, they had binoculars but they couldn’t quite make out the animals with binoculars so they set up a monoscope which could see very far across the valley and determined that our caribou were actually sheep.  A little disappointing but it was still fun watching them.  A beautiful day spent up in the Pass.  It was a nice time up there.  The walk down was pretty uneventful.  It was pretty walk, by a stream to a pretty valley.  So now we’ll just spend the rest of the afternoon maybe hiking, maybe drinking some soup or relaxing by the creek. And we’ll probably hit the trail fairly early tomorrow morning because there’s no fire to sit around.  It should be interesting. 

Jonas Cutoff Campground N 52 degrees 23.703 W 117 degrees 12.429 2,125 m.  This campground is really nice.  Its kind of sandwiched in right beside a creek running down the left hand side.  Snow capped mountain off in the distance.  It reminds me for some reason of the place where we camped beside the river when we were going up Owen Creek at the top of Cataract Creek I think it was.  Its pretty but no fires allowed here and the bugs are bad – big huge horse flies.  Its really hot here though.  It feels like its got to be in the high twenties today. I wish I had a thermometer to know exactly how warm.

We’re at the top of Jonas Shoulder N 52 degrees 22.491 W 117 degrees 11.921 2509 m, I have, the sign says 2450 m.  Its about the prettiest thing we’ve ever seen up here.  Looking over the south side, you see a little meandering river going down through the sub-alpine, treeless area and the mountains facing the whole valley are full of glaciers.  Its just so pretty.  The other side has a long ridge, the top covered with snow, a couple glaciers, a ways down to the west.  To the east, the mountain that probably overlooks John John, and its all kind of an orangy, rusty red colour.  Its very pretty.  I hope the pictures turn out ok.

We’re just packing up and ready to leave Jonas Cutoff campground.  Its pretty much unanimous, we don’t like this campground.  The picnic tables are too far from the tenting sites and there’s no fires – I’m freezing! Its cold this morning, frost on the tent, frost on the ground.  We’re ready to get out of here.  The sun is finally peaking down and we are heading on to the trail.

We are about a km and a half, maybe two km now out of Jonas Cutoff Campground.  And we’ve come upon a horse camp, its called McCready Horse Camp.  This is a nice one!  They’ve got a big fire pit here, so a person could have fires, there’s a picnic table.  There’s a bunch of tent spots.  We’re wishing we would have stayed here last night because we could have had a fire.  There’s a bunch of firewood here too, its terrific!  Bunch of stumps to sit on around the fire, nice picnic table.  They have a corral for the horses, a bunch of stakes here to set up their big tents with.  Yah, this is a nice spot, there’s some leveled off tenting sites, a bathroom.  Its got everything that a regular Parks Canada campsite would have and its allowed to have a campfire.  Its got a nice little view down to the creek.  There’s a small creek running nearby.  Maybe next time we’re through here, if we were to do this again, we might walk the extra distance to this campsite and stay here instead.  Another thing that was annoying about the Jonas Cutoff was there was a BUNCH of people there!  Every tent spot was taken and people were tenting in spots where tents aren’t supposed to go.  There probably would have been no one here.  So now we know for next time. 

We’re at McCready Horse Camp. N 52 degrees, 24.264 W 117 degrees 13.500 elevation 2,092 meters.  Its really nice camp, kind of looks off on the range.    The horsy people have cut up kindling and logs cut up here.  Seems to be one large area that’s probably for a cook tent and then two large areas for their sleeping tents and then there’s about three areas sort of towards the last campground that are in the east that are unused.  Thing you most likely camp at, pitch a tent at. So, next time we’re through here we can have a fire here.  That would be a lot nicer and there wouldn’t be crowds and crowds of people so I really recommend that we stay here next time.

We’ve stopped for a break by the side of the trail. Its been mostly in the woods so far this morning with some clear views across the valley.  There’s a pretty little creek that meanders its way down the valley here that we seem to be following.  The trail’s been up and down a lot.  Its been pretty rocky and rooty with big mud pits.  It’s a little more technical walking than what we’ve been doing the last few days.  Keeps us on our toes.  We’re going to keep on heading down the path and see what else comes along. 

We’re at Waterfalls Campground.  N 52 degrees 26.790 W 117 degrees 18.145 1,918 meters.  It’s a really nice waterfall about probably 200 meters high.  Actually it’s a series of stepping waterfalls about 200 meters high, 150 maybe. Very, very pretty.  Sunny hot day.  The campground is well equipped with bear poles that have hooks already on them  so you don’t need to have a rope or anything with them.  Camping areas look pretty nice.  Its on a bit of a slope, kind of a dry terrain.  It looks very nice and we’re looking forward to our evening here.

We’re setting up at Waterfalls Campground.  It’s a pretty spot and there is, in fact, waterfalls coming down the hillside near here.  Beautiful view from the picnic area.  You can see right over to the waterfalls where they’re rushing.  Tent sites are not bad, fairly level.  We’re getting our tents set up, drying some stuff out. We had to leave this morning with some frost and some wetness in the gear.  So its nice to be able to spread things out and get dried off.  We built a bit of a fire at lunch.  Had some bagels and cheese.  The dry salami is SO GOOD on those bagels.  We brought all sorts of different kinds of cheeses, like right now we’re on the jalapeno jack.  We also have jack cheese with sun-dried tomatoes in it, we had havarti with garden vegetables, we had gouda with peppercorns – very good stuff!  But we’re finding that we’re eating a little more food than what we had planned for and food supplies are threatening to run short.  But that’s ok, I’m not getting any skinnier out here so if I had to cut back on the food consumption, it certainly wouldn’t kill me.  Also, we’ll be at Maligne Lake in five days.  So push comes to shove we can stretch it till then and just buy our final three days of supplies wholly at Maligne Lake.  We can eat pre-wrapped sandwiches three times a day.  No big deal.  So now we’re going to head further down the path.  We read in our guide book that there’s a bridge over a small tributary that feeds in to the creek that we overlook.  We’re going to head down there and probably get some water.  Its quite a hike down from here for water since we’re sort of up on a hill overlooking the waterfalls and the creek.  So we’re going to get water, we’re going to get washed up.  I’ve got the soap and the washcloth and the towel and some clean clothes to put on.  We’ll do some laundry, get some water, get some of those chores done and out of the way.  And then we’ll probably work on gathering up some firewood, get some nice water boiling.  I wish I had brought more tea.  I could really use some tea out here.  And it doesn’t need to be sweetened with Stevia or anything but tea would just be fantastic.  Maybe next year I’ll remember some tea for the evenings or afternoons.  Especially when we have lots of time in camp like this. 

We’re spending an enjoyable afternoon at Waterfalls Campground.  We did a little walk up the side of a tributary that also has waterfalls at the top of it so not only have we got the main waterfalls that the campground looks down on, and that you can see really well from the trail, but on the other side of this narrow valley, there are other waterfalls.  And that one’s quite a narrow creek that shoots down through cracks in the rock and forms deep pools.  Its pretty neat.  That was a nice little walk for us.  The weather has been good.  Its been hot and a little bit muggy actually.  And the flies are buzzing around.  We had a high sort of hazy cloud cover develop over us today.  But now looking down the valley to the direction that we’re going to go, there’s blue sky appearing.  And that’s in the direction the wind is coming from.  So I think we have clear skies blowing in .  Could be a beautiful evening again.  Looking down the valley I can see sort of a low point in the distance.  Oh, I think I see some smoke coming up there too.  I think that is Poboktan campground.  In fact, I’m pretty sure I see smoke.  There must be someone staying at Poboktan tonight.  And from there, its only 1 km on to the junction where you can walk out and follow Poboktan Creek down to the Warden Cabin there on Highway 93.  Beyond that, the trail angles up and seems to go up a fairly narrow valley from what I can tell from where I’m sitting here.  Then there’s quite a round wide mountain stuck at the end of that valley, so I’m wondering if Maligne Pass is to the right or the left of that.  I guess we’ll find out tomorrow when we head up to Avalanche Campground.  Tomorrow’s campground is going to be higher up again.  Its going to be above 2,000 meters.  So we’re in for another cold one tomorrow night.  But for tonight, we should have a nice warm evening.  Being lower down here, Duane said we’re at 1,918 meters, which is below 2,000.  So it should be a warm night.

Its morning at Waterfalls Campground, the start of Day 6 of our hiking adventure.  Another beautiful morning, blue skies all around.  The sun’s shining down on the waterfall.  Its gorgeous!  We’re just finishing up our packing.  Going to head out on the trail today.  We’re scheduled to do 11.4 km.  Hoping to hit lunch time around Poboktan Campground.  We’ll do another GPS reading there and describe the campground a bit.  We have to say after spending the night at this campground that it is one of the nicer ones.  It’s beautiful.  The view is unmatched.  The waterfall – the soothing noise of it coming down the hillside.  We’ve really enjoyed staying here and would strongly recommend it to anyone traveling in this area. 

Morning’s going real good. The trail is beautiful.  For the most part, its dry and hard and wide.  Its like walking on a path in the city.  So we’re enjoying a good morning. 

We arrived at Poboktan Campground, not too far down the trail.  Very excellent trail, continues to be in very good shape.  It’s a very nice campground beside a creek, which I assume is Poboktan Creek.  Its got a few tent spots, nice, in the tall trees, so fairly sheltered from the weather.  Two good fire pits, a couple of good picnic tables, a bunch of seating, all underneath tall trees, with a view of the creek and the mountains beyond, its quite pretty.  Looks like it would be a good place to spend the night.  So we’re going to have a long leisurely lunch here, we’ve got a fire going to drive away the bugs.  Maybe we’ll heat up some soup here.  We’re going to spend a couple of hours, just relax and enjoy the day.

Poboktan backcountry campground.  North 52 degrees, 28.074, West 117 degrees, 21.079.  1,767 meters.  Pretty campground.  Its got everything.  Tent pads a ways away from the cooking area.  Large open area with a creek running through.  Even a little bench beside the creek to sit in the evening. 

We’re at Maligne Junction.  North 52 degrees, 28.099, West 117 degrees, 21.979 elevation 1,774 meters.  From here its 6 km out to Sunwapta trail head.  Its 1 km back to the Poboktan campground, 5 km to Avalanche, where we’re going, 9 km to Maligne Pass, and back the way we came, there’s Poboktan Pass and Jonas Pass, which are labeled on this sign also. 

We’ve done a bit of a climb up from the Junction.  Parks Canada signs call it the Maligne Trail Junction.  That’s where you can walk out at the Sunwapta Warden Station, following Poboktan Creek down to the highway.  That would have been a 6 km walk out.  We turned up the hill, following Poligne Creek now.  Our trail is a little bit different, it’s a little more narrow, a little less well-traveled.  We met a couple people coming down the hill.  We don’t expect to see too many more people up here.  It looks like this trail is a lot less well-traveled than the one we were on this morning.  There are lots of beautiful clear water creeks running through the hills up here.  We’re looking forward to seeing what its like at Avalanche Campground.

We’ve stopped for a break at the side of the trail now.  We’ve done a whole bunch of up hill climbing and it looks like we’re probably in sub-alpine now.  The trees are smaller.  They grow nice and far apart.  It’s a beautiful path, flowers here and there along side it, following a really pretty creek, Poligne Creek.  Its nice and clear and sparkling.  And we’re probably getting pretty close to our camp by now but after the last hill climb, I just needed to stop for a break, get the pack off, get the feet on the ground.  Shrapnel. 

We arrived in Avalanche Camp probably between 2:30 and 3:00.  It was a tough hike up here from the Maligne Trail Junction.  Lots of uphill, lots of climbing, but we are up in the sub-alpine.  It’s a beautiful spot.  There’s meadows around us, the trees are a bit smaller, as is typical in the sub-alpine.  Actually, there’s still lots of firewood around here.  That’s fantastic.  Fires are allowed here so we’re enjoying some hot chocolate now.  There’s a ridge across the valley from us and a beautiful little brook, Poligne Creek again, runs through the valley.  We’re glad to be settled in here, it’s a nice spot.  Could get cold tonight.  But that’s alright.  The weather continues to be beautiful – blue sky, warm sunshine, with a nice cool breeze, just strong enough to take the bugs away most of the time.  So its very nice.  Couldn’t ask for better.  Couldn’t ask for a better hike or better weather.  The mileages and the distances are perfect.  I’m feeling pretty bagged after our hike today.  Even though it was only 11.5 km, all that uphill, it drags you down a bit.  Happy to be here.  This is such a great place.  What a beautiful spot.  The only thing that would make it better would be if Allan and Kyle were here to enjoy this too.  After the terrible weather we had last year, they deserve to be here doing this too.

Avalanche Campground.  North 52 degrees, 29.313 West 117 degrees, 24.530 elevation 2,050 meters.  Nice campsite, kind of on a hillside.  Lots of small sub-alpine trees around and some fairly large spruce trees, a creek runs about 5 meters down the bank beside the camp.  You can look north towards Maligne Pass.  And to the south, you see a mountain, I can’t remember what the name is. 

Quiet night at Avalanche Campground.  Its about 8:30 in the evening.  Dad has turned in already.  He had a rough sleep last night so he’s hoping to catch up tonight and feel a little better tomorrow.  A little more alive.  The sky continues nice and blue with some high sort of wispy, cirrus clouds.  And we’ve got some sort of white puffy clouds coming down the valley.  But they sort of seem to veer off when they get close to us.  They’re sort of traveling north to south but also they seem to go in a west to east direction as well.  So the weather’s still looking good.  Quiet night.  The mosquitoes are so bad at this camp!  Boy they’re aggressive!  So we put a big log on the fire here, we’re hoping to have it smolder all night so we can pick it up in the morning.  We’re hoping that will keep the animals away too.  Have a bit of smoldery smoke coming out all night long.  It’s a pretty interesting area.  There’s a fairly low ridge right across the creek from us that looks quite climbable.  And I bet it’s a heck of a view from there.  If we had more time and energy, we would probably go up it.  But we probably won’t end up doing that.  We’ll be walking out of here tomorrow to head up over Maligne Pass so hopefully, we get one more day of gorgeous weather to enjoy the pass.

Its 5 km to the top of the pass and 4 km down the other side to our next campsite.  It’s the morning of Day 7, another beautiful, glorious morning.  Blue skies, sunshine, it was warm last night. We slept really well and its going to be an exciting day.  Again, I think we’re SO LUCKY with this weather.  Its unbelievable!  We have another high mountain pass to explore and what’s shaping up to be a beautiful day to do it in.  So we’re going to make some coffee and relax and enjoy the morning.  And then take off to go climb that pass. 

Packing up here at Avalanche Camp and I wandered up into the bush a few feet behind the tents, looking for a place to go to the bathroom and there, not 10 feet away, stood a deer.  Just grazing in a patch of sunlight.  It was beautiful, absolutely breath-taking.  And I watched it for a while, standing there looking at us, grazing.  It wandered away a little bit and after a while, I went and got Dad and Duane.  Duane got a few pictures of it.  Then it wandered down into the fields here, where the campsite is.  And then on towards the creek, to get a drink of water.  Its just amazing, it wasn’t afraid of us at all.  It just kind of looked over at us, saw what we were doing, and carried on with its morning routine.  Very beautiful.  It’s a very special place up here. 

First break of the day.  Day number 7 I believe it is.  Climbing up the final bits of Maligne Pass.  I think we’re sitting in just the last straggling forest heading up into the alpine.  We’re looking down a steep ridge out across the valley that Duane described as a photographer’s dream!  We’ve got rocky steep peaks with patches of snow here and there, across the valley, fairly close, and then in the foreground, we’ve got beautiful lush green alpine with the occasional little scrubby tree here and there.  Patches of rocky bluffs and a nice little waterfall, to cap it off, coming down across the valley.  Its beautiful, the sun is hot, it’s a hot morning,.  I can’t believe how warm it is up here!  There’s still a nice breeze coming down the path.  So we’re going to head on over Maligne Pass probably through our next break.  And enjoy the sunshine and the day.  The sky is such a brilliant blue.  Its unbelievable.  I can’t get over this weather.  We must have been three very good people this past year to deserve such good fortune.

Maligne Pass break.  North 52 degrees, 29.791 West 117 degrees, 26.248, 2,180 meters. 

We arrived at the top of Maligne Pass after about 2 hours of walking from camp.  The trail up here was pretty good. At first it started out kind of mooshy, got kind of lost in bogs and swamps.  Well, not swamps but mushy areas.  But we climbed up above Poligne Creek and there was still a bit of a climb left to do.  But not as bad as yesterday.  At the top of the Pass here is the most beautiful little blue tarn.  Its colour is just amazing.  Its gorgeous.  Might be reflecting the perfect blue sky but its really lovely.  So we’re sitting here having a nice long break might eat some lunch at the top of the pass. Creeks flow in either direction from the lake.  The only thing missing up here is the Parks Canada sign, but we’ll take a GPS and find out the elevation. 

At the cairn at Maligne Pass and its North 52 degrees, 30.574, West 117 degrees 27.342 2,243 meters. 

Top of Maligne Pass, we had our lunch here.  Dad and I went for a quick jog up the side of the ridge here, had a look around.  There’s a bunch of other little lakes in this area that you can’t see from the top of the pass, but you can see when you gain a little height.  There’s particularly, a beautiful turquoise one just south of this sapphire blue lake and a couple more up alongside it in the hills there. It’s a beautiful valley.  We got a good view from up there of the river that we’re going to be following the next couple of days.  Looks really good.  Looks like its forested but it winds through some open meadows. Looking forward to a pleasant few days and some nice easy hiking.

Arrived at Mary Vaux Campground after a steep drop into the forest, out of the alpine, through a bunch of trees.  We are following now, the Maligne River, which winds its way through the valley bottom.  Its very pretty, it’s a nice little camp site. Its got a nice layout.  Its got two picnic tables and fireboxes, on one side of the trail and then its got the tent sites on the other side of the trail.  Everything’s in a fairly close general area.  Its got a bear pole pretty close, not like at Avalanche.  The bear pole was just miles away at Avalanche.  Now climbing my way up to the toilet.  Should be coming in sight at any minute now.  One thing we like about this campsite is the amount of wood around here that’s fallen and is ready to be burned.  Its incredible, its everywhere.  We’re going to have a great fire tonight.  We’ll be really cosy and warm.  The weather continues warm.  There’s been a lot more clouds now but still, when the sun is shining, its hot. 

I found the toilet.  Its at the top of a hill.  I don’t know why they always put them so far up.  Must be some environmental reason for that.  Or maybe they just think people want to sit and have a nice view.  I don’t know.  Today is the first day, I think, that we have not seen another person all day.  But I wonder if we’ll get some hikers coming through now.  I believe its Saturday today.  Makes it a weekend.  People might be out for a weekend hike in this area.  Who knows?  We’re not that far to Maligne Lake.  I think we’re around about 30 km.  So we might run into a few people cruising past here, maybe even a few who want to stay with us.  Although there don’t appear to be that many tent sites.  So we probably won’t get any people who want to share this spot with us tonight. 

We’re at Mary Vaux Campground.  North 52 degrees, 32.436 West 117 degrees, 28.862 elevation is 1,981 meters.  Looks like a real nice little, kind of wet weather campground.  Good shelter around the fire pit and the bear pole and a picnic table here.  You could probably sit in here in some drizzly rain and stay fairly dry.  The tenting areas look like they’re pretty good.  They look like they’re pretty flat and it doesn’t look like its very used though.  Some of the camping areas are fairly overgrown with weeds and stuff, it mustn’t get used very often.  But its pretty good, lots of firewood, if you want to build a big fire here.  And the creek’s right beside it, 5 meters away or less, for water.  Its kind of in the middle of a half clearing, with a stand of trees right around it, providing really good shelter.  Its right in between a couple of big mountains.  So it’s not a bad campground.

We are into our day at Mary Vaux Campground.  Spending the evening here, enjoying a nice camp fire.  Lots of mosquitoes around this area but it’s a beautiful little spot. The firewood is good, lots of it anyway.  We have a nice roaring fire.  We’re enjoying it.  We did get a little cloud cover come over us, just a little sprinkle of rain, not even enough to wet the grass and the plants around. Its continuing good weather, nice blue sky.  Probably get an early night sleep tonight and see what kind of weather we wake up to in the morning. 

Morning at Day 8 and the night was good.  It was nice and warm but we had some thunderstorms that dumped a bunch of rain on us overnight.  It was quite noisy in the tent when it was coming down and then we heard the thunder booming overhead.  It made us thankful for a cosy safe tent.  I was particularly happy that it chose to do that at night, rather than during the day while we’re walking on the trail.  But now the sun’s coming up.  Its crawling down the hill.  Hopefully, its going to hit the tents, dry up some of the rain.  We’re having a second cup of coffee this morning.  In no rush.  We don’t have too far to go today.  About 13 km, that’s about our average I think, for this trip.  It should be good trail, mostly downhill.  Probably be a little soggy this morning though.  I think the area that we’re going through is soggy anyway.  Oh no wait, that’s tomorrow’s.  The rain won’t make much difference to that type of terrain.  That’s the first real rain storm we’ve had and thankfully it was during the night and not during the day.  So we’re just kind of taking our time around camp this morning, enjoying the fire, which is burning in spite of the wet wood.  And we’re enjoying watching the sun come out.

We’re packing up here at Mary Vaux Campground and the sun has just come out so we’re taking advantage of that.  We put the fly out on a bush, spread it out to get some sunshine on it.  And there’s steam coming off of it like crazy!  Its incredible, you can see the water evaporating up off of the fly.  Its pretty neat, I think Duane is going to capture it on a photo.  I wouldn’t believe it if I didn’t see it for myself.  We had some water in the tent last night, a couple places where there were leaks.  We’re going to have to be a little more careful about setting up tonight.  For the most part, we were dry and warm last night.  That worked out well.  Wow, the steam coming off that fly is just crazy!  The mosquitoes are worse than ever.  So now the next question is whether to put on gaiters or not.  Looking down the valley, it looks like the sun is hitting a bunch of spots and its drying up.  You could probably find a few places in the shade where there’s still moisture in the grass beside the trail.  Maybe its worth skipping the gaiters.  I don’t know.  Don’t want to get the boots wet but at the same time, don’t want to put them on and get too hot. 

We’re stopped for our first break on Day number 8.  And weren’t we surprised to see the old horse camp which we were expecting to have to hike 7 km to get to according to the Dustin Lynx book.  It can’t have been more than about 2 or so km from Mary Vaux because we got to it within about a half hour, forty minutes of walking.  So now we’re wondering if the Parks Canada sign that was at Mary Vaux that said that it was only 9 km to Mary Schaffer was correct. If it was, we wonder how far it is from Schaffer to Trapper.  Because Dustin’s book says 13 km but I wonder what Parks Canada will say.  I wonder who will turn out to be right.  So we’ve been talking about some alternative day plans, possibly hiking to Trapper tonight if we find that it is as short as it appears to be.  One thing we could do is, we have Parks Canada’s phone number so we could call and see if anyone’s booked in Trapper tonight, if we decide to head there.  And then at Evelyn Creek the next night, if we decide to do that too.  If we pass over Mary Schaffer today, we’re going to have to spend two nights at another campground.  Which means messing up our reservations a bit but if we’ve got that flexibility, we might choose to do that and spend a couple of days at Maligne Lake instead of just one.  So we’ll see as the day progresses how the distances work out and where we decide to stop for the night.

We are now at Mary Schaeffer Campsite.  We’re thinking we’ve come about 11 km today.  It was longer than the 9 km that the Parks Canada sign said.  According to Duane’s GPS, even as the crow flies, we’re more than 9 km from Mary Vaux Campground.  Considering the winding of the trail, we had to have walked at least 10, probably 11 km.  We had been considering going on to Trapper as it wasn’t that far but the sign here says 14 km.  If that means that its at least 14 km, then that would just be too much.  In particular, I’m feeling pretty tired.  I need a rest, I need some food.  I am so hungry this morning, maybe I should be eating more breakfast.  I don’t know, maybe I’ll double up on breakfast tomorrow. That might hold me a little better.  Pretty tired.  Mosquitoes continue to be bad.  We saw two people today – a man and a lady hiking down the trail.  They had stayed here last night and were heading for Avalanche.  Man, that would be a heck of a big day.  I wouldn’t want to have to do that but maybe they’ll change their minds when they see how nice Mary Vaux is.  Anyhow, so our plans to head on to Trapper Creek tonight and possibly spend the day at Maligne Lake tomorrow are now done, we’re back on our original schedule which will see us to Maligne Lake the day after tomorrow. 

Mary Schaffer campground.  North 52 degrees 36.273 West 117 degrees 34.541 and the elevation is 1,799 meters.  Nice little campsite.  A couple of cliffs on the far side of the river.  The river kind of meanders right by the campsite and there is a big mountain behind us.  The campsite’s in a bit of a bend in the river.  Its nice, there’s a bunch of willows around.  Its pretty.  It’s a good campsite, better than last night I think. 

Bring more tea and coffee!  Bring two coffees per day, per person and one tea per day for Angela.  So that’s two coffees and one tea for every day and who cares, if you carry out extra bags of coffee!  They’re very light weight and small. 

The trail on Day 8 was good most of the time, probably about 80% of the time.  It was hard, dry trail with just a few roots but there were places where it was rocky and boggy and little creek rock-hops.  Places to maneuver, and just before you get to Mary Schaffer, you go across a long willow field, where the willows are all hanging over the trail and you have to just kind of slide your way through and then you come down to the river and walk right by the river.  Then on the other side of that clearing, is the Mary Schaffer campground.    

At Maligne Lodge, Ang and I need to buy three lunches each for the Skyline Trail, we also need some drinks.  So if there’s coffee packets, or hot chocolate packets, or tea packets, we could probably use some goodies.  Whatever, they’ve got, oh snacks, hiking snacks.  Maybe a Cliff bar type thing, a couple of those each and maybe some goodies.  Cookies or pastries for breakfast, and maybe some goodies, gummy bears.  I’m out of bear meat 

It’s a beautiful blue sky morning at Mary Schaffer Campground.  We’re packing our packs, getting ready to go.  We’re happy that the weather has held so well, it didn’t rain last night at all. The sun is shining but not quite on the camp yet.  Its going to take a while, I think, for the sun to reach down to our camp here.  The river’s beautiful and we’re going to head out.  Its chilly though, there’s a bit of frost down near the river.  We have about 14 km to walk today to Trapper Creek campground. 

Morning of Day 9.  9? 9.  The trail so far has been pretty good, a few little creeks to hop over.  Mostly through the forest, big trees, open forest, nice hard trail - kind of ups and downs.  We moved away from the river but now we can hear it again.  We’re on our first break. We figure we’ve come just over three km so far today.  So we’re expecting to see Maligne River bridge in about half an hour, forty minutes maybe.   

The trail winds through a nice open meadow near the river and then comes to a bridge.  The river is quite busy here – rushing and deep.  I certainly wouldn’t want to have to cross this without the bridge.  Good thing its here. 

We’ve arrived at Trapper Creek.  We’re pretty sure its Trapper Creek because the bridge is out.  And we’ve had to pick our way across here.  So that was a little bit of fun, excitement for the morning.  We are heading on now towards Trapper Creek Campground and we’re going to stop for lunch soon.

We’re stopped for lunch at the side of the trail.  The mosquitoes are CRAZY!  Buzzing all over the place.  We won’t linger here too long.  The trail has been pretty good.  Some ups and downs and we figure we’ve come 9 or 10 km.  So we’ve got maybe 4 or 5 km left, 5 maximum.  We figure probably just one more break and we’ll be able to go into camp. 

We are at Trapper Creek Campground.  We arrived here at 1:45.  After 4 hours on the trail today.  We’re joined by two other people from South Carolina from the U.S.  They’re on their way out, they just finished the Skyline.  We will hopefully be able to get some good information from them about the Skyline Trail.  The campsite is pretty nice, its kind of clustered along the trail, with tents at one end and a couple of picnic tables and the bear pole at the far end.  We did find a fire pit in the middle of the tents.  We’ve gone ahead and used that.  Its one of those metal fire pits with the grate that goes up and down but its sitting on top of a circle of rocks.  It’s a little bit different from what we’ve used in the past.  It’s a nice spot, lots of fire wood.  We’re going to enjoy our last fire tonight.  Duane has run on to Maligne Lake to get us some food.  There’s a huge feather right on the ground there, probably a raven, beautiful.  It was a good day today, I’ve been tired though.  I’ve been really tired this trip, especially the last few days.  I think I’ve burned out my ready supply of energy and now I’m trying to burn fat but its tiring.  Hard work!  Hopefully Duane is going to get back soon, he’s going to the Lodge to get us some pop chocolate and sandwiches for supper. Its going to taste so good.  Can’t wait until he gets back.  I’m all set up here.  Dad’s all set up, he’s getting firewood.  Its another beautiful day.  Blue sky, white puffy clouds again.  Clouds are a little thicker now, as if they’re trying to build into something.  We’ll take it as it comes like we always do.  Maybe we’ll get some rain tonight.  That’s fine, we’ve got some good shelter on these tent spots.  Lots of big spruce trees around. The kind that soaks up the water really quick.  Might get some rainfall.  It would probably dry up real quick in the morning.  Its looking good.  Our last day on this trail.  Tomorrow we hit civilization, briefly, then head up onto Skyline. 

Trapper Creek Campground is North 52 degrees, 41.401 West 117 degrees 37.440, elevation 1,725 metres Kind of a nice campground.  Nestled right into the firs trees and spruce trees About 5 meters up from Trapper Creek.  The trail is pretty good around here.  Its kind of patchy in places.  Lots of roots and stuff to step over.  Reminds me of the West Coast Trail a little bit, its kind of rain foresty in here.  It’s a pretty straightforward climb down to Maligne Lake.  I ran down there for some food and drinks and stuff this afternoon.  Its about 5 and a half km, 6 km.  You go over a couple of small ridges and then descend, descend, descend. 

Day 10 and we left Trapper Creek.  We had a nice hot bowl of oatmeal and some coffee.  We left around 9:15 and it was a quick jaunt back down the 5.7 or 5 km, depending on whether you believe Dustin Lynx or Parks Canada, back down to the road.  And now we are walking on paved road.  It seems a little alien – ducking cars.  We’re on our way for some real food at the cafeteria.  And we’re looking forward to that!

Stopped at Maligne Lake and had lunch with our friends from North Carolina that we met last night.  Exchanged e-mail addresses so we’ll be able to keep in touch.  And they’re planning to post their photos on a free website like Shutterfly or Snapfish  - so that’s pretty good.  The lake is really crowded but we’re enjoying the food and watching the people get on the boat, drive down the lake, come back, get off the boat.  There’s a bit of a light rain going on right now.  We’re hoping that’s going to go away soon.  We bought a whole bunch of stuff from the cafeteria to keep us on the Skyline – some sandwiches for lunch.  I found some apples and some cheese packages, those Babybell cheeses, I’m going to try those out, bought some water and Dr. Pepper, we even bought some Pepsi, Dad got some fruit and I got some breakfast pastries.  We’re going to eat well the next few days.  I’m really excited that we’re finally going to get up on the Skyline.  This is the third time we’ve reserved this trip.  I think we’re finally going to do it.  Hopefully this rain lets up soon and we’re able to get out and get it done. 

Walking back up the road to the trailhead for the Skyline.  Walking away from the Lodge with all the food and the goodies, but backpack’s full of goodies.  Its 2:00 in the afternoon as we’re heading up the Skyline Trail. 

We’re here at Evelyn Creek Campground.  Took us just over an hour, maybe an hour and a half to get up here.  Little bit of a haul, actually.  More than I thought it would be.  We met up with a little bit of a rain so we sat under some trees with our rain jackets on and waited it out.  Now the sun’s out again and the skies are looking clearer.  We are going to have some hot soup and relax a little bit, enjoy the campsite.  No fires here of course.  But its pretty nice, its got two picnic tables and the bear poles kind of down below.  Up the hill are four camping sites.  There’s one other couple here right now.  And that’s probably going to be it for the night.  The creek runs pretty close and the trail kind of switchbacks right through the campground.  It was a walk all through the forest to here.  The only views were of Loraine Lake and Mona Lake which were beautiful lakes, fairly big, and that nice blue-green colour.  We could see those from the trail as we walked past and make our way up through the forest.  Its been a nice day.  Kind of rained off and on.  But the people that are staying here said that they heard that the weather is supposed to clear up for the next few days.  So that’s encouraging.  We’re hoping the next two days will be good weather and then the next day, we’re walking out, so we don’t care.  Two days of good weather, if it could just hold out for that, then it will have been just a record trip.  Its already been such a memorable trip with amazing weather, amazing scenery – beautiful. And our stove is working, needed to take it apart.  Dad and Duane got it repaired.  And now its going – its good.

Evelyn Creek Campground.  North 52 degrees, 44.096 West 117 degrees 42.232 1,827 meters elevation.  It’s a nice campground on the side of a hill.  Nice flat camping areas.  Not very many, I think five.  Five camping spots.  Have to really reserve ahead on the this, they say two or three months ahead.  Its pretty nice.  It hasn’t got much of a view and its in the trees.  The one bad thing is you’re not allowed a fire here.  And the mosquitoes are somewhat bad being we’re that close to the creek.  You gotta fight the mosquitoes. 

For future reference, in packing fuel, we figure in this larger bottle, which holds 650 ml, we can get about 15, maybe 17, burns. 

Its morning of Day 11.  On the Skyline Trail now at Evelyn Creek Campground.  And we’re cooking up some coffee and breakfast here.  The sky seems overcast, completely across.  But the sun isn’t up yet so we’re hoping that when the sun comes up, it will burn off a bunch of this.  There’s some morning fog as well which is down in the valley towards the lake.  It was a fairly warm night.  We slept well, there’s no frost here.  Today we climb and climb and climb.  We only cover 7.7 km today.  We’ve got all day to do it so we’re really going to take our time and enjoy it.  Hopefully the skies open up a bit and we get some blue and some nice clear views.

We’re leaving Evelyn Creek Campground. Its 9:00.  Its still pretty chilly, we have toques and gloves on.  Duane’s hiking in his fleece.  I’ve got my long sleeve wool sweater on.  We’re starting our switchbacks on what promises to be a long day of climbing – the first of two. 

We stopped for our first break this morning of the 11th day.  It continues to be a little bit chilly.  We still have fairly low cloud cover, kind of hangs across the valley here.  We’re hoping to break up out of it or have the sun burn it off.  Its probably about 10:00 and its still kind of cold.  The trail’s very good. Its been climbing all the way from Evelyn Creek on some fairly gradual switchbacks, which makes it easier.  We’re going to continue on. 

At about 20 minutes past 10, we come to Little Shovel Campground.  Which means we’ve come a distance of about 3.5 km and our Parks Canada sign says we have about 5 km to go to get to Snowbowl. This is a nice camp area with three picnic tables, the usual bear pole.  Its got tent pads higher up.  Its still down in the trees, there’s lots of big trees around.  Its pretty.

Looks like there’s about 8 tent pads at this camp site.  Four of them are up high, kind of perched on a hill.  We can actually see Maligne Lake in the valley below, I believe it is, unless my eyes deceive me.  No, you can see Maligne Lake from up here.  Its way the heck down there.  We’ve done a lot of climbing the last couple days.  You can also see out across the valley, and if it wasn’t for the low clouds, you  could probably get a really good view of the mountains across the way.  Really pretty, boy, I would stay here next time instead of down at Evelyn Creek.  Its really nice.

Little Shovel Campground – North 52 degrees 44.154, West 117 degrees, 43.917, 2,057 metres.

Standing on what appears to be the top of Little Shovel Pass.  Its is 5 minutes to 12 o’clock.  So we’ve been on the trail for about 3 hours.  We’ve done a lot of climbing even though it was pretty gentle coming up, we’ve climbed a long ways this morning.  The trail has been nicely, gently sloped.  Little Shovel Pass is really neat.  It’s a more narrow pass, it doesn’t have the big flat valley in the middle.  Its got lots of undulating hills, lots of scrubby trees here and there, and we got some good pictures of some hoary marmots.  They’re hardly afraid of people at all.  They just sit by the side of the trail there and watch you go by.  So Dad got some good shots of them.  It continues to be overcast, although it seems to be lifting.  It’s a little bit brighter and seems possibly to be breaking up ahead of us.  So that’s encouraging.  We met a Parks employee on the trail.  He was checking permits and made sure to check ours. He told us that he has no hesitation in kicking off people who do not have the proper permits.  He was a pretty interesting guy.  We stood and chatted with him for quite a while.  He gave us some good information so that was good.  We also learned that the warden that we met on the NBT, Phil Minton, is now on the Brazeau Loop.  And had he been around the day we went through there, we probably would have seen him.  So that was interesting too.

We have descended down a short ways from the actual Little Shovel Pass.  Which is signed, it was just around the corner from the last place we were at.  It shows an elevation of 2,200 meters and Duane is getting a GPS reading there.  So now we’re sitting in the scrubby alpine, looking out across what I’m guessing is the Snow Bowl, because its kind of bowled in on three sides.  Looks like we’ll probably hike out to the right.  But I think our campground is somewhere down there.  You can see a creek coming down the mountains.  Its quite high peaks across the way.  Surrounding the Snow Bowl.  Some of them have last year’s snow on them.  A couple of big cols and we’re going to try and spot some caribou maybe, some mountain sheep or goats or even a grizzly bear or two wouldn’t be bad.  So we’re going to have our lunch here now. 

Little Shovel Pass North 52 degrees, 44.213 West 117 degrees, 45.858 2,228 meters.

After a beautiful walk down Little Shovel Pass, into the dished out valley, we crossed the creek, followed it a little ways and went through some gorgeous alpine meadows.  Just inside the tree-line is the Snow Bowl Campground.  It’s a nice spot, well protected with lots of big trees.  And a couple of picnic tables, there’s about 8 spots here.  So plenty of room and two or three picnic tables.  I saw two, there might be three.  A couple of bear poles.  Its quite spread out though.  The green throne is way far away from the first of these tent spots, which I think we will choose because the ones that are furthest from the toilet, are closest to the picnic tables.  Which is what we like.  The spots are better here, they’re built up and flattened out and mounded up.  Trenched around the outside.  They look like they would throw off water if it were to fall, which hopefully it won’t.  But today has been pretty misty with some low cloud hanging in most of the time.  The tops of most of the mountains around here, all but the lowest, are covered in clouds so views are pretty limited but what we can see is gorgeous.  Pretty excited to be here.  It’s a lot warmer down here than it was up on the Pass.  I was a little nervous up there that I might be too cold.  But down here, its much warmer.  Feels good.  

Snowbowl Campground is North 52 degrees, 44.839 west 117 degrees, 46.680 elevation 2,082 meters. 

Here at Snowbowl Campground.  Its not quite supper time yet.  We’ve been spending the afternoon here.  We walked down to the creek to get some water.  It was a fair distance away, the creek that we ended up going to.  There were other little trickles of creek here but you can tell that usually there’s a better water source at this camp when the water is higher.  That warden that we met earlier, Greg Horne, he said that this is the driest he has ever seen this trail.  Obviously, the water supplies are at their lowest as well.  So we ended up walking across a meadow and down a little gully to get to a big creek that had a lot of water in it.   We’ve got little patches of blue sky here and there but there’s still a lot of cloud.  Still a lot of low cloud clinging to the mountain tops around the valley here.  Its pretty cold.  Its pretty cold here. I’ve got long johns and I’ve got my pants and t-shirt that I usually hike in, and I’ve got a wool sweater, and then I’ve got a fleece jacket and then I’ve got a rain jacket on.  And I’m still a little chilly.  But that’s ok.  I’ll warm up when I’m having supper.  After I get some more food in.  Supper tonight is Mountain Chili.  That’s one of my favourites from AlpineAire.  Its actually a vegetarian chili made with textured vegetable protein. It’s a good one.  I’m looking forward to tomorrow.  Tomorrow is our biggest day of the whole trip so that means we’ll be occupied all day with hiking.  We’ve got, I think its, 19 km to do.  And part of that time we’re climbing up over the Notch, which could be a really fun challenge.  I’m expecting it to be kind of like the highest pass on the GDT where Dad put the Bargen’s Pass sign last year.  I think its going to be like that, just pure rock with no plants at all  and a straight grind right up the hillside.  Although this one will probably have a nice carved trail with switchbacks.  I still expect the terrain to be fairly similar.  Its almost as high as that one, its only 10 meters lower.  I’m hoping its going to warm up.  Every once in a while, a chilly breeze will come up and that just cools it right off around here.  The mosquitoes are definitely not as bad as they were last night.  I’m able to survive quite nicely without a mosquito net on.  But there’s still quite a few of them and they buzz around and buzz in your ears and they’re pretty annoying.  Gonna have supper soon. Then we’ll probably hit the tents early because its cold and there’s mosquitoes.  If we had a fire to sit around, it would be quite pleasant but unfortunately, no fires on this Skyline Trail.  So best to just go sit in the tent and play cards or something. 

It’s the morning of Day 12 and we’ve got some high overcast clouds which we are hoping will burn off with the sunshine when it rises this morning.  It’s a little bit chilly out and there had been some frost on the tent last night in the middle of the night when I woke up but its melted now.  We’re warmer than zero for sure.  We are making breakfast and then we’re going to get ready and hit the road.  Its an exciting day.  We’re going to see some great stuff today.  Lets hope the weather cooperates and it could be absolutely fantastic.  It’s the last day of our trip and the biggest day of our trip. 

I am standing by the outdoor privy, waiting for Duane.  The one at this camp is a little bit out in the open.  Its nice to have two people go so one can stand and let other people know that you’re on it before they walk up to the point where they can see you. The view from here is of Little Shovel Pass which we went over yesterday.  Today we get to Big Shovel Pass which should be really cool. We did a little walk after supper yesterday down the path where we’re going to be heading today. I think we saw the trail heading out across the meadows there up towards what appears to be Big Shovel Pass.  We’ll have it confirmed probably in a few hours.  And then we are planning to head down to Curator Campground to check it out and look at the horse outfitters cabin.  That could be some really interesting future possibilities where we could come up on horseback with the kids and do some day-hiking or some horseback rides in this area. Then stay in that cabin at night.  We’re going to go check it out and see how it looks. What a treat that would be!  Someone else to do your cooking and take care of  you   Sleep indoors. I’m sure the boys would really enjoy that.  I’m pretty excited about finding out more about that possibility.  And then we’re going to probably have lunch around that area.  After lunch, we’ll head up over the Notch.  The scenery after that is supposed to be some of the best of the entire trail.  That’s exciting too. So we’re looking forward to a great day.  I just hope the weather holds, or improves. 

After our first hour on the trail of day 12, we have wound our way through beautiful alpine meadows with flowers and small trees.  We’ve been hoping over little creeks that come down from the mountains.  And we are making our way up towards Big Shovel Pass.  There’s been ups and downs on the trail but probably more ups, as we gently climb up towards Big Shovel Pass.