Little lessons in the mistakes and rewards of my time on trail.

The Wrong Choice

I was full of confidence and a need to show you my Rocky Mountain playground, and you fresh from Ontario, still not fully recovered from a terrible ankle injury. It had snowed, so we knew to bring lots of layers on our 3-day mini-moon to an alpine hut. The fire road went easily enough, and we crossed the bridge and started ascending. The heavy wet snow bent all the branches down into a thousand arches across the trail and I went ahead, tapping them with my pole to knock the snow off and send them springing back upright. I felt like a wizard. The winter wonderland sparkled in the bright sun, dazzling our eyes.

By lunch we had made it up to the wide, flat lower Fryatt Valley. You were feeling tired, but I was not, and therefore I was confident that we would reach the hut in good time. You had always matched me step for step. To be sure, you had not been able to exercise as much as me because of your work, the wedding, and the slow rebuild after ankle surgery. And your boots were older and no longer able to keep your feet warm and dry in the snow. But I was more concerned with finding the trail, which had grown fainter and was now completely hidden under fresh snow. After hunting around in the trees for a bit, I decided we had better just go straight up the valley until we hit the next campground and pick up the trail there. We really couldn’t get lost as there were no turnings and we could see for miles around.

But it was hard going across country. The Fryatt River meandered back and forth across the valley, forcing us to climb up and down its banks a dozen times, while pushing through snow that sometimes reached our knees. My jaw ached from trying to chew the nearly frozen Cliff bars. It was late afternoon, and the sun was hidden behind a peak when we reached a lake. The sudden darkening, my frustrations with not having an easy trail to follow, and the dropping temperatures had begun to dampen my mood and I was now starting to appreciate the urgency of getting to the hut. We were not prepared to spend the night under the stars.

You were lagging, and I was getting a bit worried. I tried to spur you on to greater efforts, but in my own haste I slipped on a snow-covered rock and banged my knee. I was able to walk on, but I mentally noted that that could have been very bad.

We did find the trail at the end of the valley and it led to the headwall, the final challenge. The hut was just above us, about a kilometre further. In the twilight we found some flagging that led around the sheer rock face, but found that the wind had pushed a lot of snow up against this end of the valley. We fought our way up by headlamp, step by step, snow higher than our knees. It took the better part of an hour and now I was tired too. You must have been beyond exhausted.

It was fully dark, except for the bubble of our headlamps and the hard little stars above. We picked our way through a forest, still following the occasional bit of flagging, needing to find the hut, trying not to think about what would happen if we missed the hut in the darkness. But we came out in a clearing and there it was. The combination lock worked, a final great relief. There was frost in the still dark air inside and you were shaking uncontrollably. I laid out wood in the cast iron stove, but I hadn’t thought to bring paper. On a shelf I found some paperbacks and with frozen hands tore out a few pages. The fire took, and I dragged a mattress from the bunk beds right up to the stove while you put on dry clothes. We squeezed into the same sleeping bag in front of the fire and after a very long time you finally stopped shivering.

We made supper and the hut warmed up and all was well. We felt it was a great adventure, right at our limit! But looking back, I realize that I made a bad mistake and if just one thing had gone worse, we would have been in very serious trouble. I didn’t have an SOS device then. I didn’t have sufficient navigation ability. I didn’t realize how hard the last half of the trip would be. I didn’t realize how serious your condition was. The right choice was to turn around at lunch. Like so many wrong choices, I made it unconsciously, it never occurring to me that we were passing an invisible point of no return. You trusted me and luck got us through.

Path

We leaned against the storm at the top of the world, eyes watering, exhilarated. Below us there was a path and I was compelled to stare at it until I had traced it, now hiding behind a rise, now reappearing to curl around an emerald lake and finally vanishing into some stubby trees far in the distance.

“I love this,” I hollered to you, trying to be heard above the wind, gesturing at the view, not sure what I was trying to say, “the path!”

You nodded and we walked on, shoulders hunched, teeth set, the fury of the elements resonating in our chests. Again and again that day and in quiet moments at home I thought of that trail and felt a flutter of longing in my heart to trace it not just with my eyes but my feet.

The more I hike, the more I am urged to see what’s around the next bend and over that hill. To climb to a high place and see my way before me. To turn, heartfull, and share it with you. Though I can’t say it, you nod because you feel it too.

Love Tree

I don’t remember if there was something that made me cross with you or you cross with me. Probably it was just some miserable morning weather dampening our spirits. But we were not hiking, we were trudging, and every little thing was irritating as a mosquito at our ears.

I think it was I who called a halt to our weary climb and we sheltered under a big spruce tree. We ate a snack and drank some water and sat close together and felt warmer and easier and friendlier. And we remembered that we had done the same thing on our Fryatt hike, and that we called the tree that our newly-married selves sat under our love tree. This was a love tree also.

And we promised each other that on every hike, when things got tough, we would look for just such a tree and make ourselves take a break until we became a team again. We would keep that promise on backpacking trips and day trips, in Canada and in Spain and it always worked.

Love trees do not fix blisters or bad weather, but they stop us from receding into a lonely pain cave. Love trees allow us to once again be best friends braving an adventure together.

The Limit

Our hands shook as we passed the pot of food back and forth. We were soaked to the skin. Had been for hours. I had to yell, in pain and fury, to get myself through the last few willow fields, each branch slapping water through my rain gear, clutching at my pack, bruising my legs.

Our sleep clothes were still dry thank God. Our sleeping bags were dry enough but there was a dampness forced into our packs by the rain and the willows we had bashed through, and now the bottom of our tent had wet through.

After five days of the hardest hiking we’d ever done, we were now just a few kilometres from the Maligne River, a ford that I wasn’t sure we could do. I lay in the tent, tried not to let my sleeping bag touch the dripping tent walls, listened to the relentless rain on the fly, pictured the water of the river rising. Tomorrow morning we would see the river and try to cross and if we could not, we would have to turn around and walk all the way back through this hell in one very long day to be able to bail out to a highway.

We talked about our situation and we decided that regardless of the ford, we would not finish the last two days of the hike on the Skyline, our favourite trail. The weather was going to deteriorate further and we were losing our ability to stay warm and dry as the damp seeped into our packs and tent. And we were exhausted in body and spirit.

The next morning we stood in the rain and put on our soaking clothes, catching our breath from the cold shock of it. In an hour we reached the river. It was broad and powerful but didn’t look too deep. I didn’t let myself consider. I kept my pants and shoes and rain clothes on, as soaked as they’d ever be, and just went for it. It got over my knees near the far side and my feet started sliding, but just a couple more steps and I was out. Sabrina made it without drama but we were swarmed by mosquitoes while she put her boots back on and we hurried on before I even had time to feel relief that this great uncertainty, which had become heavier and heavier for the past week, was suddenly overcome.

We still had a brutal half day of willows and deadfall and mild hypothermia, but then we were out. We limped into a parking lot jammed with bundled up sight-seers, our teeth chattering, half mad from bugs and exhaustion, at our limit.

My 2 Brain Cells

While taking in the great pyramid that is Mount Assiniboine, I drank my second litre of water of the day and filled up a third for my walk to Og Lake. It was a gorgeous day just beginning to get hot. Grasshoppers clicked and willows, already turning red despite a summer that didn’t want to end, rustled dryly in the breeze.

It was early afternoon when I reached Og, just as a woman arrived from the other direction We both asked, “any water where you came from?” None of us were thrilled by what Og had to offer, but both our answers were, “no, not for a few hours.” On that day, Og Lake was opaque from concentrated rock flour. Its water level was clearly very low. A white bathtub ring several meters above the surface showed just how much had evaporated this summer.

I made my way down, trying not to disturb the mud at the edge. There was already enough silt in the water to slow down my filter. Insects wriggled in the mud at my feet. It smelled like a beach with the tide out. I collected a litre and climbed, panting, back up to the trail. This is a campground but there is no shade except from a sign and an outhouse. While resting, I looked at the tents baking on a rise above the lake and in the uncanny silence, had a sudden vision of all the campers lying dead in their tents.

I forced down some trail mix and dried mangoes, trying to keep up with my scheduled food but it’s hard to eat when it’s so hot. I pushed on. After about an hour I stopped to eat more trail mix and just as I washed it down with a big gulp of water, my stomach started to make some loud gurgling sounds and cramp. As I sat among boulders, a brain cell in my amygdala piped up.

“The water was bad.”

A neuron in my sizzled cortex objected.

“We filtered it.”

“We filtered out bacteria not any toxins the bacteria already made.”

“We’ve never heard of toxic alpine lakes here.”

“Never? What about selenium or something else?”

“Those aren’t acute poisons. We wouldn’t feel sick now.”

“Where were all the campers then? Dead in the tents. Lay down last night feeling unwell and never woke up. Will be starting to stink soon.”

“Pure fantasy.”

“With all the evaporation any toxins would be concentrated. Concentrated enough to be serious.”

“There are probably no toxins. I have to drink water. This is crazy.”

“You can make it to camp in a couple hours and get clean water there. Don’t risk it.”

I knew what my stupid amygdala was saying was vanishingly unlikely, and yet I had this premonition, this lizard-brain distrust of that lake water. It was irrational, but I just didn’t want to drink it.

I hiked on through a maze of boulders, stomach still clenched in knots. I was sweating, pulse pounding in my head. The afternoon wore on and I was tiring out. Every little rise and fall of the trail burned my legs and the miles were dragging by so much more slowly than I expected. I knew I should drink. Instead, I promised myself that I would drink a whole litre the instant I arrived.

I was fighting nausea by the time I finally reached the shallow creek at camp. As I had rehearsed in my mind, I immediately poured out my Og water, collected fresh water, squeezed it through my filter to rinse out the bottle, then filtered a litre and drank it on the spot. I had tremendous, blasting diarrhea within the hour, and I’m sure I was overheard by the whole camp but I felt much better.

I admitted to myself that what happened was I had mild heat exhaustion, which causes all the symptoms I had, and then made it dangerously worse by tricking myself into also getting dehydrated. No bodies were ever discovered at Og Lake.

A Good Habit

It was still hot, down by the river where I making supper. I had been at camp for a couple hours feeling proud after completing La Coulotte. It is a great feeling to have the anxiety and uncertainty of a big challenge behind you and the only thing left is to enjoy a couple easy days to finish this beautiful hike.

A man hailed me from the bridge and I looked up to see an older fellow with a thick branch for a walking stick and a big pack with pots tied to the outside. We exchanged where we had come from and where we were going. He wanted to know if there was any sign of bears ahead.

No, I said, but plenty of deer and deer sign. There was also plenty of horse plops and now I was hoping that I hadn’t mistaken some bear scat for that. The bush seems pretty thick up ahead if you’re going to be leaving the trail, I said.

He nodded. Probably not his first bushwhack if this was the kind of hike he liked. We chatted a little more and then he asked:

“Do you have everything that you need?”

“Oh yes. You?”

“Good as gravy!” And he gripped his staff and marched up the trail. As I ate my supper, I turned over the feeling he had left me with. This is how I should act to others.

I got my chance the next day. I had just slammed out some fast miles on a road and was looking forward to turning up into the forest soon when I saw a hiker lounging in the ditch, poking at his phone. Australian accent. He and some others had just finished Barnaby Ridge, which is the next level beyond La Coulotte, the hard thing I was so proud of doing. The others had gone on ahead but his knee was bothering him and he was thinking of hitching to the next town to let it recover. He wanted to hike the whole GDT this summer.

A little awkwardly, I cleared my throat, and asked, “do you have everything you need?”

“Yeah I’ll be alright.”

By mid-morning it was hot again. I was cruising along when I saw two more hikers sprawled in some shade. These were the others who had completed Barnaby. It had taken a toll on them too. They had no energy and thought their homemade dehydrated meals didn’t have enough sodium.

“I have some electrolyte tabs,” I offered.

They lit up. That was exactly what they needed. I saved a couple for myself but gave them the rest, embarrassed by their gratitude but delighted by the early success of my new habit. I thought of the line from Shakespeare, something about giving being twice blessed. It blesses him that gives and him that takes.

“I’ll be flying down the trail now,” said one of the crashed out hikers.

That evening at a front country campground I saw all 3 at a picnic table, talking and laughing. I was surprised the Australian had not hitchhiked. But they were young and youth is good medicine.

I am pleased to think that I have this good new habit, but now I realize that there is another side to the coin. I should also do the harder thing, and ask for help when I need it. It would be the same for me and my fellow hikers: twice blessed.