Wilderness ...

Well, I am back into the land of flush toilets, climate controlled rooms, cars, beds, cleanliness and oh so much more.

To tune people in, I just finished a 4-day, 45km trek into the depths of Willmore Wilderness Park. It was a trip that was unforgettable.

It started on Friday. We all met at Matthew Penners (from here on out referred to as Penner) at 12:30'ish. We all completed our last minute packing, and made sure we didn't miss anything. We then piled into Matthew Chute (here on referred to as Chute). The fourth person on this trip was Jeff.

So that was the crew, by 1:30pm we were on the road on our way to Willmore. For those of you who don't know where Willmore is, it is a provincial park that boarders the northern edge of Jasper National Park.

It was about 6:00pm by the time that we reached the trail head, we changed into our hiking clothes and hit the trail. The plan was to hike in about 9 km to the Seep Creek campsite, but like most of the time with Penner and Chute, things rarely go as planned.

So, we ended up hiking in, and we crossed the river and had a nice little dinner break and then decided that we should stop burning daylight and we continued onwards.

As our plan went we pulled out our headlamps and continued our hike in the dark. Somehow we managed to miss the Seep Creek campsite (at 7.5km in), and we continued hiking and hiking.

Now to take a break from the play by play, hiking in the dark, while being quite interesting is:
a) A ton of work!
b) Really cool to be working with just a headlamp, and
c) Even cooler when walking by just moonlight.

Now, in all of this enjoyment we missed the 2nd campsite (Forty-one Mile Creek, 2.5 km past Seep Creek), and at this point we felt as though it had to be about 1:15am'ish, and we were exhausted; so we decided that whatever the next campsite we would be, we would camp. Luckly 1.5km later we came across a little gem, called Carson Creek. Once we arrived we found out that it was actually only 11:00pm.

So, we set up our first camp in the dark. Now, there are some experiences that are an absolute blast when camping, like making fires, but setting up your first camp in the dark is not one of those situations. By the grace of God none of us sprained our ankles or get hurt during the setup of our first camp.

Now for those of you who have hiked in the Alberta parks (namely Jasper and Banff) you know that when you do back country camping you are almost never allowed to have campfires. If this would have been the case on our trip to Willmore I think we would have frozen to death, but for some reason this park allows campfires, and the fire warning was at green so we were good to go!

As we set up the camp we also scrounged up some wood and made a nice little fire to warm ourselves up with. Thankfully in the planning of this trip we had enough fuel to start fires with a bit of fuel, as all of the wood was quite damp.

Eventually, after we had warmed ourselves with hot beverages, beer (in the case of Penner and Jeff who had each carried 3 beers a piece on this trip) and of course just a good ole fashioned huddling around the fire we bed ourselves down for the night.

It was hard to get to sleep at first, but after who knows how long of shivvering in my sleeping bag and piling on the layers I finally managed to eek out some shut eye.

The beginning of day 2 for me was filled with so many aches and pains. The last time I remembered feeling like this was after I had my first football practice of the season (and had not done enough physical activity for the summer). Now, since we had hiked into this site in the dark we didn't realize that we would wake up to our first spectacular view of the mountains. This view defiantly helped compensate for the aches and pains I was feeling.

Since we had missed the Seep creek campsite se decided it would be a good idea to look at the maps and figure out exactly where we were headed, so we pulled out the maps and found out that we had a fairly significant decision to make; would we camp in the pass, in the grove or by the lake. Since I know how this story ends I will let you know that we picked the wrong choice - the pass.

In the initial planning of this trip we were going to camp in the pass and then do a ridge walk and hike out a bit on the 3rd day, and on the 4th day we were going to of course hike out. As we chatted Penner really really wanted to spend at least one night by the lake, but as we continued to talk we figured that we should stick with our origional plan which was to camp inside the mountain pass.

The morning was fairly uneventful. We met a few people on the trail (one guy who said he had done over 100 trips to Willmore, and who was motoring way faster than us) which was met with mixed reviews. On the one hand it was nice to know that there were others around, but on the other hand it was also nice to be away from people.

As the morning came to a close we had our morning snack at a nice little ranger cabin (minus the rangers) and everyone seemed to be in good spirits; all of our aches and pains were now totally gone, the packs seemed to fit a bit better, and we thought that we were going to have our camp set up with plenty of time to relax. We were sadly mistaken.

When I mentioned the grove, that was where we ended up doing lunch. It was a nice little oasis that we found. It was this grove of trees that was elevated in this pasture. As we sat there, chatted, and enjoyed our lunch we figured that we should get a move on because we still weren't at our destination, so we packed up and continued down the trail.

As we kept hiking we started into the Eagles Nest pass, and hiked towards the peak we were still intending on climbing up to. We passed a little campsite, that to me looked great as I was getting tired, but the other guys didn't like it nearly as much as the grove. So with that we kept on going ...

By this point of the day I was starting to really feel exhausted, but I kept trying to push on. A few times Penner asked me if I wanted him to carry my pack, but I was too proud and I wouldn't let him. Finally though I broke down and gave up my pack. We had probably hiked about 3 or 4 km from the grove, and I was sucking wind bad!

Of the whole trip this is probably one of the few parts I will remember in the years to come. Although it was wonderful to see mountains that few people in the world will ever see in real life or in pictures, nothing compared to this.

I have been struggling in my mind recently about life with God, and if that is what I really wanted, and all I could think about after Penner took my pack was that this was what God wanted to do for me. He wanted to take my load and carry it, and that I can't carry my load by myself.

Back to the trip. So after about 500m to 1000m of being pack-free I finally re-shouldered my load and we kept walking in the pass. By this point we were right under Cathedral Peak, and it was awe inspiring, and it was also nerve racking as it was getting dark and there were no good campsites in view that had any type of water source. After hiking for about a kilometer more we decided that we needed to find a spot soon or turn back (the sky was also starting to turn an unpleasant shade of blueish grey). So we got to a meadow that could have turned into a makeshift camp, but still had no water source. At this Matt and Matt ran ahead and when they reported back that there was no water ahead, and that it dropped off a lot.

We all agreed that we should head back out of the pass. By this time my feet were starting to really hurt! I could feel blisters forming on both of my feet, but we needed to just get back to camp so that we didn't have to set too much of the camp up in the dark. On our way out of the pass we actually met two hunters (who were on horseback) and we had a nice little talk with them. They were actually hunting Mountain Sheep, but hadn't bagged anything that day. As we were talking to them it started to rain, so we decided it was time to keep going.

It was another kilometer or so and we were at the grove that we had stopped for lunch at and started to make camp. Right as soon as we got there I dropped my pack and took off my boots. I found out that I had received a blister on my left heel, my left big toe, the ball of my right foot and one under the nail of my big right toe. So I slapped on my sandals for the rest of the night to try and let them repair themselves.

By this time almost all of our camel packs were dry, so Matt and Matt went down to the river to get some water while Jeff and I attempted to set up the camp. We managed to almost get the camp setup before it was dark, but we did have to scrounge for damp wood via headlamp. But for starting the fire, it didn't matter.

A previous camper was nice enough to leave a can of kerosene that was partially full which was a wonderful fire starter for us. We sat down and ate our first set of dehydrated meals by the light of the fire, and relaxed and chatted for a while and turned in for another day.

That night I had a really hard time sleeping. Maybe it was because my feet were rubbing against my sleeping bag. Maybe it was the fact I just wasn't used to being in a sleeping bag, and maybe it was because it rained a few times that woke me up. But for whatever reason I survived and manged to eek out enough rest for the third day.

We started our day with some bannock and oatmeal, packed up our tents, and then decided what our plan was for the day. Since my feet were destroyed we decided to hike out to Carson Creek and camp there instead of doing a short hike into the pass again. So we took a few last looks onto the pass and started to hike on out.We posed for the picture in front of the range and kept on going. Everything seemed to be going by so much quicker as we were now going down more than we were going up.

This day was filled with a bit more company on the trail, something that we had not wanted. We first ran into some outfitters, who turned out to be quite afraid of me and my yellow shirt and walking poles. So that was interesting to say the least.

After that encounter we had a new friend, a dog, who followed us for a few hundred meters, which was a very encounter. We don't know who the dog belonged to, if it was the outfitter who had passed us, or the two men who we met next (we think it was the outfitters).

These two men have to be the most awkward people we met on this trip. They seemed to be quite curious about if the rangers had been around and who else was in the vicinity. They also happened to be the bearers of bad news. They told us that the outfitters that had passed us had their camp set up in the Carson Creek campground.

When we heard this we were quite sad, but we kept on hiking and praying that these guys were wrong, and that there would be some room for us there. We were sadly mistaken.

When we got there Penner took a look in and it was full up, they had brought in wagons and everything, so we decided we would keep hiking until we found a decent campsite. It was the Forty-Mile Creek Campsite.

It turned out to be a great site! Matt climbed up a tree and made an amazing tree hang for our food. It had a good supply of precut wood, and the best part about it was that no one else was there!

We continued to set up the camp and we realized that this was the first time in the trip that we were actually setting up the camp while it was daylight, all the other times it had been night. We were proud of ourselves for this.

This camp was between the trail and the river, and it was down about 20 or 30 meters of elevation, so it meant that if there were people on the trail they wouldn't stop by and say hi or anything, so we succeeded in finding another secluded location.

During out time we only had one complaint of this campsite ... the wind. We decided that if we every come back to this campsite that we would have to construct some sort of a windscreen.

Since we had some time before we wanted to have supper I decided to make a treat - bannock grilled cheese. I made two patties of bannock, and between them I put some cheese and some pepperoni sticks. Of everything I ate on the whole trip I think it was one of the tastiest, and the other guys would agree (at least thats what they said).

We even got our camp set up so early that we had time to eat our supper in the dusk light. It was at this time that we also found out that we may have overlooked something, our fuel supply. For this trip we had brought two stoves, each with only one canister of gas. We had used Matt's stove primarily for heating water, and mine for making bannock. In doing this we had not managed our fuel well, but we managed to just eek out enough fuel for everything.

So that night we sat down, played a few rounds of President-Janitor (or whatever name you want to call it), made some runes around the fire pit, and just relaxed and enjoyed the mountain air.

We went to sleep - bundeled up again - and had a decent night sleep. It was very very very cold, but we still managed to get enough sleep. In the morning when we took our tents apart, our tent poles had actually frozen!

It was hard to get out of bed, but Matt and Matt made a fire, and so I got out of bed and warmed up by the fire, and then started with the morning tasks. We made our oatmeal and tea and then started to pack everything up. We managed to hit the trail nice and early (by our approximation about 10ish), and we wanted to get back for 6:oo'ish. So that meant we needed to be in the car by about 2:00. We took one last look back at Forty-Mile and we started our way out.

We knew that we would have a river crossing that we would have to cross at about the halfway point of our day, and the closer we got the more and more Penner wanted to build a bridge to cross the river, instead of taking off our boots. So they hiked and hobbled and we got to the river. Between the four of us (mostly them however) we moved a piece of driftwood - pretty much a whole tree - and put it into the river to act as a bridge. Jeff was brave enough to go across the bridge with Penner, but Chute and myself decided to just peel off our socks and slip on our sandals to cross the river. I had actually been looking forward to this part of the trip for a whole day because of the pain that my feet were in.

After we crossed the river, Chute and I dried our feet, and we all had a snack. We were origionally going to have a lunch there, but we thought it would be best to just power through the last leg of the trip.

Of course by this time I was tired and my feet were killing me, and I was continually falling behind, but we kept in going. We took our nice little detour and kept on pushing forward.

Now our minds are wonderful little things, and I had forgotten how much downhill we had had on the first day. During our final last huge hill I was reminded by a little saying I had heard on The Big Bang Theory. "Gravity, thou art a heartless bitch".

As I was climbing this hill that was what was going through my mind. I had also been thinking about something else though. I felt like I was carrying my burden to the foot of the cross. I couldn't shake from my mind that this was what it would have been like for Christ to carry our burdens up to the top of "The Skull". Each step was painful. Each step tired me out the little bit more. But each step also got me closer to where I wanted to be.

The path was rocky and treacherous, but I managed to push through it and get to the top of that hill. From here it felt like it was all downhill. It was great.

We got to the trail head and I just dropped my pack. I felt like I couldn't move. Jeff and Penner had beers waiting in the car which they cracked to celibrate the end of this adventure.

When I look back at it I can't believe I actually completed this hike. 45km, 3.5 days, 3 great guys. It was a recipie for success. It didn't turn out how we had planned it, but it was a blast nonetheless.