North Boundary Trail: Day 3

Day 3 was a long day, running through lots of forests, but for some reason I was excited. I was pretty sure I would make it to Adolphus campsite which is not too far away from Mt Robson. And Mt Robson would be crawling with people, so it was possible that I may see some folks today. It was after all, 3 whole days without seeing or talking to anyone and I think I was excited to have human contact again.

I passed lots of beautiful lakes and crossed lots of old avalanche slopes full of cow parsnip and tall willow bushes, so I was making lots of noise, especially later in the day.

Chown Creek was particularly beautiful. And just before getting to Adolphus, I turned a corner and there stood Mt Robson like the majestic mountain it is. Highest in the Canadian Rockies and oh so beautiful! I never did see anyone - Adolphus was yet another deserted campsite but that's okay, I didn't mind being alone.

North Boundary Trail: Day 2

After a fairly good night's sleep and a hot breakfast, I started out for another adventurous day. I was starting to gain some elevation today and the trail was a little harder to run on; or maybe my legs were just tired!

My favourite part of the day was crossing Snake Indian Pass. It's just gorgeous up there.

I was tempted to camp up on the Pass as it felt beautiful to be in an open meadow with gorgeous mountains to look at but I fancied having a fire at night so decided to head to Byng Campground which happened to have a huge stock of dry firewood. I got in late afternoon and enjoyed having a few hours of hot sun to dry out all my sweaty clothes and I even took a small bath in the creek that ran next to the camp (no soap of course!) What a great day.

North Boundary Trail: Day One

For this year's fastpacking adventure, I chose the North Boundary Trail which is close to 200 km in length, starts east of Jasper and runs west, popping out at the back of Mt Robson. I'd spent the Saturday running the Brazeau Loop (82 km) with Steve, Mike & Leslie so I spent Sunday in Jasper getting the final details of my trip organized and resting my legs. Parks Canada confirmed that no-one else was on the trail which is what I expected; it's a pretty remote place to wander and takes most people 10-12 days to backpack so isn't so popular these days. Which is a shame, as it's a beautiful location and is well signed.

After a good night's sleep at the Athabasca Hotel, I got dropped off at Celestine Lake Road by Mr Taxi and started to yell and holler my way on an old fire road so that I could access the trail. This area is prime black bear territory so I made lots of noise, especially as there was a lot of fresh bear scat on the trail. Snake Indian Falls was a little ways off the trail so I ducked down to take a look. The mist coming off felt nice seeing as it was turning out to be another hot day.

As I made my way to Willow Creek, I spent a bit of time in the horse camp as it was such a beautiful place. I opened the registry book that I found mounted on one of the trees and saw that a couple of wardens had travelled through this area 4 days before me to do some trail maintenance. I kept thinking that I might bump into them somewhere, but it wasn't to be. I was having a great time and found the running easy enough on my legs that I ended up doing 62 km but called it a day once I reached Blue Creek camp. I ended up setting up my tent in the horse camp as the creek crossing was way too dangerous to get to the hikers camp.

Skyline Trail: a double serving

I had an awesome weekend. I boogied up to Jasper on Thursday night so that I could run the Skyline Trail back to back. This is one of Jasper's classic backpacking trips and one of my favourites. It's a 45 km mellow run so it's easy enough to do in a day. Logistically, it's a bit challenging as it's a point to point trail. However, to keep things simple I figured that I would run it in one direction on the Friday and then run it back in the other direction on Saturday.

It's surprising how different it looks when you run it in the opposite direction, but one thing's for sure; it's a beautiful trail regardless of which end you start.

There was still quite a bit of snow up there but hopefully with some hot weather, it'll soon disappear. This was my first trip into the alpine this summer so I was jazzed to be out there. Summer is late this year so we're all itching to get things rolling and this was a great start!

Glacier Lake

Another good weekend of sunshine last week so we headed off to Glacier Lake which is located in one of my all-time favourite areas - the Icefields Parkway (regarded as one of the most scenic highways in the world for good reason).

I've never run into Glacier Lake before so it was a nice treat to do some exploring. It's known as a good early season trail as it dries out fairly early in June compared to everything else that is still snow bound.

Exshaw Ridge

It was hard to believe that we were suppose to have hot, sunny weather this weekend as it had rained all week and was suppose to continue raining again on Monday. Having 2 sunny faces sandwiched in between the grey clouds on the weather forecast looked nothing more than a tease. However, they got it right! 2 days of super hot, super sunny weather, all happening on the weekend - how sweet is that!

Not wanting to miss a minute of being outside, Steve and myself decided to go exploring somewhere new so headed off to the hamlet of Exshaw which is down the road from Banff. Exshaw is known for its cement factories but if you head up the valley, you leave all that yukky stuff behind and head into some beautiful mountain scenery. Getting up onto Exshaw Ridge is a bit of a grunt, but the views are well worth it. And once on top, there's an adventurous ridge run across, before pounding your way back down into the valley. My quads felt pretty tender afterwards and were squealing as badly as my sunburnt shoulders!

BLACKFOOT ULTRA: race report

Seeing as I had a speedy recovery from running Miwok, I decided to sign up for the Blackfoot Ultra. I've got fond memories of this race as this is where I did my very first 50 km 3 years ago! Up until that point, I had only run a 21 km race so wasn't too sure how I'd get on but it turned out to be the perfect day and I got to the finishing line without any problems and a huge smile on my face! I then went back the year later to run the 80 km in preparation for the Canadian Death Race and had another good race. So this time, it made sense to sign up for the 100 km. I'm not a big fan of doing laps but I figured that running 4 x 25 km laps would be good mental training for me.

I like the 5 am starts but after 20 minutes of running, the skies opened and the rain started. This went on all day and turned into sleet and finally into snow. Parts of the course were incredibly muddy; I don't think I've ever seen so much mud before and, even though it was fun to be slipping n' sliding my way through it all, it was also freezing cold to wade through.

I knew that there would be some rain during the day so I had packed lots of different layering options in my drop bag and was able to change into dry clothes during the day. It was unbelievable that some people were still running in shorts, some without hats or gloves. Needless to say, there were a few folks pulled off the course due to hypothermia.

Before coming into the 50 km mark, I did consider dropping as my glutes were getting very stiff and, as this was a training run, I was a little concerned that I'd injure myself which would be a bummer at this time of year. So, I ended up hunkering down in the main shelter for a while with the idea of calling it quits but then decided to get back out there after the race director murmured words of encouragement in my ear. And of course, this meant that I was then in it for the long haul! Due to the amount of time I'd lost hanging out in the shelter, I had to start pushing myself to keep up a decent enough pace not to end up missing the cut-off time (that would have been hilarious!) but it all worked out well in the end. Running through the slippery mud was slow and tedious, especially on the uphills but I got to the finishing line with a smile on my face and no injuries. Mission accomplished! A huge thank you to RD, Gary, and all the volunteers. I can't imagine how cold/wet they must have been and yet they were still happy and smiley, cooking up hot soup at every aid station and giving out lots of encouragement. They were amazing!