It’s 4am and my alarm goes off inside the cabin at Kawka lake.
I haven’t slept well even though I went to bed around 8pm. A porcupine was gnawing on the cabin steps throughout the night, a sound that reverberates through the floor or the cabin and defeats my earplugs. The beginning of the dawn twilight is beautiful over Kakwa lake as I eat some breakfast and pack my gear. Yesterday, the caretakers of the warden cabin, ? and ? I learnt that Kakwa means ‘porcupine’ as well as about the birds and the surrounding peaks. It’s so beautiful and comfortable here I half consider hiking around Kakwa for a week, too intimidated to start. If I hadn’t told anyone what I was doing I might have..
The nerves evaporated as I step outside, and take a video of me setting off. In what will become the norm for the GDT, within 300m of starting I cross a river, this one is 20m wide and just over my knees in the middle. Straight through an onwards! The morning is clear and crisp, I’m in awe of the golden sun on the mountains – heck yes! This is what I had been thinking about, dreaming about, planning and working towards for over a year. The stress melts away as I smile “I’m on the trail!”
I haven’t gone 5km and I’m off route. The terrain is indistinct rolling meadows with waist to chest high alders or willows, and the route – not yet a trail – is little more than an animal path that is easy to lose. I’m the wrong side of a creek, with a small hill between me and the trail. I quickly realise that trying to angle back towards the trail is inefficient – instead I need to take the most direct way back to intersect, which unfortunately means pushing through some thick willows. I’ll get a lot better at realising I might be off course in over the next few days, pulling out my GPS sooner in order to stay closer to the recommended route.
After a few creek crossings I’m looking for a trail fork to head up to Wapiti mountain on the Surprise Pass alternate. Despite the near perfect conditions it’s a struggle to commit to extra elevation and harder travel so early in the day. When I was planning I included nearly all the major alpine alternates, which on the GDT usually means a longer, off-trail section with much more elevation that the main route. At other times these difficult alternates replace a section of forestry road that isn’t that exciting. The main route in front of me today though is reasonable trail past the beautiful Cecilia lake. I mull the choice in my mind and realize I haven’t seen that trail fork yet. I’ve missed it! Now the temptation to continue is even greater, such is the pressure for fast kms on the first day of my FKT attempt. With a deep breath I turn around, eyes glued to the GPS on my phone for the next 500m as I find the correct drainage to follow up Wapiti – there is no ‘trail’. The drainage narrows and gets steeper, grass and moss gives way to boulders and scree. It’s steep and I’m breathing heavily. Once I’m above treeline I pause to catch my breath, and turn around I feel totally vindicated in my choice. The scene is incredible! Snow capped peaks in the morning sun, wide meadows, hanging glaciers in the distance. As I push on the slope eases but rolls away from me in a seemingly endless false summit. I’m up in the alpine for the next 10km, with no trail all the way to Surprise Pass. I don’t worry too much about keeping exactly on the GPS, instead look for the easiest path through the moraine. I mostly keep off the snow as the sun is strong, hot and the reflection is blinding, even with sunglasses on. I get a bit confused with the GPS track close to the pass, and realise on the other side that I was the wrong side of the final ridge and actually went through a gap just west off the one I was meant to take. It makes for a slightly steeper descent, but I’m soon back on trail again. I regroup by taking a quick dip in the ice cold river, sweet relief from the heat.
The rest of the day passes without too much incident. I love the Sheep Valley and it’s flat fast travel, but then curse the thick vegetation in the Casket valley. The passes are incredible, abound with wildflowers and waterfalls. I try to pick a pace that I can maintain but have to keep stopping to cool off in the streams, constantly soaking my shirt and hat so as not to overheat. Not once in my planning did I think about the fact that heading SOBO I would be walking towards the sun all day every day! I do so much better in the cool.
“Today was the hardest and most rewarding day. First part was like the Rockwall, Iceline and Molar Pass. Then lots of willow bushwhacking. Body feels good, muscles are tired. bugs are intense. Love you dearly!! Xxx” – InReach message to my wife, Megan on day 1 of my trip.
It’s about 7pm and I’ve made it to Morkill Pass campsite. I look at my watch and see I’ve been on the move for 13 hours 47 minutes, covering 57.4km and 2,216m from Kakwa Lake. In front of me there is a fire pit, an aged horse corral and a flat spot for my tent. I begin a routine that will become a ritual over the next three weeks. First, down a protein shake as taking in protein and carbs within 20 minutes of finishing exercise is ideal for muscle recovery. Next, I need to wash. I head to the river and strip off, washing my shoes and socks thoroughly as any dirt in them could cause blisters tomorrow. After a dip and a scrub I dress in my rain jacket and pants, not for the rain but for the bugs! Mosquitos crowd every inch of exposed skin and I decided bug spray wasn’t worth the weight, something I’d rectify in Jasper even though by then I’d endured the worst of it. With no camp shoes, I ease my bare wet feet back into my wet shoes with the insoles taken out and shuffle back to my gear. Now for dinner. It’s a simple affair as I don’t have a stove. Instead, a few kms before camp I added water to my dehydrated meal – Irish Shepherd’s pie which packs a hearty 800 calories for a 100g serve. I pour on lashings of olive oil and some crushed up Pringles to sneak in yet more calories. Lying with my feet in the air I wolf it down whilst swatting mosquitoes and soaking in an immense feeling of accomplishment and reflecting on the day. I’m glad I didn’t know at this point that each of the next three days would be more challenging than this one. Then again, the scale we have to judge difficulty is based on what we’ve done previously. There is a space between the hardest thing we’ve done, and our ultimate limit which this scale can’t describe. Despite preparing for over a year mentally and physically, Section G+F would push me into this space near constantly for the four and a half days it took me to cover them, completely resetting my scale and expanding the ultimate limit of what is possible for me.
I’m conscious of the time as I want to get the most rest possible, so I force myself to move. I do some stretches and get my cork massage ball into any sore muscles – hips, calves and hamstrings are always on the agenda. I find my tobacco pouch and walk a little way to a tree that stands out to me on the edge of the campsite. Taking a pinch I kneel down, placing the tobacco on the earth beneath the tree as I had been shown and go through everything I’m grateful for – the incredible views, my legs for getting me here, even the bugs and the bushes. Expressing gratitude helps ground me, reminding me to be thankful of this experience, no matter how hard it feels at any moment. I do this every morning and evening of my trip, which helps me experience and then let go of my emotions from the day, and start hiking without any demons from the previous day’s hardship.
Finally I set up my shelter (a Dan Durston X-mid 1p) and try to slip inside without letting any bugs in, an impossible task. Now to take care of my feet – I check for blisters, popping any I find with a sterilized safety pin, then I coat them in Aquaphor – a thick balm that stops them from drying out and cracking. Thankfully I have no blisters yet, but after a couple of weeks this will take me 45 minutes every night. It’s still light outside as I set my alarm to 4am and lay my head on my stuff sack full of spare clothes.
20 minutes later, I’m still wide awake – I’m burning up and sweating so I throw off my down quilt and strip off my base layer. After a while I start to shiver, yet I’m still really warm. I lay there confused as my whole body shudders, shivering from the cold, whilst at the same time I’m sweating from internal heat. This goes on for about an hour and a half.
My mind races as negative thoughts fight to take control – Am I sick? Is this a fever? If this is day one, how can I possibly do this? How can I keep going? I’ll later realise it’s probably just the day’s accumulated inflammation leaving my body. I’m not able to take anti-inflammatories like Advil because I have Crohn’s disease, so to combat the inflammation I started stopping a couple of times a day and sitting in cold rivers, using them as ice baths, which helped a lot.
My mind races as negative thoughts fight to take control – Am I sick? Is this a fever? If this is day one, how can I possibly do this? How can I keep going?
Just see what happens. Worry about it only if it becomes a problem.
You’re an idiot and you’re never going to make it. You should give up and hike back to Kakwa.
If you need to take extra breaks tomorrow, that’s what you’ll do. Right now is not the time to make a decision.
If you can’t sleep, how will you possibly hike tomorrow?
Rest is nearly as good as sleep.
Eventually my temperature stabilizes enough that I can sleep. An hour later and my hips are so tight that the pain wakes me up. I begin a cycle of sleeping for about an hour, waking, stretching and massaging my hips until I can find a position comfortable enough to fall back asleep. I figure I managed just over 4 hours of sleep in total before my alarm signals for me to start moving again.