36 Days Solo Thru-Hiking the Rocky Mountains | Full Documentary

hey friends justin here this is crazy i've made it after a year of planning i'm at the start of the wildest and most remote thru hike in north america the great dubai trail the trail starts at the canadian u.s border you can see down this is the cut line for the border it's 1100 kilometers heading north from the border through the canadian rockies and i plan on doing the trip in 37 days i'm gonna have some lunch go jump off that dock and then we'll start hiking the trail and i'll tell you what we can expect over the next 37 days this trip has been a long time in the making it was one year ago that i asked my boss and work if i could take the time off to come hike the great dubai trail and since then i've been getting my gear dialed in planning the trip and doing lots of training if you're interested in any of how i'm doing that whether it's my gear list or my food list or what i did to train for the great dubai trail i'll have links to a playlist with all that information in the video description but the pre-trip stuff was actually quite an adventure in itself you don't see that from a lot of other through hikers they kind of just start the trail and then they're just going and it's exciting and happy and everything like that but i don't know why it was a little bit different for me maybe it's the same for everyone else but the last week has been super emotional for me it's hit me a few different times where also i was like holy crap i'm hiking the great divide trail i started getting anxious kind of doubting myself i'd start preemptively missing my life and my girlfriend and it was just really really tough the the last week here and then even today starting the trail i was super excited but my girlfriend dropped me off and that was super emotional as well luckily the first little bit of the trail is an outback so you go six kilometers down to the border where the trail starts and you hike six kilometers back to waterton town site so that's we're going to be staying tonight so i was able to kind of wrap my head around this whole thing get kind of right with the experience and i got my emotions out and and that's okay it was it was a lot even right now i'm just starting to starting to feel a little bit so i guess i didn't get it all out but i'm really excited for this trip there's a ton of stuff to be excited about a little bit to be worried about as well as was evident by the last week and i'm going to be sharing that with you guys taking you along the adventure having daily videos for you so you can follow along and see what the great divide trail is all about one of the things you might have already noticed with the trail is that it is beautiful we're gonna see some of the most beautiful places in the world i live right next door to the great divide trail and i've been able to hike some of the spots on the trail and let me tell you you're in for a treat put your arms around me baby put your arms around me baby cause i just want to fly hey oh wildlife are gonna be a really big thing on this trail as well we're in grizzly country the entire way i'll show you guys as we go along the trail kind of what i'm doing or to mitigate that but number one strategy is avoidance because i do not want to encounter an angry grizzly and we have some scat right here so they're hanging out in this area they're eating and it's sometimes really hard to see them with all these tall bushes so we'll be calling out and singing every single day and i wasn't exaggerating when i said that the great divide trail is the wildest trail in north america it starts off on a pretty cruisy outback trail but it very quickly gets really gnarly day three has been described to me by some pretty experienced hikers as one of the hardest days of hiking that they've ever done and later on the trail i have multiple 40 kilometer days and i've never hiked 40 kilometers before so hopefully the training that i've done will pay off at that point and i hopefully will have my trail legs as well and most of the trail is not cruisy like this there's lots of creek crossings there's mountains summits ridge walks and parts of trail where there's just no trail it's just a route that you're following and hope that you end up and find a trail down the road but i'm really excited for those harder days that's one of the reasons i'm doing this trail is i want to challenge myself i want to push my limits and i want to take on the great divide trail you may have noticed that there are a lot of burned trees in the area we're hiking right now and that's because there's a big forest fire in this area back in 2017. we'll see a lot more evidence of that tomorrow but fire is gonna be a big factor on my through hika the great divide trail you may have noticed that everything's a little bit hazy and that's because there's smoke blowing over into this area from british columbia and most of british columbia seems to be on fire right now and that's making everything east of it very smoky and while there's no fires along the great divide trail right now that's always a potential i might have to get off trail if an area is on fire or go around it but the issue right now is that that smoke is irritating to the eyes can make breathing difficult luckily it's not too bad right now and fingers crossed we get some rain soon day one and things are already not going as planned i ran into a mother and her son who were hiking out from a backcountry campground that's along the lake about three kilometers from the town site where i was gonna camp and they said i could have their campsite for the night and i think i'm gonna do it it only adds three extra kilometers to tomorrow and tomorrow wasn't gonna be a super difficult day anyways and i get this beautiful campground it's random camping so i'm not gonna be camping in the middle of a bunch of rvs like i probably would at the town site and it's a beautiful beautiful spot so something not going as planned this time was okay but i'm ready for the other things that happen because it's definitely happening over the next 37 days i think that was a pretty good first day i was able to ease into things get my legs underneath me had my first thing go not to plan but in a good way we'll see what tomorrow brings i think the theme of the day is gonna be bears like i mentioned we're gonna be hiking through a burned forest which is awesome bear habitat there's berries everywhere in the burned area around here as well the campground that i'm going to be staying at has apparently had a bear that isn't scared of humans and knows how to open up bear lockers hanging around so that should be interesting the gear of the day for today we're going to do this every single day was the hoka honeone speed goat four shoes i love these shoes super comfortable and i'm excited to take them on the rest of the trail i'm gonna sign off for today and we'll see you guys tomorrow good morning everybody had a really good sleep it got super windy last night and rained a little bit as well but my ultiplex tent held up great it is really windy i haven't had the tent out in this much wind before so it's going to be a good test tonight the nice thing is that there's no flapping or any sort of loud noise coming from the tent so i should be able to still get a really good sleep i woke up feeling super excited for today and for the rest of the trail really my energy is full reserves right now and i think part of that is due to things kind of not going as planned with my campsite yesterday being able to get this awesome campsite here at bertha bay be able to have this beautiful beach to come down to and just relax for the afternoon and just kind of get my mind right was really really good and had a great sleep i honestly just slept like a baby i can have breakfast here down by the beach enjoy this sunrise and for breakfast we're having homemade oatmeal and there's some dried fruit in here already but i'm gonna show you something else i'm gonna add into it just to make it a little bit better it's berry season right now and right here we have a whole bunch of saskatoon berries and there's gonna be berries all over the trail today especially today because we're going through a burned area and bird areas are notorious for shrubs coming up and those being berry bushes and the kind of thing that comes with that is bears so i think i said yesterday the theme for today is gonna be bears and i'm gonna stand by that fresh look at all those berries in there too so i just met someone else hiking the great divide trail the first person on the trail so far so shout out to frank frank's 70 years old and hiking section a talking to frank kind of put a pep in my step we were talking about the trail and some of the tough parts in section a and he's not worried he's just excited and about to have some fun and yeah definitely uh was nice to chat with him oh hey buddy huh you got all your friends here um i'm gonna need to just go down this trail here so if you guys could just keep on keep on trekking thank you hey you bye this is where i would have been camping last night if i'd come back to the town site i think i walked out you know the camp at bertha bay that's for sure coming out of town getting some pretty steep elevation right off the bat following this creek and canyon here very beautiful i think overall on the great divide trail i'm going to be hiking around 120 000 feet of elevation so good to start off the the main trail out of town with some elevation game another thing with burns other than the bears is that you're often very exposed to the sun but kind of lucky there's no sun today it actually just started raining a little bit here hopefully just as a nice little drizzle just to cool me off it's a little bit warm but something that i didn't really think about with the burn is it does open up some pretty nice views through the trees [Music] we're out of the burn for a little bit you might be thinking awesome no more bears or you might be thinking this actually looks like a great place for a bear to ambush you and i'm actually not too worried about this i like to put myself into the shoes of the bear and think to myself all right if i wanted to eat would i come here where i have to work a little bit harder or would i go to the burns where there's tons of berries and roots and i don't have to work as hard to get a really good meal having an understanding of bear habitat and how bears kind of think i guess is i think one of the best skills you can develop if you're going to be traveling in bear country my favorite resource is the book bear attack so if you're going to be heading into bear country i recommend reading that hi-ho hi-ho it's off to work we go hi ho ho hi hello so many berries yummy but no bears right here so that's good it's been a lot of elevation it's kind of kicking my butt makes me a little bit worried for tomorrow because tomorrow is going to be a lot more elevation we're getting close to the highest elevation of the day pretty excited for that because this elevation is definitely giving it to me it's been raining off and on all day but luckily hasn't been thunderstorming and hopefully nothing rolls in as i summit the peak up here that brings me to the gear of the day and that's this sun hoodie by outdoor research i've been rained on all day walking through really wet shrubbery and this shirt has gone wet dried off gotten wet dried off and been comfortable the entire time and tomorrow's supposed to be sunny and i'm going to be ridge walking pretty much the entire day so this sun hoodie is going to be really good for that as well looks like i'm heading down this ridge to the top of this peak right here made it to the top of carthus summit came from over there it's all downhill from here so i just had my first youtube call out on trail ran into lisa who lives just outside waterton is hiking with with a little group and and a cute little puppy so that was really cool just stopping and chatting and uh yeah just talking about some gear and hiking and it was really neat so nice to meet you lisa and everyone that you're with and hopefully i meet some more of you out on trail i don't know if you guys can see that mountain up behind me there but tomorrow it's gonna be a tough day i have to basically go straight up that mountain in order to gain the ridge made it to camp for the night that was a harder day than i thought it was gonna be tons of elevation gain but some beautiful views that was that was a very beautiful hike in not a ton of wildlife i just chatted to somebody who was at the campground here and they said they haven't seen a bear at this campground this is the campground that had the bear that could open up bear lockers which is crazy but i guess it's kind of moved on i'm pretty beat and have a big day tomorrow so i'm gonna get camp set up eat dinner and then hit the hay good morning guys getting started with the day nice and early because we've got three interesting days ahead of us here starting with having to basically follow this cut line this is the border between alberta on this side and then british columbia on this side we're going to follow this cut line straight up that mountain you can actually kind of see in the distance there but it's going to be a slog 700 meters of essentially straight uphill and then we're going gonna be following ridges for the next three days straight and there's a few different things that come with ridge walking first one sun exposure and today looks like it's gonna be a super sunny day the second one is that there's no water basically from here until i hit the campground so i'm having to haul as much water as possible and even then that's probably not going to be enough at camp i drank two liters of water there and then i am carrying three liters of water so hopefully that kind of gets me through the day the other thing is thunderstorms the forecast is looking pretty good today but you never know in the rocky mountains a thunderstorm could roll in at any time and it's really tough to bail off the mountain if i bail off of here then that's going to add probably a day onto my trip which isn't great because i have all my permits booked and i'm locked into a bit of a schedule i don't know how i forgot this but one of the best parts about ridge walks and why i'm doing this is that you get some pretty epic views up there that might not look super steep on video but it is steep it's basically a double black diamond or steeper if you're a skier it's 400 meters of elevation gain over the course of 800 meters so two to one slope that is steep so i've just been doing giant switchbacks going across and back across and over i haven't been staying within the cut line because it's just too steep to come straight up so it's better to make your own switchbacks especially when it's so clear in this burnt forest we'll set the top time for the last little push started at the bottom it's a big king so that was that was a slog for sure took me about two hours to get from the campsite to here covering three kilometers so not not fast hopefully the rest of the the uh ridge walk is a little bit faster but even if it's not we got a lot of time today because i started really early so made it to the top of mount row got a summit box here with some goodies let's take a look inside a little toy [Music] a condom in case uh you need that and a little bit of fireball i think i think i'll partake cheers i don't know if i mentioned earlier but today's route is an alternate route for the great divide trail so there's a bunch of different routes that are alternatives to the main trail the main trail for the great dubai trail is actually down in this valley behind me here and then the alternate route follows the ridge along here basically for 15 or so kilometers i'm gonna be doing quite a few alternate routes on the great divide trail most of the time they're getting you up under ridge tops they're usually a bit more difficult and there's sometimes no trail at all so you have to be a little bit more confident with your root finding but from everything that i've heard it's definitely worth it doing the alternate routes [Music] so that's actually the main great divide trail coming down right through here on that sketchy looking scree slope and then down into the valley down there [Music] there is here let's just choose your own adventure [Music] maybe moving a little bit faster through here but i also don't want to get injured so if i was just doing this as a day hike i'd probably be cruising pretty good but because i still have another 34 days to hike i'm taking my time and being very careful with my footing so i've been following this goat trail which is way off the route that i downloaded but the problem is the goats can go through things that i can't as well as they've been going along some pretty sketchy cliffs so i've had to bushwhack in a little bit at some points because i have a significant fear of heights this ridge is kicking my butt i'm optimistic still but i'm starting to have a little bit of doubt creep into me that i'm gonna be able to complete this quickly and safely i still have to gain this peak right here and then you drop a bunch of elevation and then there's a lot of elevation gain about 300 400 meters to get to that peak right up there after that it's all downhill but it's gonna be a big exposed slog to get up there it looks like this is the last little bit of shade for a while so i'm gonna take a break and eat lunch that feels really good started that peak came down hit that peak came down hit this peak came all the way up now we're at this peak it's all downhill from here gonna just follow the ridge down and then take a little cut down there to the campsite i think i deserve another little swig got a friend you enjoying your time up here buddy all right hopefully doesn't think i'm a threat but look at that rock on that guy yeah that's awesome i'm heading off the ridge to reconnect with the great divide trail on what looks to be a pretty nice well-established trail i'm pretty proud of myself for today pretty much the entire day was on a route with no trail whatsoever so it was a lot of root finding bushwhacking scree scrambling and i was doing all that with the sun beating down on me and very limited water i am down to pretty much a mouthful of water now with about an hour an hour to go until i hit twin lakes but i'm really excited to hit twin lakes because i'm boiling hot i am sweaty and i'm gonna go jump in the lake now that i'm all cleaned up i'm gonna have some dinner bushka's kitchen hunter's pie have a little stretch and enjoy these beautiful views good morning guys getting a pretty early start on the day because remember on day one when i told you there's gonna be a day coming up where some really experienced hikers told me it was the hardest day of hiking they've ever had well today is that day so we're gonna go hit the trail and see how hard it really is i'm a little bit excited a little bit scared but ready to challenge myself there's some differences and similarities between yesterday and today that may make today either harder or more difficult today has more elevation gain more distance we're going to be following ridges just like yesterday bag and some peaks the difference is that there might be more of a trail throughout the entire route today and there's more water sources as well as long as they're not dry fingers crossed on that so we'll see whether today ends up being a more difficult day or an easier day there is the crux laculae peak which is kind of once you get up there then that's kind of your through the worst of it except for i'm going to be doing the barnaby ridge alternate and there's a couple scrambly parts where i've seen videos and people hit those spots and they cry other people have said like don't go this way it's dangerous but i'm pretty confident with scrambling so hopefully everything turns out okay something i'm realizing today is that yesterday was mentally exhausting being able to follow a trail i can just kind of turn my brain off let my mind wander whereas yesterday i had to be switched on the entire time so it's been kind of nice the first 4k of this day has just fallen right by [Music] following this ridge [Music] and somewhere over there the ridges kind of keep going and then we hit the crux of the day do [Music] we're walking walking down the road to no one knows where oh wait yes we do it's too aqua lake just stopping for a little break at the font creek campsite so this is one of the campsites you can stay at it's actually pretty nice better than i expected based on some of the uh comments out there but i just wanted i realized that i forgot to tell you guys what the gear of the day yesterday was and it was these little packets by tailwind nutrition tailwind endurance and what these are are some electrolytes a whole bunch of electrolytes as well as a bunch of calories as well so it's just a packet of goodness yesterday every single milliliter of water that i drank had to count because i was limited on water and it was such a hot day so having these was a lifesaver so this is la coulette ridge so we're going to gain that follow it along and then this is not not the laculate peaks this isn't the really sketchy part i think there's one and then it's the second second peak that we're gonna hit that's really sketchy this is my water source for right now right before the ridge okay take a little lunch break at the water source right before la coulet ridge i like to take a break for a little while partway through the day take my shoes off i find it acts as a little bit of a reset and gives me a good boost for the afternoon there's a trail through here i haven't found it but that's okay a little bit of root finding never killed nobody i really don't think there's a trail you can kind of see as i was coming up here people just kind of picking their way find the best route but it's straight up so it's a lot of work no switchbacks just just hucking her that is a tough hill but it kind of makes me feel good about my fitness level because i just powered up that hill in about 15 minutes but i could see how it would give some people a lot of trouble it's a doozy really not liking the look of the clouds over there i don't know what to think i'm in this little sheltered area right here as soon as i get up there i'm pretty exposed for the next probably couple hours until i reach that ridge and then get down on a barnaby ridge it looks like the storm might not come in but if it does i'd be really exposed up there i'm a little bit worried it just started raining so i'm gonna hang out under this tree for a little bit i sent my girlfriend an in-reach message asking her to check what the hourly forecast for this area is um just to see if it's supposed to rain all afternoon or if it was a thunderstorm because that could really change my plans it looks like things are blowing over but it's hard to say so it stopped raining looks like we got a little bit of an opening in the weather so i'm going to make the ridge right here then it drops down in elevation pretty steeply before you make the ascent of la coulette peak so i'm hoping there's some shelter in between this little peak here and main lacquelette peak in case uh something does roll in looks like that's where the storm is heading east and then here's the ridge we're falling up to la coulette peak right there and then barnby ridge so i've spent the last 30 minutes or so getting my mind right because that potential storm rolling in a little bit of rain as well as just the build-up for la coulette like the the things people say about this makes it seem really gnarly so i that just kind of all hit me and i got pretty overwhelmed there and i'm starting to feel a lot better more confident but holy moly i was like shaking when i was coming down that ridge it was it was it was a it was a lot all right here we go whoa made it la coulette oh came from way over there now we're here now we're going to head down here little mini scramble follow there and then go hit barnaby ridge because dan derson said if i do the barn b ridge alternate route he'd let me prototype his dcf x-mid i'm gonna have to put the trekking poles away for this one a little hands-on scramble no idea if i'm on the correct path but you'll see this is working i guess gear of the day garmin inreach when i was way back on the ridge actually you can see where i was and i was anticipating that thunderstorm rolling in or at least rainstorm i was able to text back home to steph and ask her to check the hourly forecast for this area and she told me that there's like a small chance of drizzle which i experienced but then thunderstorms wouldn't roll in until 6 pm or so potentially so inreach valuable for check-in sos but as well as getting the best up-to-date weather and you can kind of see those are some storm clouds up there so we might actually get that storm but i'm happy i'm off i'm off black houlette have to book it because i just heard thunder from over there hopefully it blows around but i still have to hit that stop to hit that ridge up there and i do not want to be exposed on that i'm going through contingencies right now in case that thunderstorm rolls in i have pretty good tree cover on my left here so i just have to maybe pitch my tent and ride it out problem is i'm running out of water so it'd be it would be a close one to spend the night i probably wouldn't be able to cook any dinner and it'd be a really tough day tomorrow just a little bit further to go hopefully those clouds hold off there's grizzly lake home for the night oh i made it that was the hardest day i've ever backpacked i'm a little bit proud of myself a little bit disappointed myself but we'll we'll unpack all that tomorrow because right now i need to take care of my health so i've drank three liters of water i ate dinner i stretched and i'm feeling a lot better i was in pretty rough shape when i arrived at camp here but turned things around i'm just gonna go for a little swim in this beautiful lake and then get a really good sleep because tomorrow i was looking at the map i thought tomorrow is going to be an easy day but it's another really big day and i do want to explain to you guys kind of what was going through my mind over the course of the day and why i am a little bit disappointed in myself but that's that's for tomorrow i'm checking out see you guys later good morning guys today is the first day i don't want to get out of bed but i'm gonna do it pack up because got a big day ahead all packed up and ready for the day today's gonna be my longest day yet um hopefully it's not too bad though because it'll be downhill and then some some nice trail walking near the end but there's two very sketchy parts in the first half of the day that i'm gonna have to navigate but the first thing i have to do is go up this this is the easy part go up this trail and then gain that ridge up there ridge my old friend today i have more water though so hopefully you don't kick my butt quite as much so this flagging tape that we're seeing up here indicates that we've hit the first sketchy part of the day so you might even be able to see there's a cliff right here that you need to navigate and basically follow the flagging tape and hope for the best so i'm gonna put my tracking poles away and and hit this up remember when i said i'm scared of heights well hopefully hopefully it's not too bad this time i'm just not gonna look down really i think then he'll be okay this isn't too bad actually it's more just that there's some sketchy consequences if you fall so this is this part we're just gonna scoot down i don't know if this was the sketchy part or not but there's this tree here which is really nice and this is hands on right here but good hand holds this actually wasn't too bad i am scared of heights and i didn't find it to be that big of a problem my pack is quite light it's probably sitting around 23 pounds right now so i could see that being a bit more of a challenge with a heavier pack but if you're scared of heights like me don't like as soon as you hit that flagging tape trust it and just go if you're doing the gdt just trust the flagging tape and don't look down don't stop and get in your head because that's what's going to get you that's what i've learned with heights i've been working on my fear of heights and as soon as i stop and start analyzing the situation and looking at oh am i going to die if i misstep here then that's when the problem happens and that scramble is really safe everything's laid out quite well so just just trust it and just go for it it's only nine o'clock actually before nine o'clock and the sun is already a factor it is hot so we made it to the second sketchy part of the ridge so you can see that cairn down there that's to avoid some apparently really sketchy sections through here follow the markers i don't know if you guys can see the markers but there's one marker there and it continues right along this little ridge here so it's not as bad as it looks from afar pretty easy walking along this little ledge here relatively easy scramble to gain the ridge the scramble up to regain the ridge isn't overly technical i've kept my trekking poles out the whole time it's just long so i just got a little bit of cell phone reception i was able to call my girlfriend and my parents and it was really nice to talk to them i i just have such great people in my life my my friends family my girlfriend they're all just been so supportive and just amazing i'm so lucky and then i get to come out here and experience exercise things like this like this is phenomenal guys look where i am right now i'm the luckiest guy in the world these are these are tears of joy like this is this is phenomenal there's the castle mountain ski resort if i was hiking the gdt main route i would have actually been coming through this valley here on a road pretty much all day today and a lot of yesterday so much nicer coming up on this ridge barnaby ridge is an amazing alternate route it's tough but rewarding that sun is hot again it is a scorcher and i'm pretty exposed on this next little ridge bit here so before i continue hiking down barnaby ridge i just want to say that i have a love-hate relationship with barnaby ridge and by association dan derson as well for context dan durstan who you may know as the designer of the famous x-med tents is a gdt local big advocate of the trail and huge proponent of barnaby ridge i'm pretty sure it was dan who went and put all those flags and markers around the sketchy spots along the ridge so gear of the day for today is my first aid kit another really hot day i have electrolyte tablets in here so i had those and i'll post a link in the description with everything that's in my first aid kit if you guys are interested in checking that out as a runner-up alpine lakes also awesome without what's in the first aid king in the alpine lakes i would be in pretty rough shape more rough shape than i already am so i'm off the ridges onto nice maintained trails but still got 23 kilometers to go so a lot of day and a lot of hiking left cadillac cadillac long and dark shiny and black open up the engine and baby let it roar tearing up the highway like a big ol dinosaur so i figured it's a good time just on a semi easy trail but uh not much to see here so i figured i'd share with you guys kind of my thoughts on yesterday a little bit today and why i was a little bit proud of myself and a little bit disappointed myself and start with the disappointment we'll talk about them maybe at the same time but i was disappointed because i know the k in rockies and i i was playing with fire i was definitely gambling with the amount of time i gave myself to complete the route that i planned that's partly me overestimating my skills and underestimating the trail i know that thunderstorms roll in in the afternoons i know there is limited water and both those ended up being a factor i was in really rough shape i was super dehydrated when i got to camp last night and yeah it was not a good situation yesterday was kind of something that i don't want to repeat but i'm also proud of myself for getting through it staying mentally strong for for how tough of a position i was in and finishing the day so what is this kilometer a hundred whew hear that feet only a thousand more to go made to camp 38 kilometers and over 12 hours so biggest day yet but feeling pretty good feeling pretty good my body's definitely definitely sore but i'm looking forward to tomorrow should be another fun day see you guys tomorrow good morning guys just starting the day with a little bit of a road walk i did not stay at the links creek campground i stayed in a random camping spot a little bit before that which is really nice today we got a couple kilometers of roadwalk and then we hit a really nice ridge which will probably give us some different views than we've seen in other parts of the trail so far and it's not a ridge like barnaby ridge or the howe peak ridge it's a little bit different and then yeah i just want to share um a bunch of different things with you guys today that i haven't talked about just with regards to the thru-hike and then at the end of the day my destination is the town of coleman so i'm going to be sleeping in a bed having a shower tonight and tomorrow my girlfriend steffy poo is going to come visit me which is going to be awesome because i miss her a lot and it'll be great to have a nice big hug so there's today's ridge for the day we got 12 kilometers on a ridge that basically looks like that a little bit different than barnaby ridge but that's okay it's nice to switch things up and i just filled up on water a little ways back and sad to say my cataline b3 has has died basically i think i know why and what the cause and how and all that kind of stuff so i'll explain that the next water source because it really sucks that the b3 has failed on me luckily i have a replacement water filter which i'll share with you guys tomorrow on my resupply day but that one should perform better has some features that will hopefully prevent it from conking out but even though i did have a dream last night where when i got to coleman for my zero day i took my shoes off and i was able to look at my feet in the mirror and they were covered in blisters so kind of a weird dream to have but pretty pretty lucky no blisters i haven't been prone to blisters in the past um but i've heard when you start putting 30 38 kilometer days back to back to back then especially when it's really hot on your feet are sweating then you may may end up with blisters so let's talk about injuries so far my entire body aches but no injuries which is awesome because i have been prone to it band syndrome and plantar fasciitis in the past but no problems with those or other injuries so far and i attribute that to three different things first up is my training i trained really hard for this trip for a few months before i was doing two days where i'd go to the gym and strength train and then i'd go for a run at lunch or in the afternoon and then the second thing is my gear my pack is pretty light all in for six days water food it's 27 pounds which is pretty late for the great divide trail and then my footwear has been awesome the hocus speed goats have kept my feet very comfy because honestly like plantar fasciitis has been a big problem for me and foot pain in general so really happy that i don't have any of that what hurts the most for me is my butt and that's good i'm happy if my butt hurts means all the training that i did with squats and hip thrusters is paying off and my butt is engaging as i'm hiking and my glutes are taking the load off of my legs and knees which is awesome that's ideal scenario is having a sore butt i'm gonna put this butt to work and continue down the trail we got a little bit more ridge walking to go about halfway to coleman now and i'm looking forward to talking to someone that's not myself for the last two nights i've camped alone and haven't really seen anybody in 48 hours other than just passing by in cars so it'll be nice to to get in and have a chat but i did meet some really awesome people the first three or four days of the trip which was really cool i met frank who's hiking the great divide trail section a and then i ran into lisa who's actually the first person who's ever called me out for being a youtuber that was really cool to chat with her and then a nice family on top of karthu ridge ran into jeff and mackenzie and mackenzie's mom and dogs at acomina campground and then dj and his son jackson at twin lakes campground and really nice meeting everybody everyone was super supportive really interested in the trip and just yeah really nice and really supportive which was really cool to experience so the catadyne be free i have used this exact one for hundreds of liters already and it was completely fine working great definitely under 500 so under the halfway point of the life span of the filter cation says it should last a hundred liters and this is what the flow is at now it may look good but that's probably a tenth of what it was before taking a minute to two minutes to filter water so i did an integrity check of the filter because i kind of had a feeling that that was the problem and in order the way to do that is empty empty the filter of water but make sure there's still water kind of in the filter let the little bag fill up with air close it back up to get a good seal and then take off the cap and then if you squ if there's a little bit of water at the top and you squeeze you'll see there's little air bubbles coming up that means that the filter membranes have been compromised which is not good you don't want that i'm not sure how that happened it's this filter has been working great for me there's something about the last four days that led to the membranes breaking and air being allowed to permeate through the membranes that shouldn't happen and i think why it slows down is as each of those membranes fail when you're pumping water through air is trying to get back up through the fill the membranes in the filter in order to equalize the pressure within the little bag here so that's my guess so you don't have as many membranes having water go through them so the more membranes that break and are compromised and air permeable the less flow you're gonna get i'd be curious i know there's a lot of people who have had cation filters slow down on them so go check do that integrity check see if air is bubbling up through them and uh that may be the reason why i'm going to reach out to catadyne and see what the issue is but i'm gonna be having to switch out my filter in coleman i do have a backup befree but i don't think i'm gonna use that one i'm gonna switch it out for a different filter but i'll show you guys that tomorrow on my resupply day as well as a whole bunch of other little things that i'm switching out because i do have i had i have had some gear problems country roads take me home to the place i belong [Music] west virginia mountain mama take me home a country road made it to the bed and breakfast all showered up gonna do some laundry and then eat all of the food good morning guys i'm just here at the safe haven bed and breakfast had a delicious dinner last night had a shower had a really yummy breakfast this morning and another shower feel clean feel good and had a really good sleep sleeping in a bed was was quite nice even though i'm starting to get used to my x-lite it's starting to get a lot more comfortable on trail but i want to share with you guys first thing today what's in my resupply box that i brought with me so i packed everything in this k-entire 5 gallon jugs first thing fuel can but i probably won't need this i didn't even go through nearly half the fuel that i brought with me on section a then i have a bag just with little extra things so essentials like toilet paper my daily drugs wet wipes and then some other extras just in case like if i ran out of soap which i probably need hand sanitizer some filming equipment a lighter i packed in a bunch of more leucote because people told me to make sure i have liquid tape at every stop but i didn't get any blisters no issues so won't be needing that luco tape then i also packed in all my food so each day's food is in these little freezer bags and then elastic dawn are some of the extras and my dinners so it'll be really easy just take these throw them into my bear bag and then off i go and i have six days of food because i have six more days to the next resply point at upper kanaskas lakes steph is on her way down from calgary right now to visit we're gonna hang out have some lunch go for a little dinner date and if she's up for it i'll get her to ask do a little interview thing at get her to ask some questions about section and we'd have a little back and forth for you guys as well she's bringing some new gear for me some gear to replace some stuff that broke as well as just some gear that i thought might be useful after going through section a so i'll share that with you guys as well on this zero day nice little relaxing day before tomorrow and tomorrow is supposed to rain 40 to 50 millimeters so it's gonna be an interesting day a little bit of an easier hike but that rain kind of throws a little wrench into things so steph's arrived she just brought me some goodies and i'll just show you kind of some gear that i'm replacing and some new gear that i have so first up is more drugs more electrolyte pills because it's gonna be hot out there still and i need these just to keep electrolytes in my system and make sure that water counts and then more ibuprofen and naproxen because it's really helpful for sleeping just to get rid of a little bit of that pain when i'm going to bed and then a new spoon so i forgot my spoon at grizzly lake and then i had to eat with a stick for a day and i really didn't like that so i got one not one spoon but two spoons so i'll have a backup in the bottom of my bear bag just in case i lose my spoon again because i honestly really like i know some people like eating with sticks but i don't and then in order to replace the cadmium b free filter i'm going to be using the platypus quick draw so i've used this a bunch it has it's you can back flush it which is really nice it will hopefully help it not get clogged and then it also has a 0.1 micron membrane filter which i think is a little bit more durable than what's in the b free and hopefully makes it set the beef so it doesn't break like the b3 did and then it's it's really quick as well it's only about 30 seconds to filter a liter water where the beef is about 20. so we grabbed our blanket went out to the to this park in coleman which is really nice has a bunch of these historic things farming equipment train stuff nice little nice little spot out of the wind to hang out and just catch up and figured steph steph's done a lot of hiking with me steph steph's a big hiker and she can probably ask some of the questions that you guys might be thinking about from my first week on trail so uh yeah do a little interview quick interview nice nice enough to play along with my crazy idea okay first question probably the uh biggest question would be what gear do you wish you brought now one weekend yeah and and i kind of showed you guys some of that gear and i think one thing that i didn't show you that i'll i'll do it i'll maybe overlay is um these little sandals weird sandals that i picked up from mayfly they're kind of like a plastic bottom with very they're very lightweight and yeah i've been washing my feet every single day because my feet have just gotten super stinky and these these sandals would be nice because i don't have to stick my foot back into my smelly shoe and then stick that into my quilt so i'm looking forward to that and just not having as stinky a feet before bed they're very weird sandals yeah i'll show them to you guys um okay what was your favorite part or the coolest part so far um i'd say the coolest favorite and this is more just from like a personal challenge standpoint was on barnaby ridge my day four day four yeah day four it might have been day five i'm getting them all mixed up now but um i was coming down you guys will see it you guys will have seen this in the video but there's this big cliff stephanie hasn't seen it there's a cliff that's marked with flagging tape and i was going down the cliff and i knew it was coming up i knew it was kind of sketchy and i just kind of just went for it and did this little kind of scramble down this cliff and was really proud of myself because i'm super scared of heights and yeah that was that was cool what was the hardest day or hardest part or was that also the hardest part that wasn't the day before was the hardest part um partly partly because it was so hot out and i was ridge walking and i ended up drinking 13 liters of water that day which is it's a lot of water i was just sweating all day long and there's some there's some really hard climbs there's thunderstorms all around me and like rain it was raining and parts and was just physically difficult as well as mentally difficult and like i was really happy i was able to message you and kind of get the weather report and it was it was nice just to even just like hear from you so that was that was a hard day and by the end of it like i i was just so beat down but i had some water stretched ate some food eating food is key and felt a lot better after that oh good um if you had to guess how many times do you think you've cried so far counting the time when you first left and we said goodbye more than i would like to admit um it's i'm gonna blame food like i said it's important to eat and sometimes i'm a little bit hungry and then start thinking about home or run into a situation that i'm just like a little bit overwhelmed by and yeah especially in section 8 i've heard for a lot of people that it's you end up crying more than you think and it's it's probably like i don't know a dozen times at least i don't know i've i've missed you a lot to you and this is a this is a surprise visit stephanie wasn't supposed to come steffy pooh wasn't supposed to visit me but awesome awesome to see it was really good and thanks for thanks for doing this little interview yeah and i'll show you guys those sandals back at the b and b and i'll tell you a little bit more about what we're gonna expect tomorrow and the section b that we're gonna be hitting up for the next seven days so i'm just finishing packing up before heading to bed i just want to share my sandals with you guys so these are the mayfly ultralight sandals they look kind of silly but they're going to be really nice on trail tomorrow we have a pretty easy day to start off but it's supposed to rain a lot so it's gonna be my first kind of major day of rain if the forecast holds true so we'll see how that goes and then we'll have a nice little lake to camp at and i have some yummy brownies and cookies here to eat as a snack over the course of the day i'm gonna head to bed here pretty quickly soon and we'll see you guys in the morning just heading out of coleman on this nice rainy day about to start section b feel super recharged after a little zero day yesterday having steph come in just really re-energize me and i'm i'm ready to go i'm ready to give section b all i have and i've heard that you shouldn't underestimate it because it is actually pretty challenging lots of passes and then valleys passes and valleys it was raining pretty hard this morning so that's why i had my rain gear on but it's stopped for now hopefully it kind of stays light rain or no rain for the rest of the morning and early afternoon the forecast hourly forecast i checked said that it'd be light rain until about 2 or 3 p.m and then it would be pouring rain it's supposed to just dump like 40 millimeters of rain this afternoon so that's why i'm starting early hoping to get all my hiking done get camp set up before the really torrential downpour starts the rain picked up again so i'm back into the frog togs i'm hoping british columbia and the areas of all the fires are getting this rain because that's one big benefit of rain is it puts the fires down better than anything else and hopefully that's what's happening right now a little slippery you gotta go up this hill up here so the first 10 kilometers out of coleman is mostly road walking and atv trails passing through a lot of these rv campgrounds with people with atvs and stuff and yeah it's not it's not actually been too bad you combine the rain with the road walking and you think it'd be a bit of a struggle for the day but my mood is is still awesome i don't actually hike in the rain very often as a weekend warrior most of the time i plan my trips for nice weather as i'm sure most of you do so i wasn't sure how the first kind of big rain would would affect my mood and and my morale but doing great i actually kind of liked the rain i used to tree plant and i did that for five years and you tree plant in any kind of weather and it's very similar you're basically walking through the bush but instead of planting trees i just get to walk so it's in some ways a lot easier and we do that for 12 to 14 hours a day for two months straight so that kind of prepped me for for uh for through hiking and that entire time when i was tree planting i was sleeping in intense for the most part as well so very similar experiences and very big mental game for both and yeah i'm enjoying it loving the rain hey friend my feet are wet i was hoping i'd make it through that without getting my feet wet but they're wet now i've heard the reports that there's lots of bears in section b a lot of sightings especially when you get into the most more remote areas like this so we're gonna be calling out and probably singing quite a bit through this section have to worry about it a bit more than when we were on the ridges in section a oh what to do with the drunken sailor what do you do with a drunken sailor what do you do with a drunken sailor erla in the morning shave his belly with rusty razor shave his belly thrusty razor shave his belly the rest razor early in the morning getting back up into the alpine it's time for the gear of the day and today is the most weight that i've carried on trail and it's gonna be the most weight that i carry until i hit the very last section at the beginning of september and because that the zurich 40 pack is the gear of the day this pack has been awesome it is carrying the weight phenomenally especially for being a pack that doesn't have a frame or a hip belt and it's just been all around great for me the shoulder straps are super comfortable all the pockets are great i use all of them especially these side pockets because it doesn't have a hip belt these little mesh side pockets that are in addition to the water bottle pockets are super useful for storing all my snacks and the pack holds everything i need it has a 40 liter capacity with the mesh pockets and it just holds everything and will continue to hold everything that i need even when i'm doing those bigger carries in the last section for me it's basically the perfect pack for the great divide trail i wanted something frameless without a hip belt for when i'm doing those scrambly cliff climbing sections that you saw in section a and it's going to continue to be an awesome pack for me i think for the rest of the trail still having fun even with all this rain and not to think until you feel it kind of way i'm going to be honest with you guys this whole trip with with how i'm feeling and what i'm going through so yeah even though it's raining and kind of miserable out it's a great day got a bit of a sheltered area here i'm gonna stop for lunch have another one of these food for soul salads this is the curried cauliflower salad these have been really good so far i've been really enjoying them and after lunch just one last push until we hit window mountain lake and that's where i'll be setting up camp for the day here scott so we've made it to the window mountain lake campground total of 27 kilometers and 1300 meters of elevation i'll be posting the stats for each day in the video description along with the start and end locations for the day and if you're interested in following along on the journey then you can go to the great divide trail association website and they have a map that you can take a look at and see where all my campsite locations are and everything like that and a couple fun facts for you over the course of the entire great divide trail thru hike 1100 kilometers 37 days i'm gonna be averaging about 30 kilometers a day or 20 miles for you americans and 2 000 meters of elevation gain or about 6 000 feet last week on section a to put it into fitness tracker terms i averaged about 40 000 steps a day and 370 floors of stair gain every single day yesterday on my zero day when i was walking around with steph my watch notified me that i hit my my floor goal for the day and i looked at it and it was 10. so i've definitely been crushing that every single day and we'll definitely continue to over the rest of the thru-hike i'm just gonna get my tent set up and then hunker down probably because i think it's only supposed to increase in uh intensity for the rain so this is where i've set up my tent for the day what i like about it is that there's overhanging branches that really protect my doorway so i will kind of stay dry coming in and out of the tent can get put on and take off my my rain gear if i need to go out and make dinner go to the bathroom all that kind of fun stuff but yeah just gonna hunker down tomorrow's supposed to be a much nicer day the rest of the week is supposed to be beautiful which is great because we're gonna get into some really beautiful part of the rockies and get some really good views but yeah rain's gonna be part of the trip and today's one of those days where we just gotta kind of buckle down and deal with the rain i've gotten changed so it's still raining pretty hard and it's supposed to only get worse based on the forecast but there's a lot of room in the old flex more room than i thought and i've been able to get changed into nice warm dry clothes i have a little bit of an awning here that i made with my second trekking pole and then with the trees i can get in and out of my tent really easily and stay nice and dry i'm just gonna set up my sleep system hunker down and probably do a little bit of reading good morning guys last night was a cold one with the rain and everything being wet it then got down to below 10 degrees celsius or kind of it goes around the mid 30s fahrenheit so it was definitely cold i had to put on pretty much all my layers in order to stay warm while uh bunkering down in the tent this morning i slept in a little bit because i knew it was supposed to get sunny out and i want to hike in the sun because all my hiking clothes are dry are wet and i want them to to dry off nicely and stay nice and warm i'm gonna have a quick bar for breakfast spin around enjoy this lake and get hiking because we've got a pretty big day and a lot of dips and noodles going up and down through the mountains but it should be a good one no one else was camping here last night i can't kind of in the trees back that way and out of all the campsites on section b i thought this would be the one where there might be other people and because of that there's a good chance that for the next five days i might not see another human which would be pretty crazy we'll see you guys stick around because um i'm not sure how i'm going to handle that i've i don't think i've ever gone six days straight without seeing another human so yeah i might go a little crazy a couple of the pieces of gear that i switched down coleman are already coming in handy shoes were soaking wet yesterday so the mayfly sandals have been really nice for walking around in because then i'm not getting my socks soaking wet and then the platypus quick draw filter has been a lot better for filtering water it's probably about three times faster than what the b3 was due to the beef freeze slowing down nice lake gonna have to come back during some nicer weather so yesterday we came down this valley in order to get to the lake beautiful valley it's nice to actually be able to see it without the rain and clouds and everything and then we're gonna continue our ups and downs by following the switchbacks that go up this ridge right over here that you can see so those are brand new put in by some volunteers over the last couple years so that's awesome thank you to them and i'm excited to get my feet on them beautiful switchbacks all the way up this hill they're awesome i can move so quick through them and then i have to show you this view facing the other direction we did not get these kind of views last week because of all the smoke but we should have better visibility this week at least for today oh yeah so we're going to descend off of racehorse shoulder now so this is actually the high rock trail that i'm on pretty much most of yesterday and then all of today i'll be on the high rock trail it's an alternate route i'm doing it for the same reasons i did the other alternate routes instead of walking on a road for most of the the two days i'll be getting up on to these passes and ridges and getting some really nice views this is a beautiful large forest and a beautiful trail it's in these valleys between the ridges and passes where i'm gonna have to probably be a little bit more cautious with bears calling out a bit more because i could see them hanging out here a lot of good food and habitat and there's the next shoulder to climb over i am shaking so i just was coming around that corner right there and probably about 10 feet from me just big crash something took off into the into the trees there and then i started backing away i was saying hey bear sorry bear backed up to here and then it crashed right through there yeah that was definitely a bear was not moving like a deer or anything else so i'm gonna be very careful luckily didn't want to have anything to do with me hopefully there's no carcass or any anything there it did it was kind of freaky when it circled around i thought maybe you'd come back over this way but whoo yeah that'll wake you up so i got the bear spray out gonna keep keep going hopefully hopefully everything's kind of moved on so the heart rate's come down a little bit after that little encounter and just walking through this valley it's beautiful in here if i was a bear i would definitely spend my days hanging out in this valley but we're going to be continuing down the trail here and probably heading up over that little pass probably from our friend back there i like that the wind is at my back right now because it's blowing my scent forward in the direction that i'm going when i came around that corner and started what was most likely a bear i the wind was coming really strong right on me and i think that's why i was able to sneak up on otherwise it would have smelled me much before i got within like 10 feet of it just a little bit more but i think the stuff we passed back there was fresher than this so i'm hoping that we're going in opposite directions the bear and i this is all bear sun right here digging up roots and eating them and then on this side it ripped apart this stump trying to get at bugs hungry bear i'm happy to be getting out of that valley bear valley just taking a little break here to have lunch at the top of the ridge before heading down and taking the opportunity to dry some of the stuff that was still wet this morning when i packed it up from the rain it seems like the rain has helped with the smoke a little bit it's not nearly as hazy as it was last week when we were in section a which is nice we get to see quite a bit further and we can see that we have gold mountain right there and then we have the valley that we're going to be going up to the left of it and we'll be camping kind of somewhere at the base on the left side there and tomorrow we're going up a pass in between gold mountain and tornado mountain called tornado pass and that one people speak of that past with apprehension so we're gonna see how that one goes and as much as i'm happy that the rain has reduced the smoke from the fires i'm also glad it's not raining today honestly i don't know how i'd handle three or four days of rain and cold like it was yesterday that would just be pretty pretty tough for me and yeah that that might uh help the great divide trail beat me is this more impressive than the rock wall you guys will have to let me know in a week and a half when we get to section c and walk past the rock wall right now we're gonna contour around this little mound here hit the other side and then follow dutch creek all the way to the campground at dutch creek campground so we're back on the main trail for the gdt came off the alternate route and gonna head up the main trail here i'm i'm actually going to be on main trail for the next couple weeks until after the my third resupply point in field the the alternate routes are awesome i'm really glad that i took all the ones that i have so far they're a lot of fun you see some great things and normally they're going around some big road walks which not always the most interesting made it to the lovely dutch creep creek campground some nice views of the mountains from here too i'm gonna get camp set up and then i owe you guys a gear of the day and today's big one the gear of the day for today is the z packs ultiplex this thing was awesome in the rain yesterday there's tons of room to get changed and just kind of live and bunker down inside the tent and it also had enough space in the vestibule that i was able to store everything underneath one side and then leave the other side open so i didn't get a huge buildup of condensation and because it's made of dcf this morning i just shook it and a lot of the water just flew right off of the tent and i wasn't carrying a whole bunch of water weight like i would be if i had a still nylon tent because that's still nylon would be absorbing a lot of water sorry if my voice sounds a little bit off after that bearing counter i was yelling and singing quite a bit so my voice is a little bit hoarse right now i'm going to drink some water eat some food and then get to bed because we're tackling tornado mountain tomorrow good morning guys feeling really good this morning good night sleep good meal good stretch really does wonders for the body first thing we're heading up to tornado pass this is an area that people talk about with apprehension so interested to see what it's all about we're gonna head up there and find out so i think this is the first kind of obstacle of the day there's an avalanche that came down basically wiping out the original gdt path but people are going around it to the left apparently and then you can once you get up to the pass you can cross back over and reconnect with the trail but apparently it's still still a little bit a little bit raw in there a little bit bushwacky but beets trying to climb over all this avalanche debris that's straight up i came back in the forest because the trails apparently to my right we're gonna probably have to do a bit of bushwhacking to get to it made that cross trail and i want to clarify it's not that i'm getting lost it's that on the great divide trail sometimes the trail just disappears or it's been changed due to some sort of natural phenomenon like that avalanche and there's just so few people that hike it that the trails don't get established those little trails that uh get made from people going around things or whatever i definitely jinxed myself right after i said that i got very lost i got super turned around was started going in circles and now i'm having to bushwhack down this hill in order to rejoin the trail but i'm on the right path now and yeah i just got got complacent with a game trail and just followed it in the completely wrong direction and it made sense in my mind because i'm trying to gain a pass but yeah that you guys saw the uh the gps track you'd be like oh justin that's brutal because i got i got pretty turned around but uh oh well it happens now we're back on trail just coming up to it right up here here we go yeah and then we should be hitting some sort of pass soon as well made it up to tornado pass that was a little bit of a experience just with navigation we'll see how the next little bit goes is we're going to be following this trail up to the saddle some beautiful views and we're going to continue along here and then head up through that saddle right there doesn't look so bad i'm just kind of making my own switchbacks through here make it a little bit easier on myself and then as soon as you get down over the other side of the saddle the wind dies down get greeted with this beautiful valley that we're gonna head down into so tornado pass wasn't that bad if it had started raining i actually would have still felt confident scrambling up that scree slope into the saddle so if you are worried about it if you're hiking the great divide trail don't be worried about just take your time and there's uh nothing that's too hard going up to the saddle it's just really windy as you saw that was just the first of three different saddles that we're gonna be heading up so still quite a bit of elevation to go a lot of day ahead of me and uh curious to see what those next two passes have to throw at me it's a hi-ho hey-ho coming down the plains stealing wheat and barley and all the other grains it's a hi-ho hey-ho farmers lock your doors when you see the jolly roger odd regina's mighty shores so we're going to continue following this path and then i think we're popping up over that little mound right there made it to the end of this little ridge here and my shoes are actually starting to fall apart a little bit so i'm gonna book it the 13 kilometers to the next campsite and hopefully i can repair them i have i have some things in mind to fix the problem i'll show you guys that once we get there so we started off kind of way over there came up along the ridge and then we're going to continue follow the ridge down go over that little hump staying close to the mountains and then kind of hug the mountains until the campsite at lyle creek so i just came off of that ridge over there coming up over here and then i got dipped down into this drainage and then head up this next ridge here and coming up that last ridge really kicked my butt there's a lot more elevation gained today than than i thought so heading up over this next ridge is not making me feel good but the views the views are pretty awesome and are energizing me a little bit here got beautiful views of the foothills and then some awesome rocky mountains [Applause] so i made to lyle creek i'm actually things guy turned around from how my body's feeling i'm actually feeling pretty good and the campground here kind of sucks and i know that memory lake is 5.5 kilometers further on with very minimal elevation so i'm gonna put i'm gonna eat dinner and then push on to there and get a nice campsite i am kind of playing with having to do a little bit of night hiking but hopefully i'll get a quick dinner in and then get there and get set up before it gets too dark made it to the lake kind of a lake and yeah that was that was good it was a good little push i broke 40 kilometers today was 2300 meters of elevation gain i think i didn't get my trail legs and tomorrow i i'm glad that i have the extra little bit of time tomorrow i don't have to rush quite as much because i think there's gonna be some phenomenal views so the issue with my shoe is that the heel right here is starting to come off a little bit and also the toe a little bit coming off but not too bad otherwise the shoe's in great condition the uppers in phenomenal condition the sole just took quite a bit of a beating in section a with all the screen talus especially the heel going down those talus slopes so i'm just gonna grab my first aid kit here i have a little bit of super glue crazy glue so i'm gonna use this and just try and glue the heel back on on both shoes i'm just hanging my bear bag and then heading to bed we'll see you guys tomorrow good morning guys did not sleep great last night my body was pretty sore even though i got a stretch in i was still tossing and turning all night long but i'm finishing packing up eating breakfast and enjoying these very nice views and i think that's going to be the theme for today phenomenal views really excited to get up on some some ridges and kind of see see some awesome rocky mountains with you guys we're going to jump into gear of the day for today right away but i forgot to do it yesterday but it has to be the shoes even though they're falling apart a little bit that heel thing i kind of just attribute more to the terrain than actual falling apart because of use and they carried me through all day yesterday 40 kilometers 2300 meters of elevation and i felt pretty good afterwards considering but for today it's going to be the vargo dig dig trowel i was in a little bit of a rush this morning hit some rudy ground and the straight edges just cut through everything really easily and being able to grip this as nicely as i can without having the edges dig into me allows digging to be a breeze so virgo dignity trowel you've been making my mornings easy i just want to clarify a couple things about my shoes the hoka speed goats some of you are probably pretty surprised i gave them gear of the day for yesterday even though the heels started to come apart and i just want to mention that first of all this is probably i probably put about 350 kilometers on them in between the gdt and pre-gdt trips and then they are not made for what i put them through on section a of the gdt like all that talus scrambling as as much as i wish that they could do that and then still be an ultra light hiker they're they're not so if all the trail was like section b had been during section a then i think they'd probably only be halfway through their life which is actually phenomenal if i could get 500 600 maybe even 700 kilometers out of a pair of speed goats on cruisey train and that'd be really good so yeah super happy with the shoes even though the heels coming apart that's an easy fix everything else with them has been great and they're still keeping my body feeling good which is probably the most important thing i'll let you guys know when we get to camp today whether the super glue's still holding up i'm optimistic but you never know it's not really made to keep shoes together my it band on my left side has been acting up a bit the first five kilometers here so stopping to take a stretch the left side is the side that i had the most problems with in the past so i'm trying to be careful with it i was taking it easy this morning one of the stretches i like to do is a glute stretch just like this the other one that i like to i learned from chase mountains he has a youtube channel that does a lot of fitness stuff and if you lock your knees keep your back straight and then just tilt at the hips and then you should feel it kind of right in around the knee so both of those should stretch out i think different parts of the it band or at least the muscles around it the glutes are a big part of it band pain from what i've heard so hopefully this helps out and taking it nice and easy and being able to today should be a benefit as well do you have the time to listen to me one about nothing and everything allowed once i am one of those melodramatic fools neurotic to the bone no doubt about it well it's official this is the longest i've ever gone without seeing another human we're going on day four and i haven't even seen someone driving by on a quad yeah this is this is the most i've ever i've ever been alone um not going not going crazy i don't think yet but who's to say if a tree falls in the forest and no one's around to hear it that's that's the question right it's crazy how remote the gdt is i'm just hiking through canadian rockies not another human in sight that's pretty crazy and a unique experience a little smoky but you can see we came from on the other side of this ridge right here i think that was yesterday and then this camp somewhere around there and then we've been going over all these ridges and then came up to get to here this is super fresh and it makes sense there's berry bushes all on the trail here so we're gonna be keeping an eye out for those bears and i was thinking about it yesterday and i think i actually prefer hiking during berry season because the bears just have one thing on their mind eating berries they're not as worried about you or you entering their space they just want to sit in the berry bushes and get fat nice spot for lunch so as we hike up to check out what might be one of the nicest views of the day i was kind of pondering i'm doing a 38-day hike but it's really kind of like five seven day hikes so is that harder or easier than someone who does something like a 12-day hike with no resupplies it's 37 days 38 days with four resupplies easier or harder than 12 days no response you guys let me know in the comments because i'm not really sure i think both are difficult different ways maybe the 38 day is more mentally challenging but yeah that's what's been on my mind where am i this is phenomenal just views all around off this ridge those were some pretty awesome views but back into the forest we go so we got cataract creek flowing through there we're going to continue on the trail cut back and then head up a little cut line right there over that mound and then down to the campground we got to camp have the ultaplex all set up my sleep system in there today was a good day i felt good with 33 kilometers after kind of a big day yesterday definitely tired but still making good time so yeah all around feeling good still haven't seen anybody so definitely the most remote section of the trail so far i don't think we're gonna hit a more remote area or potential area until the very last section at the end but this is definitely crazy probably going on five days without seeing another human i'm gonna go through my whole camp routine eat dinner stretch go down to the river right behind me there and close by i have a little bath to do some laundry tomorrow we're getting up to one of my favorite places in the canadian rockies definitely probably top three phenomenal views there and then on the other side of that i'll once we get to camp it should be a fairly shortish day i'll show you my entire camp routine because i know there's some of you who are itching to see that what i do in what order and all those details otherwise i'm gonna get all that going and we'll see you guys tomorrow morning guys starting to hike we're heading up to one of my favorite places in the canyon rockies a place that some of you might be familiar with had a pretty good sleep last night and my shoes are holding up great i know some of you are probably curious about how the super glue was working and once i got to camp i took a look at the heels and there was no lifting anymore it was like they're brand new and that was after 33 kilometers of hiking so i'm pretty confident that they're going to continue to hold for the rest of the hike today and until i hit my zero uh in i guess two days now so that's exciting gonna get to have a little bit of a rest you'll have to excuse me i'm not at my best i've been drunk for a year i need home for a rest be so complications will soon be my death i've been sick for a month i need home for a rest [Music] so for the last week here during section b we've been following the eastern boundary of the canadian rockies in between the the mountains and the foothills before you get into the prairies and it's been awesome we've been seeing some really cool things but today we're gonna pop over pop over that eastern boundary and start getting into the meat and potatoes of the mountains right in between this peak and that peak right there is a pass that we're going to be going up and over and then after that we're we're in the heart of the rockies we're going to be seeing some of the crown jewels of the rockies mount assiniboine which is described as the matter horn of the rockies and other really awesome just huge huge epic landscapes little registry box just found my buddy jesse's entry here he runs the youtube channel back country forward that's his his logo there says it's great to see all the people who are out and hiking let's see what the most recent posts or messages are here august 10th that looks like the most recent so that's three days ago now watered into jasper haven't seen anyone in three days and loving it calum yeah so that's a bit of a contrast and for me i haven't seen anyone in going on five days now so pretty pretty crazy i'm just gonna sign this and then we'll keep on hiking [Music] made it up here one of my favorite places in the canadian rockies some of the best views and just all-around majestic areas i've ever been to [Music] so it just hit me that tomorrow's my last day on section b of the great divide trail which is crazy it felt like section b just kind of flew right by and i i almost wonder if that's just the way that i dealt with the difficulties of section b section b had much longer days than section a section a had tough trail but not nearly as long of days and for that reason i think section b has been a bit more mentally challenging and the way i deal with kind of mentally challenging situations my go-to is to kind of just close in and shut down a little bit i think that's what i did in section b and that's why things kind of just flew by like i i had tough days but it wasn't nearly as emotional as section a and i've been trying to figure out if that's something that i'm okay with kind of closing down those emotions in my personal life it's been something that i've been working on a lot over the last year is is not closing off when things get mentally challenging and staying open and really kind of identifying those feelings and engaging with them but on the trail maybe that's a legitimate strategy for getting through the day i think going into section c i have a lot even harder days like significantly tough days and i want to be a little bit more open to to feeling the trail mentally and emotionally not not just close close down and just power through and i think that's something that i'm going to try and work on it's it's something i'm working on in my personal life i i've been seeing a therapist for last year kind of being able to develop my emotional vocabulary and identify emotions and and engage with them so i think i think we're going to continue working on that on the trail i think why why stop at the trailhead we'll keep on doing that and we'll see we'll see if there's more tears in section c because i i cried a bunch in section a and not at all in section b a little bit of a road walk just to finish the day off but might see some humans haven't seen any humans in five days so that could be exciting we'll see i might even get to talk to somebody we made it to the campsite for the day the very first thing i like to do is loosen off the laces of my shoes and then the next thing i might even do this before i even get to camp if i find a good source but i like to fill up all my water get my water filled up so that i'm good for dinner and for the rest of the night and even morning i then try to find where i want to set my tent up i try to avoid setting up your eating areas or campfires because in case there's food remnants in the campfires but at this site there's really not a whole lot of options the other thing i look for is tree cover and not being in a low area i'd want to be setting up in a swamp and ideally i'll have some big trees overhead in case it's a clear sky like it will be today then that will help with avoiding condensation all over the inside of my tent this spot here looks pretty good it's a little bit close to the road but i haven't seen anybody all day i haven't seen anybody in five days uh i had to cross a pretty big creek just to get to this campsite so i don't think they're gonna be seeing anyone especially because it's not a weekend and then once i've kind of chosen a site i just want to take a look at it make sure it's flat in all directions because the last thing you want is to be sleeping on an angle in any direction i've done it a couple times on this trip already and it's not fun then i start unloading my pack i take my food bag put it off to the side and then i have right underneath that i have my nilo flum fume bag with all my dry stuff and i just start tossing my clothes in which are usually at the top my hat took socks and my sleeping pad i don't inflate my sleeping pad right away i usually save that until right before i go to bed just because i i'm just a little bit too lazy until after i've had dinner and then this is actually a good time to talk about gear of the day i'm going to give it to the trachology 2.0 pillow this thing has just been super comfortable for me this entire trip while still being lightweight some of you have asked about why not the hike enter it just weighs a little bit too much whereas the trekkology 2.0 is just a little bit more compact and a little bit lighter and then we have my lighting equipment quilt throw that in there as well along with uh my diddy bag with my charging cables ear plugs all that kind of stuff i'll throw that in there as well i take out my poop kit put it off to the side grab my water bottles for later and then i just store my bag underneath this vestibule there's enough overhang of the tent that even if it rains i will not get water inside this tent i've had it happen on this trip already and that's an awesome feature because i get a lot of ventilation and uh i haven't had any issues with condensation yet then it's time for dinner i've been using the ursac for storing all my food and then i go and hang that from a tree this is a bear proof bag so in the canadian rockies there's lots of grizzly bears that's why we need a bear proof bag i'm on my second last day today so need to a lot of garbage bags of garbage and then for dinner tonight we're having good to go mushroom risotto this is one of my favorite good to go meals yeah just same same same as usual for how i get everything together i just have my little tokes titanium pot little fuel can a little brs 3000 stove silly little stove but it works really well only 25 grams which is just crazy isn't it so get that going after some water this one takes 500 ml of water and then when i'm waiting for this to rehydrate i go get my stretch on in the 15 to 20 minutes that i'm waiting i usually start from the bottom and then work my way up so starting with the calves i like to find something to to angle my calf my foot on and then stretch my calf out i find tree roots work really well so i usually hold each stretch for about 20 seconds i find with hiking my hips get really really tight so my stretching out my hip flexor is really important and then as well my glutes get really tight as well so i do a lot of a lot of glute stretching a couple different stretches usually and i've been finding that stretching is probably why my legs feel so good day after day even though i'm exhausted and i'm achy i don't have any injuries and i'm still able to push big miles without completely dying and then i also after stretching i like to use my trekking pole to give some muscles a roll especially my calves my calves get really tight so giving them a good roll is nice as well as my quads i'll roll them out at the same time and then after dinner it's wash up and laundry time i'll usually start by giving my face and head a rinse so they get pretty sweaty every day and having all that salt on my face just doesn't feel great especially before bed i'll then give my feet a little bit of a rinse as well scrub them if i want to use soap then i'll use my wash wash basin i'll grab that pull it away and then use the basin with soap to wash my feet my feet get pretty ripe every day so giving them a little wash is always really good and then after washing my feet i don't want to stick them back into my dirty stinky shoes so i have these super ultra light mayfly sandals that i'll throw on for the rest of the day then for my laundry i have this dyneema wash basin that i fill up take it away from the water body and then i can use soap wash my socks wash my underwear and also if i want to have soap for a body wash then i'll use this basin to bring water away as well this little basin wash my socks i have two pairs of socks and two pairs of underwear so i wash each of them every single day and then i hang them from the back of my pack to dry over the course the next day it's been awesome i haven't had any blisters and i kind of attribute it to having clean socks and i just feel a lot better and a lot cleaner especially as with the underwear the underwear is kind of a big one so i recommend it i recommend taking care of your hygiene on the trail i'm still hiking over 20 miles or 30 kilometers every single day and i'm taking the time to do this because honestly it's it definitely makes me feel good at the end of the day after after laundry i go to bed usually do a little bit of reading on my phone using the kindle app and yeah then go to sleep wake up the next day and do it all over again good morning guys last night at around 11 30 p.m i heard really heavy footsteps running by my tent soak up shine my light out the door and just caught the tail end of what was probably a grizzly bear due to the size running down the road so that made for an interesting sleep for the rest of the night but today we got 33 kilometers of of mostly road walking except for some lakes kind of right at the end there which is going to be really beautiful but i started early because i want to get to the bolton creek bolton creek campground where i'm going to be having a zero day and seeing some really awesome people so i'm excited about that a little ritual that i haven't shared with you guys yet i guess it's a ritual part just one of my systems is i brush my teeth as i'm starting the hike so i have these little toothpaste tabs screw them up brush my teeth i just keep my toothpaste and toothbrush right in this little side pocket here makes it really easy to remember and grab in the morning and then after i brush my teeth it reminds me to put on sunscreen it's got my sunscreen right there as well i just use this bar from neutrogena so it's really easy just to wipe on definitely get the nose i've seen a lot of through hikers on their videos and stuff with super burnt noses so important to get the sunscreen on right away especially before i start sweating so that it just kind of stays on throughout the day and sometimes i'll reapply at lunch time but i haven't really been having to it hasn't been a problem yet some of you may not have come across my gear video for the gdt yet if you're interested in all the gear that i'm carrying for this trip as well as where i store it on my pack then definitely go check out that video i have links to it as well as a bunch of other videos kind of about my preparation for the great divide trail in the video description you get there just by clicking the show more button or the little arrow next to the title if you're on a cell phone i'm really excited for this zero day tomorrow a zero day is just a day where you don't hike so i'm going to be getting into this car camping campground at bolton creek tonight staying tonight and then tomorrow night and not hiking at all tomorrow i'm excited because there's a lot of people visiting me my girlfriend steph her parents two of my best friends tom and john and then tom's little family this would be a big group of us hanging out and having a great time some of you might be wondering why steph isn't out on trail with me hiking the gdt and it's a simple answer she couldn't get the time off work i'd love for her to be out here with me we'd have a ton of fun she's a big hiker as well but just just couldn't get the time and i i definitely miss her it's it's it's been tough being away from her we live together so our lives are pretty entwined and i i was pretty emotional saying goodbye in waterton as well um at the end of our time in coleman together but something i realized and this is kind of in line with yesterday talking about just being more in touch with my emotions and understanding them is as much as i miss her a lot of those goodbyes and the reason why they're so sad and for me is not because they're sad it's actually because they're joyful and just highlighted how much i care about her how special our relationship is and how lucky i am to have her my life and her support while i'm hiking this trail the gear of the day today is definitely these earbuds some wireless earbuds to listen to music audio books and podcasts has been awesome on this road walk shout out to the backpacking podcast with jeremiah and john i've listened to a few different episodes from them recently that have all been awesome such entertaining guys definitely go check them out to this point on the trip i haven't really been listening to any thing while hiking just a couple of times but on these road walks it's definitely needed i just saw a human and they smiled and they waved at me and then i saw this little side trailer go off to get these awesome use the mountains so good little good little 30 seconds there two more cars just came down probably coming from the campground up ahead and one of them actually stopped and i talked to them i got to say all good just hiking the great divide they gave me a thumbs up that was that was special it was six days six days out seeing another another human actually i'm a little bit concerned what i'm gonna be like around the big group that we're going to have at the campground might be a little bit awkward or manic who knows but i'm excited to get i'm excited to get there i'll show you guys once we get to camp kind of steph's bringing me all of my car camping gear or our car camping gear and we're gonna sleep pretty comfortably in a nice big tent have some nice cart camping luxuries so i'll share all that with you and then tomorrow we'll go over some of my resupply day processes and any gear i'm changing out or that's broken we can go over all that yeah looking looking forward to just a day to regroup stretch a lot and rest not a bad spot for lunch so coming up from elk lakes where we just had those beautiful reflections we make it up to el capas and i'm pretty sure this is right on the continental divide so water that lands on this side of me basically goes pacific ocean and then water that lands on this side of me goes to the atlantic ocean which is pretty cool that's what the content little divide is all about it is more of a separation of water than anything else water goes to different oceans depending on where on the continents of divide which side of it you're landing made it to the campground but no one else is here i thought i was going to be a little bit later than some people because my left calf has been really tight all afternoon and that was about five kilometers longer bike than i thought it was going to be but yeah here we are a nice little spot spend the weekend we have another camp site just down the way there and i bought some some shower tokens at the at the uh trading post so i'll go down there and have a shower a little bit later once people arrive with my change of clean clothes so everyone's arrived got all the tents set up here got our chairs there's a fire ban so we won't be having a fire it's definitely gonna be sleeping in there i'll show you our sleep setup because it's it's pretty good so i brought another quilt from the lighting equipment right there i'm gonna be using a clean one so it's not quite as stinky and then we have this big foam double mattress and steph brought me a pillow from home which i am stoked about that's gonna be one of the best parts this mattress super cushy and then a pillow gonna be awesome we're just gonna hang out enjoy the night and then tomorrow i'll give you guys a run through of what my respite is looking and any of the gear changes that are happening and kind of what we get up to during my zero day good morning guys had a great sleep last night what's up like a baby real pillow was awesome we're just cooking breakfast and then we're gonna get going with the respite maybe do some laundry as well i think this will make it's a your food definitely i'm gonna get her water isn't that right justin so one of the things there's no no laundry service here so i'm using my resupply bucket washing my clothes hanging them up so that i don't get too stinky over the next section of trail one of the big changes i'm gonna make is my footwear so i've been using these hocus speed goats for section a and b they probably have about 440 450 kilometers on them over the trip and then pre-trip stuff so i'm gonna be switching out for these other pair of speed goats that i use for training that only have about 250 kilometers on them these have a bit more cushion left in them a bit more tread so i feel confident using these for this really hard section that's coming up these ones probably would have lasted but my feet might have been starting to hurt a little bit on those really long days closer to the end of section c something i'm gonna be doing is gonna be switching out the insoles so i've been using these super feet carbon insoles so i'll be switching these from the old shoes to the new shoes because they provide a lot of great support for me and i'm gonna i'm gonna keep the old shoes because you can see they still have quite a bit of tread on them they're still gonna work well and i'll be able to use them for day hikes and training purposes once i'm done the gdt i have all my resupply food here that i'm be packing into my ursac as well as in this bag i have a bunch of little ditties like more toilet paper more wet wipes more daily drugs so i'll be adding these in my kit at the same time i only used one can of fuel over the 12 days of sections a and b but i'm gonna be replacing my fuel can just because the other one's about to die i think i probably only have a few more boils in it and section c that's gonna be coming up is five days we've just been relaxing all day hanging out enjoying the campsite i'm probably gonna go have another shower because showering just feels really good after being on trail for six days without a shower and tomorrow i'm gonna start bright and early get into some really cool spots in the canyon rockies and uh definitely be some nice views and some really challenging days ahead so that's gonna be tough and hopefully this rest day really helps with that so i'm back on trail after a nice zero day super restful it was great great seeing everybody it's always a little bit emotional saying goodbye and i'm i'm really nervous about this next section so it's kind of extra emotional today yeah it's it's going to be tough like i'm honestly nervous about the 40 to 50 kilometer days almost every single day for the next five days that's gonna kind of push that's gonna push my limits and i'm not i'm not sure i can do it and what i'm really worried about too is is pushing myself and getting injured i don't i don't want that to happen either but i'm feeling rested i had awesome sleep some of the best sleeps i've had in a while even better than i had in coleman on a real bed i think just sleeping next to steph just made me feel a lot more comfortable and eat some great meals people brought some really yummy meals to eat yeah i i'm i'm ready to go and my body's as ready as it can be i stretched every day so if if i trained enough and i'm in good enough shape to do this then i'll do it if not then then it might be an interesting next five days you guys probably noticed a haze kind of everywhere so this isn't fog this is smoke from the forest fires that are happening west of here and it's really bad today is one of the worst days i can really irritate my nose breathing's a little bit more difficult my eyes are red and watering that and a couple other the emotional reasons as well but this is the worst smoke i've seen in a really long time [Music] [Music] so just hiking at a pretty popular trail there's a campground a couple kilometers ahead that i've uh ran into a lot of people that are heading to but i'll be going past that and then getting some pretty serious elevation to uh get up over north canaskus pass so a big pass that on the other side i've heard can be a little bushwacky and a little rugged so could be could be a challenging afternoon so i've been hiking for a while feeling a lot better than this morning i think i think zeros are kind of a catch-22 they're a double-edged sword they i needed it it was amazing it was great seeing everybody i'm a much my body's in a much better place after taking a day off but then it's also you have time to think look ahead and kind of get in your own head about what's coming up and i did that i i have one of my hardest sections of trail coming up and i was looking at the numbers and just i was getting worried about them and that that reflected in some some anxiety and just fear but i've after hiking i've for the last little bit i've realized i'm i can hike i can just putting one foot in front of the other i may have to wake up a little bit earlier over the next week but i can do it and even if i don't it's not the end of the world um i'll be i'll be sad about it there's a lot of section of trail that i want to see and i want to do and i'd love to be able to accomplish the whole hiking the whole great divide trail and the competitive side of me definitely wants to do that as well but also it's it's it is what it is like life will go on if i if i don't finish the trail do do something that's out of my control at this point let the rain fall down wake my dreams let it wash away my sanity cause i wanna feel the thunder i wanna scream let the rain fall down i'm coming clean started down in that valley there and then we're going to continue working our way up to get on top of that ridge and we're going to head over to north carolina's pass something that i've been thinking about for the last a little bit of trail here too is that i have a feeling of imposter syndrome almost every single day like i'm i'm not a hiker i have been a weekend warrior i have a desk job i don't i don't think of myself as someone like darwin or dixie who are through hiking every single year after like multiple trails i i still feel like i'm just trying to to fake it until i make it i i have a lot of experience on multi-day trips but nothing like a thru-hike and nothing like the kind of distances and times that i'm putting in each day and i think i think i was hoping maybe that i'd start feeling like a thru-hiker and i think it's okay that i'm not honestly i'm never gonna be one of those people who threw hikes every single year and kind of a month is the sweet spot for me this is i think the max that i'll ever really like to do it's a long time to be away from from home and life so yeah i guess the reason why i'm sharing is if you're someone who's aspiring to through hike or even do a longer trip like maybe the john muir trail that's a couple weeks long or the colorado trail then i think it's okay to embrace the fact that you are not a professional through hiker and don't don't let that get you down like the days are going to be tough i like when i watch other people's through hike videos sometimes it doesn't seem as tough it is as it is and let me tell you like i'm feeling it the struggle's real there's definitely some days i'm like why the heck am i doing this but there's also so many rewarding moments and i know at the end of this it's going to be all worth it i think another aspect that kind of gets me is that everyone that i see is always like the trail provides the trail is awesome they seem so one with the trail whereas for me the great dubai just seems like it's trying to kill me i did not know that there was a beautiful lake up here really nice so i made it on top of north canada's pass a bit bit windy up here i imagine there's some really nice views it's actually still pretty good the lit the lake the glacier the views aren't too bad and then once we uh we're just crossing over the boundary right here that's the boundary between alberta and british columbia which is the top of the pass and then we're going to be heading down the other side right here i've heard mixed things about the trail on the other side of the border here i've heard it's really gnarly and it's easy to lose it and i've heard recently that it's not too bad so we'll jump in and see this is steep steep going going down heading down to palo sir valley the key to going down these really steep sections is to stay low keep your knees real bent that way if you do slip out your split slips forward you just kind of sit down as opposed to actually taking a pretty big fall the trail is actually pretty good down here there's definitely some spots where it's a little shrubby but there's a trail basically everywhere and that allows you to move pretty fast as long as there's a trail you can keep moving i've got across leroy creek here it's actually raging pretty good and the footing does not look good in there so luckily it looks like there's a log up there that i can use to cross the smoke is starting to clear up just in time to get some great views at least four peaks look at that so i just got charged by a grizzly bear i discharged my my bear spray it was about six feet away hit it in the face it stopped and then turned and ran i was right at the edge of this cliff right here and then i just i just came down here across the river side so that i have a little bit of a better vantage point of where it's going it went it went over that way i i'm that i saw it from about 50 feet away it stood up saw me and then charged just straight charged me luckily i had my bear spray really accessible got it out waited for it to get near me and then got it right in the face i just one one hand thumbed off the safety shot in the face just one quick spray and uh and it took off so i don't know what my plan is from here uh maybe i think if i follow the river up i eventually get to a campsite and then i'll probably just keep keep going because i want to get out of this space i've i've been thinking all day like i'm walking through crazy berry bushes like calling out the entire time like i'm like where's the bear like there's gotta be bear i didn't see any signs but it's because he was up here yeah he took off that that way hopefully just down the trail where i came from down into the valley away from where where i'm headed like i'm bleeding coming down that cliff i'm shook so really hoping you went down to the valley i'm going to try getting back up on trail have the bear spray ready fingers crossed guys like this is friggin crazy so this is the campsite i'm supposed to be staying at it's really nice a lot of flat spots beautiful views a little pond right there but i'm only like i don't know 80 meters from where that grizzly bear charged me so i'm moving i'm moving on i doubt i'd be able to sleep here honestly i'll have trouble sleeping tonight either way i just texted steph just letting her know what happened because i just i don't know i just need need someone to know oh okay adrenaline is starting to wear off yeah that was that was scary whoa i don't know i don't know if that i didn't think that would ever happen i like i kind of knew it was a possibility but like i thought maybe it would be less scary in my mind it was less scary like a bluff charge and then bear runs away but like it was full on coming at me until i sprayed in the face with bear spray yeah definitely moving on just took stock of of myself and everything and everything's okay no injuries i thought maybe i'd heard my shoulder sliding down that that creek wall there but i did i lost my microphone and i lost my sunglasses kind of in the in the frenzy there the sunglasses are actually kind of a big deal it's going to be sunny and i don't want my eyes to get to get damaged but hopefully with the hat and putting my hood up it's it'll be okay threat palace or lake right now doesn't really look like there's a lot of places to camp but i know there's another lake kind of up a little bit further called back lake it's a probably about three or four hundred meters off trail but i've heard there's some decent camping around there so i'm gonna i'm gonna head up there i think that's where i'm gonna spend the night i'll feel pretty good definitely worth coming up here well that was quite the day i got my tent set up this is a beautiful lake i'm really glad that i came out here either way so maybe maybe uh i don't know blessing in disguise no yeah you never want to be charged by a grizzly bear that wasn't fun i feel i feel safe here i feel good about tomorrow i'm going to be hiking through some big open fields i've been to before so i know i know the territory and then the rest of section c is actually in some pretty busy part of the national park system so hopefully hopefully that just kind of allows me to get back on the horse and uh not not feel too scared i i feel pretty good now like after after the the adrenaline kick and then the come down i've kind of stabilized again in uh in how i feel definitely thankful that that went the way it did and that the bear spray worked because oh that yeah could could have gone badly but it did not and i'm very thankful for that i'm just going to eat dinner here i got my my earth sack and then hit the hay gonna wake up early tomorrow so i can get some some good kilometers in because i got got big days next four days are all really big days so i'm gonna be getting up my strategies to get up early and just put in the time good morning guys as you can see another smoky day i slept i slept pretty well last night didn't really uh seem to be affected by the bear charge yesterday at all i'm just gonna grab my bear bag from here and then eat breakfast and then hit the trail because we got a big day ahead of us have you been wondering how i've been managing my food a lot of people are familiar with hanging your food from like a tree limb or the big plastic bear cancers i'm using an ursac so this is a like cloth bag but it's bear proof so bears aren't able to bite or scratch through this and then i take it a hundred yards from wherever i'm sleeping at least a hundred yards and then i tie it into the tree it closes up at the top really tightly here and that's how i've been managing my food so made it up to palser pass marked by uh this little monument here and it's also the boundary between british columbia and alberta and marks the boundary for the national park system so from here for the rest of section c up until the next zero day we're going to be in national parks which is really cool a little bit in provincial parks when we get up to mount assiniboine because mount assiniboine is in a british columbia provincial park but that that spot i'm really looking forward to we're going to be camping at magog lake tonight and it's from everything i've heard it's one of the most beautiful spots in the canadian rockies the smoke cleared up a little bit yesterday afternoon so hopefully the same thing happens today so we can get some really nice views of the mountain and the lake so we're gonna be walking through kind of shrubby lowland like this most of the day which i'm okay with there's good line of sight everywhere it's not bare habitat so hopefully no more bearing counters just want to quickly go over what went right what went wrong yesterday what i did right what i did wrong and give you guys a little bit of a recap so maybe you can learn from my experience and hopefully you never have to go through it but starting with what went wrong i was calling out every 100 to 200 meters i was calling out pretty loudly because like i said yes i knew i was in bear habitat i was surprised that i hadn't seen any signs yet so that that was pretty good but i came up to this spot where the creek we got really close to the creek so the creek was really loud the wind was blowing a bit stronger right into my face so it was easy for me to sneak up on the bear so i should have been probably calling out way more often probably just singing that entire time once i got into that kind of sketchier area and maybe that would have alerted the bear of my presence well before it saw me and triggered its fight fight response another thing that maybe i did wrong was as soon as i saw it i i just froze for a second there i was just like oh hopefully it doesn't see me and then i was about to back up but i should have backed up way quicker i had about two seconds from when i saw it until it saw me and as soon as it saw me it raised its head and then charged me so that that kind of brings us to what i did right i had my bear spray really accessible so i had two seconds from when i saw it and then another probably three seconds after it saw me until it was within six feet of me so that's five seconds total you go test see if you can get your bear spray out of your pocket in your hand and the safety off and ready to spray within five seconds because that's that's probably a slow a slow amount if i didn't have that two seconds if he saw me before i saw it then i still would have been okay but just make sure that you'll be okay another thing that i did write was i just i i know how to use bear spray i've actually used simulated bear spray before during training exercises for work i have had it ingrained in me that you wait until the bear is close before spraying bear spray and that's i that's what i did i waited until the bear had charged to within about six feet of me sprayed it right in the face and at that point it stopped turned around and ran away um i don't know how far it ran away because at that point i went down went down that hill into the creek creek bed but if i didn't have the bear spray and i hadn't sprayed it properly who knows what would have happened another thing i did write was i think i let my i went into kind of a place i felt safer right after the encounter and then from there i collected myself a bit and then get carried on i also think that was good that i just didn't camp right at the campsite that was 100 meters past the encounter there's tons of berries still around there the bear was probably roaming potentially roaming around i went to another spot that was not bare habitat during this time of year so i was a lot safer there i think overall that kind of went pretty pretty well kind of as well as i could have hoped if i didn't have bear spray um who knows what would have happened like that bear could have continued to charge could have mulled me so yeah i'm i've always been a proponent of bear spray but at this point i think you'd probably be pretty silly to hike the great dubai trail or just hiking the canyon rockies in general without bear spray because that could have just saved my life and definitely the gear of the day for yesterday is that bear spray because it worked it worked as it was supposed to and deterred the bear from ripping me apart i'm feeling pretty good today after yesterday's grizz encounter i wasn't sure how it was going to feel i wasn't sure if i was going to sleep and whether i was going to be super nervous hiking today especially through some of the the berry shrub areas but feeling good i'm not gonna lie definitely was questioning whether it's worth it there's there's always a risk of serious consequences when you do anything and um no no different on the gdt if that grizzly bear encounter had gone differently i could have been seriously injured or died but it's so rare i've been hiking for eight years in the k in rockies 3 000 kilometers over 3000 kilometers and that's the first time i've ever been charged by a grizzly bear first time i've even had an encounter with a grizzly bear even remotely closely that even the time when i s when i startled a bear earlier on the gdt it was it was it wasn't the same kind of experience that's for sure so i'm feeling good i'm feeling confident and i'm going to continue continue this hike and hopefully hopefully uh the gdt uh is is over trying to test me as much as it feels like it has been just ran into james ethan greg and gary at the birdwood campsite awesome awesome to meet them they're they're they watch the channel so that's that's always really cool and they gave me some great intel about weather coming up supposed to get really cold rain tonight rain all day tomorrow and then snow potentially the next day so it's definitely going to get chilly and i figured it would snow at least once on this trip um i was hoping it would be later in the trip but you never know the name rockies it could snow any day any time of year so i've hiked the last 10 kilometers that we just did before and there's some amazing views on that trail we just don't get to see them because it's so smoky and there's been some more fires in the area so that's why based on some intel i got from people and if you are interested in seeing the views from that area search justin outdoors bristol pass b-u-r-s-t-a-l-l and i have a video where i go through there and it's a beautiful beautiful weekend so you can see all the views from that trip this is the tale of captain jack sparrow pirates so brave on seven seas a mystical quest to the isle of tortuga so we made it to marvel lake it's really too bad that the smoke is so bad because this is one of the most beautiful places that i've been the lake is amazing it's gigantic we're going to be following that edge of it all the way to basically the end and then heading up over wonder pass and then down into the mount assiniboine valley maybe maybe the smoke will clear by the time we get to mount assiniboine because i would love to get some really nice views of that you kind of see the lake down there made it up onto wonder pass my body is a little sore i've gone 38 kilometers 1000 meters of elevation and my body's my body's pretty pooped which which leaves me a little bit worried for tomorrow and the next day because i have even more kilometers more mileage more elevation and i'm not sure i can actually complete either of those days so yeah a little bit worried still a little bit fearful just like i was kind of going into this section but i'm going to try my best i'm going to stack the deck in my favor by waking up early and i have the right nutrition and plan i think so yeah fingers crossed everything goes to plan and i'm going to get a really good stretch on tonight so that my body is in as good of shape as it can be for tomorrow next stop magog lake and maybe some views of mount assiniboine at some point it was baller like dan becker i would have stayed on these little huts again nice big eating area and you can just see the base of madison boyne right there at the back end of the lake made it to mount assiniboine campground this thing is huge there are 40 different tent pads here a shelter like eight different washrooms but i'm gonna sit up here it's close to the shelter in case it does start to rain or if it's raining or snowing tomorrow morning i can go get shelter there and yeah i'll go i'll go see if it clears up it looks like it might clear up might be able to get a view of amount of cinnabon which would be really sweet because it's apparently epic it is dumping raining super super hard fingers crossed that it gets it out of its system and it doesn't rain tomorrow because if it rains tomorrow all day that's going to make a tough day really really hard but yeah i guess i was able to get a view of mount assiniboine because it started dumping so i'm just gonna bunker down and see you guys tomorrow i think i picked the right campground to stay at for a night where it dumps rain because we have this nice shelter to uh get ready in this morning which is pretty good it's cleared up quite a bit with the smoke you can just start to see the glaciers from mount assiniboine maybe maybe the top will poke as we walk by magog lake today so just imagine this giant conical peak snow tipped peak coming out of the mountains right there boom at least we got to see a little bit of it feeling pretty good after yesterday i did a lot of stretching at camp last night so none of my muscles are super tight the only potential issue are my achilles they're a little bit tight but hopefully don't cause any problems yeah today's the biggest day of the trip 50 kilometers planned so it's gonna be it's gonna be a big one let's see how it goes i'm eating breakfast on trail that's what the purpose of these range bars was for so i could get up and go quickly it's also still raining and it's also super cold that's why i'm in my full rain gear right now but yeah i'm gonna keep nibbling on this get a ton of calories in fuel myself for the day literally walking in clouds right now so i think we're going to be continuing on the trail kind of following side of the hill and then cutting up right before that peak and then hitting citadel pass this is going to be the most elevation cane of the day so it's nice to get it out of the way in the first half this is type three fun right now not even type two it's a slog up that hill and it's raining everything's wet scratch that it's not raining it's snowing you can see well maybe there's a cloud in the way but there is snow that's actually accumulating on that mountain behind me right there it's pretty crazy so i made it onto citadel pass and it's still snowing and that's kind of a dangerous thing for me right now and that's because snow means cold temperatures and with everything that i have being damp or wet from the rain last night that's a deadly combination and something that i have to take pretty pretty seriously i'm a little bit worried but i also have some contingencies in play i just i i have to recognize that i am in a serious situation with cold weather and wet damp gear so that's something that's on my mind and i just want to share with you because normally snow in the middle of summer would be kind of a cool thing and i'd be like woo snow let's make snow angels but but right now it's uh it's kind of a serious situation just hit the 20 kilometer mark only 30 kilometers to go not thin at all just a standard 30 kilometer day and i i could but honestly a 20 kilometer day even last year would have been a lot for me that would have been a big day and i i trained really hard for the great divide trail i put a lot of time and effort into choosing lightweight gear that's also going to keep me safe and comfortable but also the training and i think today hopefully it will be uh be those dividends paying off all that training paying off and yeah fingers crossed i can get it done there's a bit stacked against me with this weather but i'm gonna i'm gonna give it a good try i don't care how pretty this lake is i am not having fun this day is kind of miserable one of those why the heck am i doing this kind of days halfway still snowing it's snowing harder but that's a pretty little lake made it to sunshine village ski resort i probably should have brought my skis there but didn't so we'll just keep hiking so i just got to talk to steph on the phone for a little bit definitely was very tempting to to hike the two kilometers to the bottom of sunshine village and tell her to come and get me today today's the first day that i really feel like quitting and honestly like i i like this this kind of stuff like steph told me don't don't quit she is super encouraging and between that and just some of the views that we're seeing here i i can't quit but i i really want to thinking of a hot bath warm shower yeah it's today's today's a really tough day so i've been thinking why today is is a hard day for me and i think it's partly just like disappointment that today is just not going as planned i kind of pictured being able to see a whole bunch of awesome views like i guess this is still pretty epic with the snow but the snow also provides this danger aspect as well which is disappointing for me because i i really don't want to have to change my plans i spent a lot of time training for this day and tomorrow planning it and i don't want to have to to change that i think i think as much as i have been trying to practice not having expectations for something like today i had expectations for today honestly and and the disappointment of things not going as planned is is real as well just the fear the fear is still there that i'm not going to be able to complete today and if i do that it's not going to be the way that i want to just kind of finishing strong and yeah it just all bottles up into a bunch of emotions that that make today a hard day getting there simpsons pass then healy pass and then whistling pass and then we're at paul pass campground where the destination is in just under 20 kilometers so i'm out of elevation where the snow is and the rain has kind of slowed down a little bit but i'm a lot warmer than it was up there which is good but beating down the forest brings up another set of kind of issues i guess i just saw some bear scout so i have bears on the mind i think i'm still a little bit skittish for sure and i know this area is part of the zone that a bear called the boss roams and this bear has been hit by a train twice and he beats up other bears all the time i'm pretty sure i read that he's fathered 50 of the bears in the park and he killed and ate a uh black bear so this this this bear if the fact that it got hit by a train twice wasn't enough to kind of make you think twice about wanting to encounter this bear all the that other stuff is pretty crazy so yeah fingers crossed uh he's somewhere else and i don't have to deal with that i told steph when i was talking to you earlier if i have to spray a bear in the face twice then then i'm probably going to quit the gdt it's a sign at that point still running but getting up over keely pass and then only one more pass to go today i would walk 500 miles and i would walk 500 more just to beat a man who walked 5 000 miles to fall down at your door it stopped raining so i think we can give the gear of the day award to the frog dogs rain suit come on down frog dogs even though you guys probably saw the butt ripped on me that's okay it more or less kept me dry and more importantly it kept me warm all day i talked to steph and she said that rain should stop this evening at some point and then the forecast for tonight is below freezing for this area so it's going to be cold which is a little bit worrisome but hopefully hopefully i have all the tools in my tool belt to keep keep warm tonight oh been out about for 40 kilometers now hey and only 10 more to go but not too bad still raining a little bit but the sun came out and it's amazing what a little bit of sun can do for your mood i'm feeling feeling pretty good less than 10k go feeling warm yeah we got this three miles to the last pass of the day made it up onto whistling pass now to head over the other side hey pika come check out the view on the other side of whistling pass these are the rocky mountains wow spectacular whistling pass and the view since we came down from that pass have been the biggest surprise of the trip so far as far as just beauty like this lake those waterfalls these mountains magnificent it's crazy i'm loving it so glad i didn't quit in sunshine i wouldn't be able to see all of this and i'm feeling a lot better so we're just a few hundred meters from camp and i am really proud of myself two years ago or even one year ago if you had asked me about hiking a 50 kilometer day i would have said you're crazy and never would have thought that i would be doing it and yet here i am all after all the training and everything the rain today the snow today all the challenges of the day i managed to get done and that feels really good so 52 kilometers total it's gonna be interesting at the campsite here tonight because it's supposed to get down below freezing and i'm gonna be doing everything i can in order to stay warm i'll have to let you guys know tomorrow how that goes and tomorrow i start part one of the famous rock wall trail so it's gonna be a tough tough day potentially even tougher than today because i'm gonna be doing the most elevation gain out of any day of the entire trip but i know there's gonna be some epic amazing views so hopefully that's enough to keep the engine going morning getting up nice and early again to start the day temperatures are just around freezing right now so it's pretty cold and everything is still soaking soaking wet see on the tent wall just tons of condensation and tons of condensation on my sleeping bag as well just from everything's just being soaked outside and then everything being so damp inside the tent that i have outside the tent here the thermometers equalize at about minus five degrees celsius or just above 20 degrees fahrenheit i actually stayed pretty warm last night i was a little bit worried because everything was wet everything still is wet but i managed to stay warm and comfortable comfortable enough i didn't wake up cold at all last night down to that really cold temperature and uh that feels pretty good and i'm pretty happy with my setup because that i'm going to be eating on the move again so starting off with a range bar for breakfast and then i shove all my snacks into this stretchy side pocket here i can reach back while hiking grab these and yesterday i did not stop once the entire day to for lunch or anything because i was able to just easily access access all my snacks and i put my lunch on the other side in the other stretchy pocket managed to get a nice early start in but we're starting the day with some pretty big elevation gain to get up into ball pass but hopefully with these clear skies we get some really nice views today is a big day for elevation gonna be crossing over four passes making our way up to ball pass right now with these awesome mountains behind me and yeah give me the most elevation out of any day on trail so elevation kicks my butt and steph reminded me that today is the last day on trail where i'm hiking as a 34 year old so i'm going to channel my inner young man energy and get it done because we all know at 35 your body starts falling apart not only is tomorrow my birthday but it's also the 19th day on trail so hitting that halfway point i'll also have ticked over the halfway point from a mileage standpoint and then steph is gonna be picking me up in the town of field in order to start a zero day we're gonna have a hot shower and a beer thanks to a bunch of you who uh contributed during my live stream so thanks for that guys definitely putting that to use coming down off of ball pass and today like yesterday is a day that i had in my mind when i was training from rocky balboa then today is my big angry russian that i've been trying to fight and hopefully hopefully i can come out with the win she's a good girl loves her mama loves jesus and america too she's a good girl a crazy bad elvis loves horses and her boyfriend too and i'm free [Music] free falling yeah whoo so we're going to be following this down and then there's the highway down there and then the rock wall trail starts you kind of actually see the trail going up through that burned area up through those trees and then we hit the legendary flow lake so we came down from ball pass up there through that valley now we're gonna head up this valley to flow lake rockwall trail is 50 kilometers long and one of the top backpacking trips in canada if not the world and that's due to several iconic spots including flow lake that we're going to hit in 10 kilometers here and pneuma pass the rock wall which the trail is named after and then helmet falls but that's those are just the hot spots the entire trail is littered with views i i did this trail last summer and it's awesome this is where the steep part is up to flow leg switchbacks all through there to gain the lake made to the beautiful flow lake definitely gonna take a little break here maybe go for a swim as big of a day as today is i'm really glad that i took the time to go for a swim sit around and eat lunch in my underwear because these are the moments that are awesome and the treasures of the trail that was really nice flow lake is one of my favorite places we're halfway done kilometers but not nearly halfway done elevation yet and we're heading up to pneuma pass flow lake gets me every time i'm super happy that all my gear is now dry yesterday was just tough because all my gear was wet and then there's the looming danger of cold whereas today is the opposite there's all my gear is dry it's sunny and warm and because of that my mindset's just completely different i feel like a million bucks today's still a tough day maybe even a tougher day once things all shake out but yeah i just feel a lot better made it up onto pneuma pass getting some really nice views ran into some trail runners yeah we're getting some really good views over all these passes that's for sure so you can just see the rock wall just the edge of it right there that's something that we're going to be seeing tomorrow during part two of the rockwall trail we just finished off with pass so just two more passes to go tumbling pass and then wolverine pass so down here is the pneuma creek drainage and then i have to go up here to get to tumbling pass i came down that when i did rockwell i did in the reverse direction and i am not looking forward to that that is gonna be a very brutal climb i love waterfalls they're pretty great i'm not moving very fast because i keep getting distracted by blueberries something that's awesome about the rockwell trail being so popular is that i'm walking through tons of berry bushes just heaps of them and because there's dozens of people that walk the trail every single day the bears have all been scared away so i have to worry about them quite as much coming out of the pneuma creek drainage and basically heading up some really steep trail that if i remember correctly is really growing in with shrubbery this is the part of the day that i've been dreading the most crashing through these shrubs up the hill and then having to gain that really steep elevation there yeah not looking forward to this so i made it onto numa pass and this little little meadow that marks it but i still got to go gain that little shoulder over there before i can drop start dropping elevation down into tumbling creek and then start gaining elevation almost right away up into wolverine pass that elevation gain up to numa pass was a right hook that connected my hips hurt my knees hurt and my feet hurt and i still got a lot of elevation to go oh tough day oops that was actually a tumbling pass that we just gained that punched me in the face pretty epic glaciers there's not many places in the world where you could see glaciers like this pretty cool that's for sure it's not just that little finger that's coming down even though it's dirty that's all ice on the floor there the plan from here is to drop down into this valley down here and then gain that next pass and then wolverine pass will be up on our left just coming into tumbling creek campground really tempted to stay here the night i'm going to push on prove to myself that i can do it and prove that even someone in their mid 30s almost can do it made it to wolverine pass nice views on the park side let's go see what british columbia has to offer some pretty nice views heading into british columbia but i'm going to just set up there i saw a nice flat spot that looked like a ton of people had camped at before just over the border so that's where i'm gonna go set up and spend the night so this is we're gonna be spending the night tonight i am tired i am beat up but i'm super happy and i'm super proud like the yesterday with the 50 kilometer days the most kilometers out of any day of the trip and then today with the most elevation gain these are the two days that i was looking at when i was training these are the days that were circled on my planning sheet that were like if you can accomplish and successfully complete these two days then you can look at every other day with confidence because yeah these these days were these days were tough especially yesterday just with the weather and yeah i'm just just really proud of myself super happy yeah it's this is awesome and tomorrow tomorrow we got part two of the rock wall so really excited for that another beautiful time and then i get to see steph tomorrow night and sleep in a bed it's gonna be my birthday just yeah i'll be it'll be nice to just cap off the week with with a beer and a cuddle good morning guys just coming back into the national park and onto the rock wall trail i slept really good last night considering the last two days that i had usually when my body's kind of beat up i have a lot more trouble sleeping but that may have been due to the extra naproxen i took last night a goal of mine has been to not take any ibuprofen during the day and so far i've been successful and that's so that those aches and pains that i am experiencing don't turn into injuries because injury is what really kills you on trail here but i have been taking one or two naproxen every night to help with masking those aches and pains and so i can sleep better but last night because my body was so beat up i took three naproxen and maybe that's why i slept so good but hopefully it doesn't have any consequences on my stomach lining today birthday to me happy birthday to me happy birthday happy birthday happy birthday to me plan for today is to continue down rock wall trail we're gonna see the two awesome spots the rock wall and then helmet falls then we're gonna leave the rock wall trail so we can continue heading down to field where steph is gonna be picking me up for my zero day and on that route we're gonna hit good sur pass which could have some pretty awesome glacier views from there as well and just like that we've hit the rock wall i haven't even had a chance to finish my breakfast yet from a pure rock perspective i think we've seen some bigger rock walls but the fact that there is a glacier right at the bottom going through the valley just just makes it that much more spectacular so i get when i first saw it i was like really that's a rock well i thought it'd be bigger but now that i'm looking at it again it's it's truly magnificent i think this is the most my body is hurt going into any zero day which makes sense it was a tough week but the weeks are only going to get even more difficult because i only have one more zero day in jasper after this one and that's just split up 18 days on trail so it's gonna be two eight day stretches which is gonna be really mentally tough and those aren't easy days like as much as i touted this past section as being the hardest there's going to be some really tough days and these next sections are are just more wild than anything else so it's going to be yeah things are only going to get more interesting from here and here we have helmet falls it's pumping if you want to you can actually there's a trail that goes all the way to the base of helmet falls but we're not going to be doing that today we're heading to field as we head off the rock wall trail and up to good sur pass i just want to mention that today is not a cake walk into town still a 40 kilometer day it's raining everything's wet and this trail that we're taking in order to get to field is much less maintained a little bit more rugged and through a wildlife corridor so i'm going to have to be on my toes with calling out and making sure i don't have any bearing counters we didn't get any great views from good surpass but there's some epic glaciers behind these trees hoping at some point on the trail it opens up and we get a good look at them just a peak of a tiny part of a glacier and then a giant cascade the entire valley's filled with them but can't see anything yet this is what i was waiting for thank you avalanche path giant mountains epic glaciers and then tons of little cascades coming off the glaciers if you like glaciers then go check out my burg lake trip video cause that has some epic glaciers oh she is slippery not a bad view at this cabin guys as we walk out the last little bit of trail here i was thinking about how i've been thinking a lot about the last day and days coming up and kind of just looking into the future a lot on the trail and i for this next section i'm gonna really try and just kind of live day by day live in the moment not not be thinking quite so much about the end of the trail because who knows even if i'll make it to the end of the trail stuff stuff happens right so i'm just gonna think about enjoying each and every day because i think it's something that's been a little bit distracting for me especially this last section is just having that end goal in mind and while it's good to have a goal it's also important to live in the moment hey guys steph picked me up yesterday and we came to our airbnb here in golden we had a delicious meal she cooked the best macaroni that i've ever had a delicious ice cream cake and then i finally got to see the season finale of the bachelorette because i've been super invested in katie's love life so it was nice to see how that all turned out today we're just hanging out i'm uploading videos for you guys and i'm getting my gear started so let's go take a look two bedroom airbnb so it's got some stuff drying out a little charging cable a little bit later today i'll go over some of the gear changes that are happening for the next section there's not a lot but there are a couple of key ones so i'm not actually making that many gear changes in field i have things pretty dialed in something that i will be changing out of my shoes again so these are brand new speed goats that well they only have about 15 kilometers on them so they're they're nice and cushy still and brand new insoles in them which will be awesome i think i've crushed out the insoles i used for the trails so far and then i'm also bringing another battery banks this is the nikkor nb5000 so this is an extra 5 000 milliamp hours of battery power because i'm gonna be going eight days out of time for the next two sections so i need a little bit extra juice in order to take pictures and videos while out on trail and i'm going to be replacing my sunglasses i lost during that bare encounter because luckily it wasn't too too sunny for the few days afterwards but definitely need sunglasses because i've had sunburned eyeballs and it it's not fun and yeah just some some sun more sunscreen some hand sanitizer toilet paper wet wipes and drugs just for replenishing all that as well as food for the rest of the trail so steffie poo and i are just going for a little walk through the town of golden cute little mountain town you can see kicking horse ski resort back there some some awesome skiing i love skiing there they have some of the best steep skiing in canada so if you're that definitely go check check them out yeah we're walking around gonna hit the grocery grab some tea and uh keep hanging out and got some fun stuff planned this afternoon too so keep looking forward to that look at us we got all dressed up stuff's looking cute and we're going out for dinner a little dinner date i don't think it'll be quite as good as the awesome macaroni that steph made but it'll be nice to go on a little date [Music] so this is what i'm going to be doing for the night before i get back on trail steph got me an awesome bath pillow some bath salts which are gonna soothe my muscles and then a waterproof e-reader so i can read in the bathtub because i like reading and i like that's a nice little deer to top it all off so i'm all packed ready to go for tomorrow just do some last-minute drying of the tent here the next two weeks are gonna be pretty crazy some awesome alpine traverses crazy bushwhacking creek fords river fords that are gonna be pretty treacherous and then getting into some of the most wild and remote parts of the gdp it's gonna be the gdt like we've never seen before i'm just gonna brush my teeth and then steph and i are gonna head to bed we'll see you guys in the morning so steph just dropped me off in field another sad goodbye but we got a big day of hiking today big eight days of hiking in order to get to jasper today we're going to be heading up onto the iceline trail which is pretty pretty awesome i've hiked before it's beautiful just alpine traverses i'm gonna be starting just heading right up there and then we're gonna be hitting this is an alternate route so we're gonna be hitting the kawatanat alternate which from what i've heard is um requires some root finding it's going to be an interesting day we got a ton of elevation basically the same amount of validation that we had on that first day of rockwell so give me a big day going to be a challenging day but should be super beautiful at the same time and it looks like the weather is going to be holding up for today and a few days into the future i probably could use another day of recuperation my body is still a little sore from last week but that's okay it definitely rested up i was not waking up sore and kind of hobbling around every day which is good came from down there nothing like a little elevation to wake you up in the morning oh that's a nice easy thousand elevate meters of elevation gain to start off the day i didn't look at the elevation map so i didn't really expect that i knew there's a lot of elevation but after the last section i'm just feeling so much more confident like i i feel good after doing those two big days on rock wall and uh just before yeah it's great it's crazy how confident i'm feeling right now i definitely know there's tough days ahead and that there's a lot of trail that i can't underestimate because it gets pretty wild but yeah i just have i just have like a nice steady confidence that i can kind of get through it and i can do it and i think also like compounding out the perspective that i'm gonna try and have and that i'm having today i'm just taking it one day at a time and enjoying the day i think yeah my frame of mind has never been better on trail than it has today and this morning so we're getting into the yoho park and that's those are some awesome views i'm really glad the smoke hasn't come back but we're going to be coming down in the valley and you can kind of just see emerald lake down there i think just kind of right there so we're going to be hopefully passing that because i've heard awesome things about emerald lake and then i think we then continue up the valley that way or maybe maybe we head up that way i'm not sure i really didn't look at the map today so who knows where we're going so i double checked the map and we're going to be following this ridge here just kind of mid-way up so you can see the trail kind of right along there and then we're going to dip in through that valley yoho pass i think and then come in around the other side of that mountain and the glaciers there along the iceline trail we have emerald lake lodge and i'm going to be there a week after i finish the trail so three weeks from now in order to attend the wedding of two of my best friends sean louisa they've actually been in a bunch of backpacking videos so that's that's kind of cool they're gonna be getting married so super excited very happy for them and can't wait to see them just at yoho lake here and i wanted to say thank you to everyone watching my videos these videos i had a chance to read a bunch of comments when i was in jasper and they were they're amazing the support the positivity everything was just awesome and yeah i just really really appreciate i wanted you guys to know that because i'm reading every single comment as i can and yeah they uh they're definitely gonna be a boost over these next couple weeks here got an awesome view of takakawa falls look at that one of the tallest waterfalls in the canadian rockies we're going to be continuing up yoho valley which is phenomenal valley if you ever have a chance to get in here do it tons of waterfalls glaciers awesome views we're going to be following this side of the valley down iceline trail one of the iconic trails in the canyon rockies and i can tell you i've done it it's awesome we're gonna get to see some really cool views have you figured out why they call it the iceline trail yet pretty nice views up here yeah shout out to connie jane and catherine who i just met i think just they just became fans of the channel great to meet them nice ladies yeah look at that waterfall and the glacier that's coming off of awesome and these glaciers so we got a lot going on here right now first of all we got this big ridge here which is called whaleback and you can get up onto the other side of it and hike along it and there's an awesome waterfall called twin falls that's worth checking out we got beautiful glacier up there and a couple lakes and if you're an old fan of the channel like over two years old then you may recognize this lake as the location for the very first just outdoors music video definitely worth checking out special lake we're going to be hiking between these two lakes over this moraine down to that river valley and then hitting little yoho campground but then continuing up the valley to pop over kwitnak pass which is kind of the crux of the day from what i've heard it's tough going a lot of root finding a little bit of bushwhacking so yeah with with these clouds kind of look a little ominous over us should be an interesting afternoon so at the little yoho campground this is kind of my decision point for the rest of the day but the skies look like they're clearing up or maybe or at least not getting worse so we're gonna follow this river up hit quit not pass and then keep and then it's two two humps 900 meters total elevation gain and then we'll get into the river valley on the other side where there's a logging road that we'll connect with and that's the logging road we would have walked up if uh if we hadn't gone down the ice line alternate route today [Music] we're gonna be heading up through these trees and then up and over that cliff band slash ridge we're gonna be hitting a lake on the other side to be nice there's a pretty bad storm blowing in you can see it's raining right over there it's starting to spit i'm hoping that goes around us and this is a little bit of sunshine is what comes in but yeah that does not look pleasant so we're gonna be heading down to this valley and then popping back up onto this ridge and then over that little pass and that notch there we're kind of splitting the weather right down the middle hopefully it stays on the left side of us and we get this kind of sunshine on the right side yeah we'll see how that goes this stuff is really hard to walk through and i got a whole lot of it tough little section there's no trail through here it's going to be root finding all day yeah going to be a fun afternoon so it looks like the plan is to hop along this creek bed down into the valley bottom and then find a game trail that takes us up to that notch right there or close to it yeah definitely root finding required pretty good trail once you get into the forest so the creek there's a reminder that this is a game trail so remember that hill i showed you to get up that notch we're going straight up it definitely a calf burner that was tough and i was wrong we're not going up that notch actually gonna traverse along here and uh gain in that first pass made it up onto the pass that that was probably the slowest i've ever hiked on the great divide trail so far that was really really tough whew yeah and not a lot of trail that game trail was kind of it after that it kind of petered out and then uh got up here and gonna be heading down into that river valley and camping somewhere along the river those are some rocky mountains out there wow i'm coming down off the pass following this orange flagging tape that anderson put in thank you dan and yeah still four kilometers away from the camp site that i want to stay at and yeah today's today was one of the tougher days especially just that last little bit just kicked my butt i haven't had to do root finding like that since section a so yeah those the all roots they're beautiful and i definitely don't regret any of them including this one but they're tough really tough but that's okay tomorrow is a little bit of an easier day or should be we might have some pretty big creek crossings to go through but otherwise it's kilometer wise and elevation wise just a lot a lot smaller of a day so i might sleep in a little bit show you guys some of my morning routine and if we get to camp at a decent time then do some more camp camp video shooting too the reason why i haven't been shooting as much footage around camp is that i'm up and gone in 20 minutes and then i'm in bed within 30 minutes of uh of getting into camp so it's such a small part of my day being at camp that i just don't just don't film very much of it but i'll try and do better for you guys show you some of that aspect of uh of the trip so i made it down to the road which is much less of a road than i thought it was going to be i actually thought it was still in use so definitely a decommissioned road for a while now and yeah that was that was one of the toughest days toughest days yet and that's with me being conditioned like over three weeks in so if you're considering the that to it to knock out then definitely make sure that you're up for it because between the bushwhacking and root finding and then uneven ground and yeah it just really takes a toll on you mentally and physically and then compound all that with the fact that i was seeing bear signs all day and that just like left me with a leveling some anxiety that was just there throughout the day and i think i mentioned in section a when you're root finding like that you have to be mentally switched on the whole time so it just is way more mentally exhausting like my i'm just spent right now so yeah looking forward to walking this easy road for a bit across the stream up here and then get to camp gear of the day in jinji toe socks i haven't had any blisters at all yet i haven't even had to put luco tape on hot spots which is crazy i've never been prone to blisters in the past but i figured with some of the big days and just my feet being wet constantly i would have some blisters so between the shoes and gingy socks i think i think that's what's doing it for me and just having maybe some tougher feet but yeah the injinji toe socks work and i think the fact that i got really thin ones is uh was a good call got to camp got everything set up and ready for bed super tired definitely going to sleep in tomorrow got an interesting day tomorrow got two alts that i'm doing alternate routes but hopefully they're not as intense as uh the chaot that we did today because that kicked my butt but we'll see only time would tell see you guys tomorrow good morning had a little bit of a sleep in and because of that it's actually bright out when i'm getting things going in the morning it rained and thunderstormed lightning all last night it was crazy everything's wet the shrubs are wet the outside of my tent's wet there's a lot of condensation inside my tent as well but luckily the ultaplex has enough room in it that i can still kind of get things going in the morning and not get wet by touching the sides of the tent the first thing i like to do is i deflate my pillow deflate my sleeping pad and then get changed into my hiking clothes from there i roll up my sleeping pad and then i start packing get on my tent and then start packing everything into my pack first thing that goes in into the nyloflume waterproof liner is my quilt so we'll get that shoved in there try not to let it touch the ground it's a little bit wet so if we get some sun today definitely going to try and dry it out a little bit throw in my sleeping pad so with the near wear excellent i just roll it up flat and then fold it and then that does the trick really really easy to put away that way instead of trying to fold it into thirds or halves and then um then roll it up got my pillow here roll that up shove it in and then all my all my warm clothes here that i was wearing last night because it's starting to get cold it's almost like fall is starting to come in which will make the last section interesting unless we get a warm spell socks some other stuff and i throw my my torah jacket synthetic puffy jacket in last and then from there i just kind of bunch up the top of the nyloplume push down get a lot of air out then twist it up tuck it into the side and then everything's basically packed packed up from inside the tent the next thing that i do is i start taking the tent down and then we go get breakfast and all of my breakfasts are cold so i'm not going to need my pot here i don't want to forget it either though probably need my spoon i think for today i'm not quite sure what we what we have in store let's take a look all right so these are all my meal packages i just put them in freezer bags all the snacks and then elastic everything kind of extra on and we're going to be putting all the snacks into my backpack as well so you can just put those off to the side take the elastic band stick it back in there got thai curry for dinner tonight and for breakfast what do we have homemade oatmeal woohoo so yeah we have we have a whole bunch of snacks in here and i'll just stick those all into my side mesh pocket here the little mesh pocket that's on the outside of the water bottle pouch then i use the bag that all the snacks are in as my garbage bag for the day i stick my lunch on the other side you guys just get a really good shot of the rip in my in my pants and then from there yeah we'll rehydrate the oatmeal here or i guess just add water to it and then then eat breakfast this is just my whole made oatmeal just with instant oats dried fruit and chocolate chips i i it's actually really good i've been eating breakfast on trail quite a bit eating eating as i walk just to kind of save time and i find i'm not super hungry in the morning and my stomach's a little bit uneasy so if i took the time to sit down and eat breakfast every single morning i could i sometimes takes me 30 40 minutes to get through my breakfast that's a lot of time that i'm not hiking and i'm just sitting around and usually just getting cold so i've been hiking and eating breakfast but today i'm not in quite as much of a rush so just gonna yeah enjoy the views and and have my breakfast even though it was raining down the valley here some snow at not much higher elevation could make things interesting going into the coming weeks a little bit of having to bushwhack through here holy crap yeah that's uh it's been like that for a couple hundred meters there tough going super jury morning morale is definitely low when i'm cold and wet and uh and the walking and views aren't great but that's okay just trudging along listening some podcasts and singing to myself [Music] so we made it to a road there's also a decision making time for me i need to decide if i want to take an alternate route up to a mesqui ridge it's i think like 300 400 meters of extra elevation but then i'm up on a ridge that could be really cool the other option is to just keep following this road until i hit the other alternate route which is the cauli creek alternate which i'm going to take either way even though there's a gigantic river for it apparently in there yeah i'm a little bit on the fence because i'm just i'm just not feeling like super adventurous today i'm just kind of trying to power through and and uh just yeah get through the day but i'm gonna do it i'm gonna do it danderson recommended a miss gree ridge he promised if uh if i did it then i could name his firstborn child so i'm gonna i'm gonna do that and then while i'm up there i'll think about think about a good name it's getting a little hard to navigate with this fog rolled in or probably just a cloud that i'm standing in you can see where i just came from in through here it's easy to kind of see the roots when the clouds lift but when i was in that fog you just run into a cliff band you run into some sketchy boulders or rocks it was really hard to navigate really slow going rain a little bit of snow hanging out in the clouds and this squid ridge really uh really brought it that was that was tough i can see how it'd be really really nice with good weather but it's it's a challenge when you don't have good weather that's for sure huh might get some sun so i just scrambled down this forestry cup block which brought back some old memories from when i was a tree planter and i was saying do i do i regret doing misqui ridge and i don't i don't think so i was thinking about it and i don't unless i do the great divide trail again doubtful that i will ever get back here to that area so getting up on the ridge and even getting just the views that i did get and that experience was was worth it even though it was really tough going that was without the visibility and with slick rocks from the rain that was that was tough but worth it better than just walking this road for the last i don't know two or three hours so we hit the turn off for the cauli creek alternate route so this cuts a huge amount of road walking off the trip but we're basically going to be starting to head down through the forest there hit a river valley follow it along and then we're going to be crossing a fairly substantial creek we'll see if this rain makes it worse or if because it's been pretty cold if it's not quite so bad because there's not as much snow melt up at higher elevations so yeah that creek crossing will be interesting i've heard people uh saying that it's getting up to their butthole so we'll see how how high it gets up on me today when we're trying to get through so this is the creek that i'm going to be looking across it's going pretty good not as bad as i expected we're going to follow it for a little bit on the left hand side and then get down a little bit lower and then try to cross i think i'm going to cross right here it looks like it could be deep so i'm not going to be filming it and it's moving pretty good but it's a little bit slower than any other spot so we're going to give this a try wasn't too bad definitely needed both trekking poles i just want to clarify that when i said that that creek crossing wasn't too bad that was based on my level of experience and i've been whitewater kayaking and canoeing for over 20 years so i have experience reading rivers walking on uh creek beds with white water flowing getting pushed around by current and i i know how to operate in those kind of conditions so for someone who doesn't have that experience maybe a creek crossing like that especially when solo might not be in the cards so i just wanted to clarify that because white water is is no joke it's very serious and can be very dangerous just made it to camp looks like it's going to be a z packs party some other people here which is nice after pretty mentally grueling day that took a lot out of me hopefully tomorrow it stops raining because it's gonna be a big day tomorrow up over house pass and house flood plain potentially some bushwhacking so yeah a little bit of a morale booster and a good night's sleep good morning guys got the tent all packed up i had a lot of condensation a lot of rain on the outside so i used a little cloth to wipe that all down before packing the tent up that way i'm carrying less water weight and then when i go to set the tent up later today then it's not just still covered in moisture and wetness so a little little hack for you there it takes an extra five minutes but i think it's 100 worth it i had one of the best sleeps that i've ever had on the gdp so far i just went to bed at eight o'clock woke up at 6 30 slept like a baby basically the entire night and was nice and toasty warm so that was that was awesome and yeah met some really nice people yesterday we all went to bed really early because we're all kind of cold and tired but it was yeah good little morale booster and uh i really really it was really good to have him here it would have been a really tough tough night otherwise then i probably would have woken up with my morale a little bit down still i'm just grabbing my bear bag here we'll go finish packing up and then hit the trail so i'm just on approach to howe's pass not not a big pass but one that i'm actually excited to go over over the past and then down into the house river flood plain i've i've never been in this part of the mountains before and the floodplain is just massive and looks really cool so i'm excited to get down there no no alternate routes today to kick my butt it might still be a challenging day just with the floodplain and tons of river crossings i think today so my feet could turn into blocks of ice because it's another another cold day so i just hit houzz pass some pretty cool information here so getting up onto this pass was the first major trade expedition west of the rockies led by map maker who i'm guessing is indigenous and then david thompson to send this pass on june 25th 1807 heading just back the way we came to the columbia and cooney rivers rivers so pretty pretty cool history i always liked the history of the rockies i've read several books about about it and just hearing about some of the crazy expeditions that happened in the 1800s and early 1900s like truly wild like i i consider this this trip to be a wild trip but i'm doing it with a dcf tent and like super crazy technology my sleeping pad they're just trudging through the forest with horses and canvas tents pretty pretty crazy to think about and definitely neat just to kind of like take in standing here being where that happened 200 years ago first street crossing of the day minimal foot wetness but definitely definitely got wet so we're hitting the edge of the floodplain for the house river should be pretty pretty nice walking other than having to cross the creek a bunch of times but we'll get some nice views as well because we'll be in a big open river valley this is really cool walking along this flood plain easy easy walking beautiful views pretty pretty special still raining still cold it's got me a little bit worried because tomorrow we're heading up to the highest elevation of the entire great vibe trail as well as camping at i think the highest campsite of the trip for me so there's good potential for there to be snow up there i've been looking around at the mountains and there's snow on a lot of peaks this morning and with all my gear being wet that compromises its ability to keep me warm normally if it feels dry i wouldn't have a problem with probably as cold the temperatures as it can get this time of year even though it is canada and does get well below freezing sometimes but with wet gear it just kind of makes makes things a bit more challenging and it has me a little bit worried but today's a nice day actually considering the rain i'm having fun enjoying this river and flood plain sun about being next to water just uh rejuvenates the soul every once in a while you need to pop into the forest and there's a little bit of a bushwhack nothing too too too crazy but definitely some blow down and then some steep little sections that you gotta maneuver maneuver maneuver around so yeah definitely slows me down but i'm happy to go through the obstacle courses like that so you can continue to bushwhack along here or you can get back onto the floodplain they say get back on the floodplain if the water level isn't high which i think it is right now but i'm kind of tired of bushwhacking i'm i'm wet anyways so we're gonna we're gonna cross across the river here might get a little deep but i think it'll be much quicker going going through the floodplain even though we'll be getting our feet wet the whole time getting close to where we're going to be getting out of the floodplain and one last big river crossing i think here oh let's see how deep this gets not too bad it was really nice being able to walk through the floodplain pretty relaxing and uh made some good time so next stop the highway and saskatchewan crossing resort where i have some resupply waiting for me so i've come off the trail onto the highway and you can see not much elevation above us there's snow in the mountains and we're gonna be coming off this highway and heading up a thousand meters tomorrow so that snow is a little worrisome so i ended up getting a room at saskatchewan crossing wasn't cheap but uh putting that putting that super chat money to good use thanks guys i had a really long hot shower and bath i was frozen i didn't realize how cold it was and still i tried to write down all my information for guest services and my writing was absolutely terrible because my hands are so cold so i think smart decision to get a room especially dry everything off because i was talking with somebody and more north path past jasper there's a foot of snow at around the 2000 meter elevation level and i'm going to be hitting 2500 meters and more tomorrow is the plan which which has me thinking huh like that's there's a foot of snow at 2000 which we saw we even saw that just coming down the highway there so yeah got some got some thinking to do and some decisions to make good morning i slept really good last night obviously in a warm bed all my stuff is dry which is really good as a little bit worried that it might not all dry out overnight and that gives me a lot of confidence going in today into today especially waking up and there not being snow on the ground i kind of thought there might be if it got really cold overnight but we're looking pretty good dry and it's not too cold probably a few degrees above freezing which is which is nice and we should know pretty quickly today whether it's going to be a no-go to continue on with the hike because we're within the first 16 kilometers we're getting up to 2500 meters of elevation which if if there's going to be impassable snow that's that's where it's going to start today's actually supposed to be sunny and get up to around 14 15 degrees which would be nice and then same for tomorrow so i feel pretty good going into these sunnier slightly warmer days with full dry gear and good night's sleep it's a little bit foggy this morning but i attribute that to the weather and it warming up a little bit it's supposed to get up to 14 15 degrees celsius today and be sunny and same forecast for tomorrow so even though it's supposed to be really cold tonight i'm optimistic with those two forecasts that i can make it through the next few days and get to jasper as long as we don't encounter crazy amounts of snow at elevation that's that's really the kicker here so i've hit the owen creek trailhead got a couple of stormtroopers garden guarding the way we're gonna basically be following this uh this creek up for over a thousand meters of elevation gain i think and within that time period we should get an idea of whether snow is gonna be a factor and then a little bit further on um once it kind of levels out a bit we're gonna still keep gaining elevation and eventually hit the highest point on the great divide trail which should be pretty cool it's around 2600 meters of elevation yeah really curious to see what snow is going to be like but also i've experienced in snow so as long as as long as it's not post holing super deep then we should be okay so a little bit of snow we hit about 22 000 meters elevation so it should be interesting to see what we had at 2600 so we've followed the creek all the way from the highway we're gonna keep following it up and over that pass right there i wouldn't pass no trail just heading right up there sheep hanging out there hello a couple more just lounging up there so not as much snow as i thought there might be we'll still see we're on the south-facing slope so this kind of stuff melts quicker we'll see what things are like on the north side fun fun little meet up so i ran into two other gdt through hikers this morning so they're heading to pinto lake just 10 kilometers before the campsite i'm aiming to stop that but i might end up going to pinto lake as well makes tomorrow 50 kilometer day but if uh there's a lot of snow up here then pinto lakes have a little bit of a lower elevation so it'd be a nicer spot and it's just a beautiful lake made it up onto owen pass definitely some snow several several centimeters few inches it is beautiful up here really glad i have my sunglasses otherwise my eyes will be getting fried right now i'm just gonna have a little lunch break see if the other gd tiers catch up say hello and then we're heading pretty quickly to the highest point on the gdt which i think maybe over there you can just see claire and her dad right there coming down the slope just for some perspective at how big this alpine area is just made it up onto the tallest part of the great divide trail it's karen right here just met norman tyson which was awesome they're hiking the other direction looking for some sheep real nice guys and we're gonna be continuing down that way over that pass these are pretty spectacular up here especially with the snow so the plan from here is to drop down into this valley and then start cutting across through these trees then up into the alpine and then over that pass right there just taking a little break my left shin really hurts kind of just above the ankle yeah it's uh really really sore and um yeah hopefully it goes away after a good night's sleep but kind of worrisome might need to stay at pinto lake tonight just from a body recuperation standpoint i was thinking of thinking coming down that slope of um the people that i met so far today and one of them claire has hiked the continental divide trail so that's the trail that goes south through the u.s basically along the continental divide of the u.s so the extension of the great divide trail and those those through hikes are four months long and i was thinking that with the great dubai trail being like 30 to 60 days you really don't you don't really switch off as easily i guess is is what where my mind went something with the gdt is like i'm thinking of home i'm close to home i haven't really kind of detached myself and fully given myself over to the trail and thru hike i guess and i think that's something that's i don't really know if it's holding me back but it's definitely just a factor in my mindset and i kind of i kind of had a switch this morning when i was walking and that's what kind of triggered this was i i felt like i was like my determination kicked in i was like you know what i'm gonna i'm gonna finish this thing it's gonna take a lot to not i feel like to this point i've kind of been looking for excuses to to maybe dip out um because i have i have missed home but yeah i had i had a switch today and i was like you know what this this is i'm gonna do it i'm gonna get this done i'm going to finish the great divide trail and it's going to feel good and i think i think i may have to i may have to detach a little bit from home in order to do that and kind of just give give myself over more to the trail and yeah you guys who have hiked the really long trails um four months if if there are any of you out there watching let me know let me know if that's something that you've gone through if if it's easier to do if you've done like two to month long trips if it's easier to do on the longer ones because you know you're gonna be gone for four months that's just kind of where where my mind has been last little bit so i thought i'd share that with you guys from the other side there's the highest point on the gdt right there we came down through here and then up this way beautiful valley we're heading up to the pass but i need some time off from that emotion gotta pick my heart up off the floor [Music] but love comes down without devotion this pass actually feels better than the other two even the last one was the highest elevation these were a grind i think i think partly due to my shin injury but also just the elevation like we're these are the highest passes that i think we encounter the entire trip so whoo but those views they're awesome oh hello karen fancy seeing you here whoo i've made it to the beautiful pinto lake and have a decision to make by the time i get around to the other side of the lake do i want to camp here tonight after 30 kilometers of hiking and then make tomorrow a 50 kilometer day or i want to kind of get dinner going eat dinner here and then hike another 9 10 kilometers to the next campsite so that tomorrow is not a 50 kilometer day playing into this in a big part is my shin um it's pretty pretty sore so on one hand i could rest it today not put as much mileage on it but then on the other hand that leaves a really big day tomorrow so if it is still hurting tomorrow i don't think i can safely do a 50 kilometer day so tough tough choice i got one and a half kilometers to figure that out because yeah it's a tough decision not making it easy is how phenomenal of a lake this is and i'd be able to get to go for a nice little swim so i made it to the main pinto campground really nice some campfire some awesome people hanging around here but i'm probably going to eat dinner and then keep keep going do a little bit of stretching today just because i don't want to do a 50 kilometer day tomorrow but we'll check out some of the views because this lake is amazing so the sun is starting to set it's 8 30 right now it'll probably be set in half an hour here especially since we're in the mountains so i'm still probably an hour away from the spot that i know there's somewhere to camp and uh yeah if i find something sooner i'll probably take it just to avoid night hiking but might need a night hike a little bit we'll see some pictographs on this rock which is really cool and means we're a few kilometers from the planned campsite ah i made it and it's still a little bit light out this is a nice nice little camp spot very hard to spot from the trail the way i was coming but glad glad i got it i'm gonna just set my tent up grab some water and head to bed because got another big day tomorrow and i'm pretty pooped after today luckily the snow thing all worked out i was worried about not for nothing but honestly like when you're up here and there's snow and it's cold and you're not ready for it that's a recipe for disaster so i'm glad everything worked out and it was a good day yeah i got to the highest part of the gdt which is awesome yeah just just a good day good i guess a little bit concerning is the fact that my left chin ankle is a lot more swollen than my right one you can see just all over there that's yeah that's concerning hopefully hopefully it goes down by morning and it was just some aggravation and there's not like a stress fracture or something in there good morning it got really cold last night definitely the coldest night so far there's ice instead of condensation on the inside of the tent tough to get up when it's conditions like that but i'm gonna get moving because moving is the best way to warm up it got down to the forecasted minus six degrees celsius which is about 20 degrees fahrenheit definitely cold at the limits of my sleep systems warm capabilities i wasn't wearing my hiking clothes that's because my pants were wet from the creek crossing and my my shirt was a little bit damp but i could wear those if they're dry and add another layer of socks potentially put on my rain gear but yeah that's that was that was cold my ankle shin is feeling a lot better it's not as sore as it was yesterday but definitely still sore and definitely still swollen so yeah a little bit worried that it might be an injury hopefully hopefully it just kind of goes away but i'm not sure that's how these things work i forgot how much i dislike putting on frozen shoes in the morning if i even can ah yeah i don't even know if i'll be able to tie these up the laces are just right frozen yeah knocker not ideal nothing like a little creek crossing wake you up in the morning so steph looked into the shin ankle issue that i've been having and most likely it's shin splints which i've never had before so that's why i haven't really been able to identify it but um not ideal because it can lead to stress fractures if you don't rest but hopefully i can just take some longer days over the next four days before i hit jasper and hopefully that rests it and then hopefully a day of rest in jasper really helps it out i don't don't want to end up with fractures which is the consequence of of not resting it or treating it but i also don't want to get off trail either so um definitely going to make it to jasper and then kind of reevaluate once we get there so we're going to be following the cataract creek river valley somewhere over yonder to cataract pass and then crossing over cataract pass and then the second pass we're gonna be hitting is jonas pass so two passes today blue skies so far so should get some really nice views which is awesome so i think i made the right call not staying at pinto lake yesterday even though i forgot my sunglasses there which is going to make these passes a little bit more of a pain but i don't think i'd be able to do a 50 kilometer day with my shin splints right now i'm dropping my pace by about 25 down to around three kilometers an hour so 50 kilometers would be just a crazy crazy long day as it stands i'm gonna have really long days kind of from here to jasper just so that i can go at that slower pace and hopefully not aggravate the shin splints too too much um so that yeah they can heal heal up and there's cataract pass that we're gonna be heading up going over so i was thinking about it as us walking up that creek bed got into this crazy beautiful alpine meadow and i slept three and a half days to jasper that's that's a long time for things to potentially work themselves out with my my shin it's not feeling great still but you never know you never know things sometimes have a way of working themselves out and that's what i'm hoping for in this scenario don't worry about a thing cause every little thing is gonna be all right i'm gonna stop here have a little rest for attacking that hill have a little snack got a little emotional just singing that song which is usually a sign that i'm getting hungry and uh yeah say hello to the fellow traveler coming down and check out these views though we just came down up this valley following the creek basically the whole way so i made it up onto cataract pass i'm also entering into the national park system what that means is that months ago i had to book permits for campsites in the national parks and then i have to basically stick to those permits i'm not allowed to camp anywhere else which is why yesterday i had a little bit more flexibility i was in a different type of public land so i could camp kind of anywhere i wanted to but now that i'm in the national parks i'm much more locked in and i'm gonna be national parks for the next three days so that's why compared to some other trails whereas if you run if you're running injuries or any sort of other stuff you kind of adjust your schedule on the great divide trail that's a lot harder to do so yeah i'm not moving fast the shin splints are really acting up but uh i'm going to try my best and might hopefully don't need to night hike because i've avoided it so far but my pace right now is is on pace tonight hike this is a rugged landscape we're gonna be heading heading down that valley i'm in so much pain right now coming down hills really really aggravates everything really swollen i i don't know what to do i guess i could take some some ibuprofen try to mask it hope that the trail is less downhill just frustrating super frustrating so i just took an ibuprofen hopefully that helps a little bit with the pain and me moving faster i also looked at my itinerary for the next few days and if i don't do the six pass alternate route i can drop my mileage down from 40 kilometers a day down to 30 kilometers a day which with much less elevation gain and loss i just have to break my six pass permit which i'm okay with at this point hopefully parks canada doesn't uh get too mad at me but that's that's the plan that should get me through to jasper if i can get through today this 40 kilometer day is gonna be what really kicks my butt if i can i can do 30 that shouldn't be a problem but i might be hiking really late tonight because i'm just not moving fast at all i'm not sure which side of cataract pass is more beautiful you guys let me know in the comments so we're going to be heading down the valley you can see the trail right there crossing the bridge and then i think jonas shoulder and pass are up that way it's a big bridge so i'm making my way up to jonas pass and jonah's shoulder it is 5 p.m and i still got 13 14 kilometers to go so lots lots of hiking my current pace that'll probably take me around four and a half hours i'm gonna try and keep it under five i just took another ibuprofen but wanted to give you guys a little bit of an update on on where things are at the shin is feeling better probably because the ibuprofen and because i haven't had to go downhill in a while but i'm gonna have to go downhill to get to the campsite for the night so just got up onto the pass got to dry out some stuff as i cook dinner so i'm going to eat dinner on the move again and uh yeah get down and get down out of here so we're continuing along towards this ridge and then i think we're either going to pop over there maybe there or maybe on the other side there just one big long traverse to get to the uh gap in the shoulder and then just a quick drop down to the campsite i made it up on to join a shoulder what a day 40 kilometers so far another couple to go some of the best views of the trip so far and the shin's feeling better maybe the ibuprofen that's doing that but i took my time i'm gonna get to camp kind of around sunset but taking my time allowed me to get on top of join a shoulder during sunset that's pretty awesome oh it's beautiful up here oh yeah some more tears of joy guys like yep this is phenomenal i'm so happy even though i'm injured and i was battling through that all day and it was kind of an emotional roller coaster just thinking about the future i'm i kind of switched that off halfway through the day and just focused on on on up getting up here and enjoying today because why worry about tomorrow and i have such a beautiful day in front of me yeah this is awesome i wish i could bring you all here right now teleport and just hang out and watch the sunset together is this is what it's all about good morning guys got in pretty late last night this is how cold it got last night glad i have an extra pair of socks and i have to wear these today i've only had a few friends to join me for a little party poop so the shin is feeling better it's stable not any worse than yesterday and i'm gonna stick to the plan of altering my route so i'm doing 30 kilometer days for the next few days and that way i can kind of spend less time on it so that's like three or four hours of less hiking every day which is probably better for it healing as well as i can take my time eat breakfast at camp eat lunch dry out my gear if it's nice and sunny which is going to be really nice for breakfast today i have this lemon berry granola breakfast by alpine fuel i saved these alpine fuel granolas for later in the trip when i figured i'd start getting sick of my homemade oatmeal and they're great i've had a few of them already and definitely my favorite breakfast just like look at all this yummy goodness in there yeah really looking forward just to sitting down and having this by the river and we're on the trail i'm really glad i got to stick around camp a little bit met darren who follows the channel and is doing his longest solo backpacking trip yet at five days he just started getting into solo backpacking and backpacking in general a couple years ago so awesome to see him out there he said the channel has uh helped him out quite a bit with just getting out on solo backpacking trips and something we were chatting about was he really eased into it which is definitely the way to go so smart smart smart approach starting off with an overnighter and just somewhere familiar and just kind of building up to a pretty big five-day trip that he's doing very really impressive so yeah and it's been just it's i met quite a few people who follow the channel it's been really cool every single time it kind of still blows me away that there's people just like out in the back country that know who i am because of my youtube channel and everyone's just been super nice super fun to chat to and uh yeah hopefully i get to meet more of you while chatting with darren we use this term moving the needle as it relates to backpacking and back country confidence and it got me thinking about my goals for the great divide trail with one of them being to push my limits and challenge myself and i think moving the needle is actually a much better term to use because it's all about those little daily incremental changes that are slowly moving the needle for my back country and backpacking confidence and that's really what i'm gonna get out of this trip it's not so much the there's not gonna be one huge needle shift from when i finish the trail it's those daily little things that add up and are building my confidence and experience in the backcountry and that was just kind of a really refreshing kind of unique way to look at it and it means that i don't need to be out here for the full 38 days and you don't either you could go out on a weekend trip overnighter and be moving that needle for yourself and i think that's what it's all about i don't think everyone needs to do it through hike and for this this is kind of just what worked out for me but if if you're looking to move that needle then just get out backpack and slowly push your limits darren was telling me about how on his very first day of this trip it snowed a whole bunch and he was a little bit hesitant to continue on the trip but he got out there got after it and moved the needle for himself so next time he sees snow in the forecast for a trip he won't be quite as hesitant he'll have built that confidence and he'll be able to get out in the backcountry and enjoy the outdoors and i think that's what moving the needle is all about it's just making it so that you're not quite as limited with regards to enjoying the outdoors because it's not always sunshines and rainbows and if you can get out have fun in more conditions then that's what it's all about i just want to give a shout out to trekking poles as the gear of the day they've been invaluable for me with this shin injury especially going downhill that's when the shin hurts the most so the trekking poles really help with that they've helped me just go longer distances for the rest of the trail as well and they keep my tent up which is really important it doesn't really matter what trekking poles you have i think the the cascade mountain tech ones from costco or you can pick on amazon as well are some of the best deal out there they're really durable they work really well just don't use them in winter because they might break then but yeah trekking poles i don't know how people hike without them dave man fighter of the night man champion of the sun master of karate and friendship for everyone i really hope these clouds either blow over or burn off we maybe get some of the sunshine that you see a little bit more south there because all my gear is really wet for moisture and condensation because it was so cold last night i could really use the sunshine or to lay my gear out take some time dry it off so that i'm not cold tanks if if i go to bed tonight with wet gear i'm gonna be really cool especially if temps get below freezing again found a good little spot for lunch gonna do a little dry sesh we should have the sun for a little bit here and hopefully get everything dried off because especially the tent it's very wet and then my quilt is also has a lot of condensation moisture so there is a big moose just off trail up ahead uh it saw me but didn't seem to care too much i back down the trail because the trailer gets really close to it moose can be more dangerous than bears they can be very very aggressive so i'm gonna try and see what i can do here may just poke my head around again see um if it's moved on and uh may have to just bushwhack through these trees to get around it there he is right through there pretty little guy doesn't seem to care about me too much the part of the trail in the national park that parks canada has abandoned trail maintenance on so a lot of river crossings without bridges or bridges that look like this and then overgrow and trail once you get onto the trail so i made it to the top of moline pass this is the highest point of the day really nice spot with the lake there and this is where the split happens if i was gonna be doing my normal itinerary i'd be doing the six pass alternate route which would involve heading up over that little gap right there and then pass hopping for six six passes as it stands i'm going to be doing the lean valley route which is much less elevation gain and loss which goes down that way and because that switch not only do i have less elevation to go up and then down the downs are really what kill the shin i also overall will have less mileage to do each day apparently there's quite a bit of willow whacking down there it's pretty overgrown but that's okay i think it'll be worth it in the end we're gonna just head on down and and get to camp and do some do some stuff around there made to camp got a nice picnic table to sit at not a ton of flat spots to set up my tent but i did see a couple a big thing that i'm gonna do because i it's five o'clock so i got here super early way better than the nine nine thirty that i've been arriving at for the other campsites i'm gonna make sure i get a really good stretch in and then jesse gave me some tips for um my shin splints he said that kind of go into the groove on the side of your leg and just massaging says there's usually a nerve that's been irritated and that's what's causing the shin splints so i'm gonna be just really massaging in there massaging as much as i can not right on the shin splint but everywhere around it trying to loosen things up he said that when he's been doing that he's uh relieved this shin sprints in three days so that's that's the goal but first we're gonna set up the tent get everything inside because you never really know when it's gonna rain or snow in the rocky mountains and then of course just after i get my tent set up i jinxed it 100 it starts raining that's okay we're gonna ride out the rain maybe maybe boil water in the vegetable then go eat dinner underneath the tree tomorrow we have the start of the epic skyline trail so that's going to be two parts i'm gonna be doing part of it tomorrow and then part of it the next day but before we even get to the skyline we we we have a lot of shrubs to plow through apparently it's gonna be a pretty crazy morning and then potentially an epic afternoon then i just finished wiping down the inside of my tent there is a bit of condensation not as much as i thought there was going to be temperatures only got to just above freezing and then it was actually really dry here last night this is a pretty dry campsite surprisingly so that's why i have my my quilt out there just laying drying out there's a little bit of condensation that accumulated on top of the outer fabric so drying that up before we pack everything up and then go eat breakfast so i got homemade oatmeal for breakfast today so we'll just leave that out for lunch i have bushka's kitchen hearty harvest and so this is going to require cook so i'll make sure that my stove and this are in the back front pouch of my pack so i can easily accept access them and then cook cook up i have all my i have all my snacks here so i stick those on the opposite side of where i keep my bear spray canister and i switch my bear spray between each side because i don't want to be kind of putting all the weight in the same way on the same side every single day day after day so every day i switch the bear spray and with that where the snacks go so you go on the opposite side and then i'm gonna need my spoon for lunch so we'll stick that in the front pouch here and then i keep my garbage on the same size of the bear spray right in there and i'll usually keep if i have like a like a bar for lunch or a cookie then i'll stick that on the same size as the bear spray as well i can just see the sky and it looks blue which is awesome it's supposed to rain it was supposed to rain all day today based on the forecast and i'm going to be doing some pretty crazy willow whacking within the first 10 kilometers this morning so willow whacking sucks in the best of conditions but when those willows are soaking wet from rain then that makes it even worse so hopefully get a little bit of sun this morning and if it rains this afternoon and after i get through the willows then i don't even care at that point all packed up ready to go time to start start the watch for the day so we can track the mileage and elevation and all the fun stats and then we're we're ready to go fill up on some water as we exit camp i haven't been filtering for a very long time and the reason i don't filter is that i really trust these little streams they're coming straight from the mountains they're filtering through moss and rocks as they come down the mountains and there's nothing upstream of them that could potentially hurt me that would be in the water and if there is something i'd probably taste it so i just added my tailwind nutrition powder into my water if you watch my food video then you know that these are my secret weapon on the great divide trail i've used these before and what they are is there's a bunch of electrolytes in them but what really set them apart is that there's 200 calories per little packet so sometimes when i'm on the trail it's really hard to eat an extra protein bar or granola bar to get that extra 200 calories so being able to add one of these in the morning one of these in the afternoon get extra 400 calories throughout the day really easily has been awesome and these have definitely made the difference on some of my really big days and really hot days and then before we get into too many willows toothpaste tab and toothbrushing time so i had a little taste of the willows all wet just because they're covered in condensation but looks like we're getting serious now willows for days i made it to one of the campgrounds along the trail just started raining doesn't really matter to me i am soaked and that willow whacking is why i'm wearing long pants and a long shirt as well as the sun protection i've gone through several sections like that already they're not nearly as long but i definitely would have ripped up legs and arms if i was wearing short sleeves and a shirt the only thing you can do is kind of protect yourself and and bulldoze through apparently there's still quite a bit more of that to go like like multiple kilometers so yeah they're just gonna put our heads down and power through and then once we're done with kind of this valley willowy section we're gonna be starting on to the first part of skyline trail which is one of the epic trails in the canadian rockies i guess there used to be a bridge here for this crossing we're going to be crossing the moline river usually it's a lot deeper in rushing but right now it's not going to be too bad i don't think yeah just needy not bad hiking pretty fast right now that's because i'm survival hiking i'm just hiking to stay warm at this point it's under 10 degrees celsius i'm wet it's cold and yeah not not a great situation but it stopped raining for now and we're out of some willows for now as well but i need to just yeah keep keep hiking hard so i keep my body warm otherwise if i stopped i'd probably start getting hypothermia pretty quick having a nice hot lunch is gonna be really nice and luckily the bushka's kitchen only takes three minutes to rehydrate once you put boiling water in it so i don't even have to really wait around too long and get hiking really quickly afterwards the hearty harvest is probably my favorite not only meal from bushka's kitchen but i think my favorite freeze-dried meal ever this is delicious it has wild boar in it and then a mushroom risotto with like green beans and apple chunks it's it's phenomenal and kind of turning today around actually it's been a pretty miserable morning but when i eat this i'm starting to feel really good it's like it's kind of steph described it when she had it before as like thanksgiving in a bowl but i'd say it's even better than that i'm not sure how much longer we can trust this bridge but we're gonna go for it and isn't it ironic don't you think it's like rain on your wedding day it's a free ride when you already paid it's good advice that you just didn't take and who would have thought of figures decide to take the moose lake alternate route because i might see some moose let's uh we'll take a look see we can see and then a kilometer after moose lake we hit the beautiful moline lake and just chilling right by the parks canada boat another another moose to get a little bit closer skyline trails to the left but we're gonna go see i i've heard there's a little cafe i might be able to get some hot chocolate at over this way the hot chocolate was out of order but i'm gonna have a nice poutine through these views and warm up a little bit i lucked out and the entire time i was in the cafe eating that poutine it was raining super hard you can actually see it at the end of the lake there just pouring and then the sun came out and it looks like clear skies for at least a little bit here so i'm gonna head down this road here to the skyline trail and i'll tell you a little bit more about it we're at the trailhead for skyline trail it's 44 kilometers long and the highest trail in jasper national park which is pretty cool we're gonna be doing six kilometers of it today and just a small little bit and then finishing off the rest tomorrow so we may see a little bit of the awesome trail but i think tomorrow is really going to be when we get into the meat and potatoes made it to the little shovel campground not a ton of see to see on the way up but tomorrow we're heading up over little shovel pass and then to the infamous notch so definitely gonna gonna have some views tomorrow and then i'm also gonna be walking into jasper for a zero day so that's gonna be pretty awesome as well i'm gonna finish eating dinner go to bed and we'll see you guys in the morning good morning guys having breakfast on trail because i want to get up to a little shovel pass as quick as possible because i want to see more of that sunrise because right now the sun's just coming up and if i can book it up to little shovel pass i might be able to get some amazing views over into the mountains there in the lake in front of it made it up here hiking pretty quick very beautiful that was pretty cool the sun rose right into my face and just got a whole big pile of sunshine that was what a great way to start the day made it on to a little shovel pass 2240 meters so pretty we're pretty far up here and i think we're gonna be just hanging out in the alpine for the rest of the day getting gorgeous views hopping from past to pass walking along ridges and we got nice blue skies should be pretty awesome got pretty cold again last night dropped down to about minus one degrees celsius inside my tent which means it was probably around minus six degrees celsius or 20 degrees fahrenheit outside of the tent it's been freezing or below freezing almost every single night of the last week so definitely has been pretty cold and from what i've been hearing through the trail of grapevine it's only supposed to get colder for the next week or so so definitely be checking the weather when i hit jasper today and seeing what the next little bit is gonna be like because i might need to be outfitting getting some more gear so replacing some gear because i'm not i'm not uh i'm not ready for some really really cold temperatures especially if it's happening through the day and if it's rainy from here we're going to be continuing down into the valley and then hitting the bottom of the shoulder here and then contouring around it and then following the other side of this ridge up to shovel pass one of the coolest parts about getting up early and getting a little bit of an earlier start on the day is that i've had skyline all to myself for the last two hours which is pretty crazy because this is one of the busiest trails in the canadian rockies campsite bookings get fully booked up for the entire summer within about 10 minutes of bookings going live so it's a busy trail it's a popular one but it's also super epic but really cool that i've just been out here all by myself i'm probably the only one in this valley right now there's only campsites on the other side of shovel pass and then a ways back the way we came made it up onto shovel pass 300 meters and 20 meters we're gonna be heading that way so you can see the trail comes along here and then just kind of contours along that ridge right along there there's a little lake right there so past lake on the right hand side and then up over what's called the notch right there so that's kind of the crux of the day made it up onto the notch good little hill to come up to but definitely realize i i have my trail legs because i was just able to fly up that and then we get this beautiful view on the other side it's windy gotta do the summit dance do the summit dance do the summit get it [Applause] oh hello karen you again come here often from here we head down to the town of jasper where i hopefully have a warm bed shower and maybe some pizza waiting for me jasper is gonna be a really important zero day the reports of the weather for the upcoming week are that it's gonna be cold like really cold and then rainy as well so i might need to re-outfit get some warmer layers a better rain suit frog dogs may not cut it for the next section because the next section is touted as the wildest and craziest section of the great divide trail as i grind out this fire road walk out into jasper there's like one thing that i'm a little bit worried about in jasper and then another thing i'm a little bit sad about it we'll start off with the sad thing and that's that steffy poo isn't going to be able to join me this is going to be my first zero day without her which is going to be a little bit lonely and sad and then i think that i'm worried about which is probably even more important is that i'm not sure that the airbnb i book has a bathtub i think it may just be a shower 50 50 chance if it doesn't then it's gonna be a catastrophe but we'll see when we get there i made it to my airbnb and as feared no bathtub a nice hot shower would be great and i'm going to order a big pizza to eat because i'm starving good morning guys so just heading out for my airbnb to go do some laundry run some errands i'm gonna try and pick up some new rain gear because i don't think the frog dogs are gonna cut it when it's sitting just above freezing every single day even during the day and then i'll probably try and grab some more base layers for when i'm sleeping these mayfly sandals are still doing awesome holding up they've been great while at camp and then also when i'm in town right now i get to wear them around and don't have to wear my super stinky speed goat shoes and then when we get back to the airbnb we'll take a look at the speed goats see how they're holding up so far and how they're gonna fare over the next section just popped into liquor store picked up a couple beers for later tonight with my burgers doing some laundry and then also picking up some outdoor clothes so i'll show you that when we get back to uh the air baby i also picked up some new sunglasses fourth there's the charm exploring jasper picking up some new outdoor clothes rain gear but we'll we'll share all that once we get back to the airbnb [Music] also trying to choose which chips to get for tonight i think i'm gonna go with the wavy salt and vinegar so i figured i'd do some show and tell in the park avoid heading back to the airbnb because it's such a nice day for food like i said i picked up the wavy salt vinegar chips i got this electric boogaloo hazy ipa by ben stick i'm i'm kind of on a hazy ipa kick they're pretty delicious especially just mouthfuls of flavor which i'm really looking forward to then the shoreline brewing uh hazy ipa as well so those would be those would be nice tonight while sitting back watching a movie or something and then for new clothing because the issue that i'm running into is that it's going to get really cold over this next week it's supposed to snow multiple days be just above freezing during the day so it's going to be really cold and because of that i got some new base layers so these are just long johns and a long sleeve shirt just synthetic polyester quick dry base layers that i can wear either while hiking or if i'm cold at night then i can throw these on as well but the key is i wanted something that i could wear underneath my hiking clothes that i've been wearing as well just to keep a little bit extra warm because it is going to be really cold during the day as well and then i'm retiring the frog togs i probably should have retired them in field and replace them with something else because i have all this gear at home so it's kind of a little a little bit annoying that i have to buy it all again here but it is what it is so i'm replacing all my rain gear i found some really awesome stuff by north face so there's this north face jacket it's it's pretty lightweight it has pit zips it's rip stop nylon fairly heavy duty but still very packable as well so i'm actually pretty excited about this and it seems warm if you're familiar with the marmot precip jacket i think this is kind of the competition to that but maybe just a little bit better made as well i played around the marmot precip um when comparing it to this and i went with this one so yeah we'll see i'm pretty excited about this the key with this rain gear is that it needs to hold up to a lot of willow whacking i'm going to be going through a lot of bushes like just straight up having to to bash through them so if it's raining i want to be able to wear my rain gear not have it get ripped up and that's the issue with the frog dogs the frog dogs just gets destroyed by shrubbery and then i have the equivalent pants that match that jacket they also seem really good they have pockets which is cool and and they seem like they're going to be a little bit warmer than the frog dogs as well just because they are a little bit thicker and that's that's what i was looking for i'm actually they're fairly affordable too especially in a mountain town like jasper prices usually are a little bit higher and then i picked up a couple other pieces of gear for my extremities these are some liner gloves i can wear underneath my hiking waterproof mitts because my hands have been getting a little bit cold so i wanted these for that they're synthetic so they'll be quick drying not hold on to a lot of moisture they should be great and i picked up some warm socks the thing that i'm thinking might happen is that i might need to wear my current nighttime camp socks along with my jinji toe socks while hiking if it gets really cold just to keep my feet warm so i wanted a nice thick pair of wool socks for when i'm sleeping and at camp if i need to do that so that's what i got these smart wool socks for all around i spent less money than i thought i was going to need to in jasper here and got everything that i needed all the gear the rain gear i got from wild things outdoor store so shout out for to them for having that stuff and also good prices and then it was everest outdoors that i got those base layers so those base layers are actually really affordable under 100 bucks for both which is awesome and are exactly what i need just a plain polyester lightweight synthetic base there i'm gonna go pick up some food somewhere head back to the airbnb and then just hang out for the rest of the day when i get back there though i'll kind of talk about the gear that i've been using so far and how it's been faring and if there's any sort of repairs or issues that i'm going to be encountering oh yeah i also got these sunglasses just cheap sunglasses from the pharmacy like honestly i this is the fourth pair of sunglasses so i'm not going to be spending a lot of money on them um i just need them to get me through the next week just ran into a really cute dog got to have some dog cuddles now heading to grab a burger back to the airbnb so i promised we'd do a little bit of overview of the gear that i've been using so far starting off with the hoca speed goats so remember these are brand new speed goats when i started the trail so they have about 300 kilometers on them or so and no no lifting of the heel yet i will be running super glue for the next section just in case the sole is looking really good the this part the midsole is looking a little bit beat up that's just from rocks and sticks and everything but otherwise they're in great shape no delaminations anywhere and they still feel really really good on my feet so super happy that these are holding up my other gear is all working really really well still loving my zerk 40 backpack it's probably going to be one of my favorite pieces of gear i'm thinking of doing a full video talking about my favorite pieces of gear from the trip my ultiplex tent which is hanging up and drying right now is still going strong lots of room there i've been very impressed with that tent my quilt this is remember this is a 20 degree quilt or a minus six degree quilt from enlightened equipment um it's it's one that i'm happy with but i think i probably would have switched out for either uh a quilt that slept a little bit warmer when i'm getting into this next section that's gonna be really cold or maybe even a sleeping bag for the next section but with my extra layers i picked up then that quilt will be no problem and sleeping pad as well super warm the x light is great also very light can't beat that weight yeah everything's everything's going well i think i have things dialed in for this next section and i'm excited i was able to pick up all those new pieces of gear because like i've been saying it's going to be cold it's going to be wet and there's going to be a lot of willow whacking coming up but i've also heard that this next section is one of the most amazing rewarding sections of the entire trail people have told me it's their favorite part of the entire trail so i'm a light bulb just went out but yeah i'm really excited to go to this next section the shin splints are still acting up but we're gonna power through and i just wanna get out there finish this trail finish my goal and hopefully learn some more lessons and keep moving that needle good morning this is the beginning of the end about to start the last section of the great divide trail i don't know of jasper got a 22 kilometer road walk to start the day which isn't fun but i'll give you some time to tell you a little bit about the crazy week that we have ahead of us so this next section of trail is eight days long so that's an eight eight-day food carry my pack has never been heavier with the food and then all the extra gear that i picked up i'm sitting at well over 30 pounds but the pack's carrying it well and it fit everything which is awesome this next section is just the most remote and wild section of the entire trail it doesn't really see anyone other than great divide trail through hikers for large sections of it it's over growing in lots of parts there's huge river crossings like we'll see the deepest river crossings for sure on this section and there's lots of them some that i've heard you have to swim and yeah it's the and then compounding all of that is just the consequence of things going wrong because it's so remote there's no the bailout points aren't really bailout points other sections you could hike out within the same day if you need to bail out for certain parts but this section at best you're looking at a day or two of hiking out in order to bail so if you're in a really bad emergency situation helicopter is your only choice and even then if uh if it's raining or snowing or nighttime you're not getting a helicopter and things can get dicey really quickly that being said i'm feeling really well prepared to get it on trail i got all the gear that i need in jasper in order to stay safe and comfortable and warm and physically i'm feeling really good my shin splints are still acting up it's probably gonna be a factor for the rest of the trail but it's it's healed a little bit and an ibuprofen or two still allows me to push really big miles and luckily on this next section i don't have any really big big days and not a ton of elevation it's mostly going to be dealing with the rivers the overgrown trail and just remoteness and wildness of the trail i've never been in better hiking shape in my entire life so i think if if there's any time that i'm gonna be able to pull off finishing the gdt this is this is it i'm excited to get out there take on what the trail has to throw at me and yeah try and finish strong just walking down the highway me and my buds the hardest part with this road walk is walking slow enough i don't want to aggravate my shin splints so i'm trying to keep it down to a four kilometer an hour pace but my legs want to go at six kilometers an hour so yeah just trying to take it easy luckily i have my watch to keep track of my pace without that i'd probably be going a little bit too fast and potentially re-injuring myself a little bit more uh so i'm off the highway that was pretty mind-numbing walking on there onto this logging road for a little bit before we hit the trail and i i've just been thinking about how crazy it is to be here like eight days left eight days left i'm on the final section of trail there's been so many times where i've just been like i don't think i'm gonna be able to make it to jasper never mind past jasper so this this this feels really special and i and i feel i feel really good i'm confident i know i i'm pretty sure i've said that after every single zero day so far but like i've just had so much thrown at me every section almost every single day and being able to kind of overcome it and and just carry on has yeah definitely instilled a lot of confidence in me and i just feel i feel ready to to see what each day has in store for me over the next eight days enjoy these these last few days and yeah finish off the gdt and and uh complete complete this pretty big challenge in my life we're off the easy trail onto a little bit more of a difficult trail with a lot of deadpool on it and with this pack it is a tough day my pack like i said is the heaviest it's ever been and i think some of you are probably wondering like why not take more days to do the trail and uh like stop and smell the roses as some say and there's there's a handful of reasons why first one being that i want to challenge myself i want to move the needle with regards to my backpacking confidence and experience and so far i've been pushing my limits right up to the limits so that's been really really good fulfilling that goal another one doesn't want to be away from steph for that long call me call me needy but that's just the way it is as well as my friends family life just a long time to be away to take more days to do the trail and work i don't think i'd be able to i would have built a step away from work for for that long and then finally just like i think i would have gotten bored honestly having 10 to 12 hour days of hiking has been perfect for me just enough time on trail just enough time in camp there's only one day where i felt rushed and that was the day where my shin splints were really acting up and i had to really take my time and on that day there's a couple spots where i wish i could have stopped and smelled the roses a little bit more but because i had to keep moving i wasn't able to every other day i haven't felt rushed so that hasn't really been an issue for me at all on the trail so far but hopefully that answers your question as to why i didn't take more time to do the trail slow down do 20 kilometer days 30 kilometer days instead of mostly 35 to 45. that those that's why cause i'm in too deep and i'm trying to keep up above in my head instead of going under instead of going under again just before we get to camp i want to swing back to something that i mentioned on the zero day and that's how happy i have been with all of my gear other than a couple things i switched out in coleman like the cation b3 filter and then i added some things in jasper in order to be warmer and safer on trail everything's been amazing it's allowed me to put in big miles it's reducing my injuries it's allowing me comfortable on trail and for those of you who have been following the channel for a while it's probably not really a surprise to you you know that a lot of this gear i've been using for multiple years and the gdt is in my backyard so these are the kind of trails that i'm on so the gear has been tested in the right environments and that's why that's why it's performing well for the most part and even gear that is relatively new to me like the ultiplex tent i got it out on over a dozen nights before starting the gdt so even that was a little bit tested before coming out here so that's if you are wondering all about all the gear that i'm using all the clothing i'm wearing the food that i'm eating then i do have links in the video description that you can go check out and have videos about that i do get some questions every now and again from people asking what gear i'm using so if you're unaware go check out those videos because i talk about everything that i'm using and why i'm using it i just filled up both my water bottles at this little stream that you can hear here to my left and i just want to share with you guys that i usually do that every time if i'm within a kilometer of my campsite and i encounter a really good stream for getting water then i'm gonna fill up both my water bottles that way if i do get camp and it's either at like a lake or a river that i'd have to filter at then i can avoid filtering and sometimes at some of the campsites the water source is a ways away so it's good to like to fill up and then just get camp with water so i need to worry about it until morning made it to camp got things set up underneath this tree here really nice day i uh i'm gonna appreciate it because six of the next seven days call for either rain or snow so things are gonna get interesting out there especially once we start getting into some of the the willow bashing and having to go through those sections because you just get so cold because you get so wet and luckily i picked up some new gear hopefully it's it's enough to get me through the next sections it's going to be an adventure good morning it's raining as you can hear but good news is that it stayed above freezing all night so it was actually pretty warm i got a great sleep but we all know what rain does to my morale so it should be an interesting day a little bit of a shorter day at 30 kilometers but i'm gonna get everything packed up inside the tent here go grab my food eat breakfast and then hit the trail because there's no reason hanging around camp when it's raining you guys might have saw when i was filling up water by the highway that my toothbrush fell out of my pocket into the stream so i don't have a toothbrush anymore so i'm going to be trying the old finger method yesterday i tried to use a stick seemed like a good way to get splinters so we're going to try the finger we might try some other things over the course of the week i really don't want to get gingivitis so um yeah you know i'm gonna try this out we'll see see how it goes oh for the record this is pre-poop so hands are super clean not that they aren't clean after i prove i do wash them and sanitize definitely not as clean as after using a toothbrush but should work for the next eight days at least it's raining pretty good but it's not warm it's probably around five degrees celsius which is just above freezing but this north face rain suit already feels like it's a little bit warmer a little bit more durable so hopefully a good upgrade over the frog dogs i'll keep you guys posted on that i do miss my frogtogs raid suit i don't know this one just i feel i feel so fancy in this north face one but so far it's performing really well it's only been like a couple hours of hiking in it but been impressed definitely we'll keep you guys updated because like i said six of the next seven days are raining or snowing so i'll be able to really put this put this rain suit through the test we'll be going through some crazy willows as well crossing creeks right now we're just kind of going through some bushes but we definitely have some creek crossings coming up i think there's three three passes that we're going over as well nothing like crazy but but we're gonna get some elevation and something random thought is my feet have been wet a lot on the gdt and and they haven't been cold i don't know if it's my socks or the shoes or just that i have really good circulation but my feet have been toasty warm they're soaking wet right now but they feel like one of the warmest parts of my body so kind of just crazy random thought let me know if you have an idea of why that is because i've talked to a lot of people and their feet have been freezing cold over the last couple weeks here on trail just with the cold temperatures and wet conditions yesterday i mentioned that i'm really happy with all of my gear so far i missed one item and that's these outdoor research helium mitts these are supposed to be waterproof they are not waterproof i get little puddles in the fingers after a little bit that's even with like closing off the cuffs and everything they just they have taped seams but they're just not they're just not waterproof they keep my hands warm that's why i wear them but i really wish they were waterproof because i could put a liner underneath them and the liner wouldn't get wet as it stands if i put a liner underneath these the liner's still going to get wet so yeah not super impressed with these probably going back to the decathlon rain mitts because they're waterproof i know that and aren't much heavier than these so there's another gdt hiker at my campsite last night we've been hiking here this morning first time hiking with someone which is really cool you know to have some great conversations first creek crossing of the day i think they just get deeper after this from what i've heard and we have tomorrow some of the biggest creek crossings of the entire trip so it will be really interesting to to see what those look like especially with all the rain and snow that we're getting so just walking through a bog that's as blaze just for introductions and yeah there's a lot of bog walking on this trail and something we we just saw as we were coming through was the mountain kind of threw the fog over there you can see the snow is not much above where we are right now we definitely gained elevation since being at camp but yeah it's cold up here so we'll see see what elevation the campsite tonight is at because it shows the snow tonight and get even colder so we came out of that bog and it was a little bit tough to find the trail but blaze got it that's where where she got her name from partly and because she's a fast hiker and it's snowing but it's beautiful in this bog probably a fen actually maybe a bog we don't have a conductivity and ph meter to double check but really nice trail another creek crossing and the snow is starting to stick to the ground too so it's definitely getting colder so we got a little bit off trail at that lake but we got to see the beautiful miat lake which was awesome really nice spot if you're looking to camp and then we're just making it up on to yet pass right now really nice meadow up here you can see the snow up on the mountain but it's definitely getting cold we're both both pretty wet and keep it moving to keep warm that's the name of the game on days like today so last couple kilometers have been interesting and that there's there's no trail it's wide open but we're just root finding trying to stay kind of on course and then another kilometer we're gonna cross a big creek and apparently the the trail reappears there based on comments from other people but it's nice it's it's open there's some views you can see the mountains over there and yeah not not the worst bushwhacking you could you could do so this trail from the last couple has been through a burn and we basically just been having to go over under over and over all these fallen logs and like there's just it's just never ending so we made it to the colonel creek campground what a day made it especially walking over those logs at the end just with like exhausted legs that was that was tough and we got ken here so more company which is awesome looks like a nice spot gonna set up and eat dinner and then uh get nice and warm and ten i'll touch base before bed so ate dinner it is getting really cold after being wet all day too i just had to get into dry clothes get in my quilt and i'm trying to warm up right now fingers crossed doesn't get too cool tonight even better if it did not snow or get below freezing because with everything that i hiked in today and my rain gear being wet it'd be pretty brutal to have to put that all back on tomorrow in sub-zero temperatures i'm just gonna try and stay warm through the night and then tomorrow i'll give you guys an update as to where things are at and what the morning's looking like good morning it actually was warmer than expected we all slept pretty good last night um more worrying about getting cold than actually being cold which is good but it's still raining still damp and that's where kind of the danger comes into play like day after day your gear is accumulating moisture not insulating quite as well so fingers crossed that today's last day of of precipitation then tomorrow we start getting getting a little bit better weather and then the days after that are supposed to get a little bit sunny so that's that's good you can get get stuff dried out i'm just gonna go do some morning business and then we're gonna hit the trail so we're hiking the name of the game today is crete crossings we have at least half a dozen creek crossings and i probably shouldn't even call them creek crossings it's it's a it's a full on river probably i don't know 10 to 15 meters wide and moving pretty good in spots so that's gonna be interesting as well as the cold and rain is going to be another factor today i opted to wear my uh the polyester long sleeve shirt that i bought in jasper underneath all my hiking clothes just to try and keep my upper body a little bit warm and that way hopefully i don't get quite as cold today especially with all the creek crossings and less survival hiking the one thing that will be keeping me warm is that i've got a 40 kilometer day today so probably be walking walking a little bit fast and that will definitely help with with keeping warm and and blaze was mentioning that the weather is supposed to improve today and tomorrow oh you get a good look of the river that we're going to be crossing four or five times not small creek crossing of the day this is the upright creek to warm us up i'm graceful and you can't tell let's vote knee deep not too bad the other ones might be a little bit bigger bigger rivers so could be could be deeper we hit our next set of creek crossings so it's a little bit braided here so each little channel isn't quite as deep as it feels all in one main channel so that's why the crossing's up here then we'll continue heading west even though it's day two of it raining and being cold and being wet and trying to just still appreciate the trail have gratitude for being on the trail and enjoy enjoy the day it's actually a really cool area that we're walking through it's totally different than almost any other part of the trail we're in this river river valley walking through bogs and fence and like seems like perfect moose habitat hopefully we see a moose that'd be really cool it is called moose river i guess that just hit me kind of kind of giveaway so that'd be really nice just yeah we're just following this river crossing it a few times not a bad day not a bad day just walking through some clouds and fog and they're lifting up and exposing these beautiful snow-capped mountains the thing i am worried about for today though is staying warm tonight my quilt has absorbed a lot of moisture and is not operating at full full efficiency and same with my sleep clothes and then the campsite site is not apparently not a very nice one and is right in a very wet area which is just gonna compound the moisture problem so yeah that's the that's the one concern for today i'm warm right now and the hiking is good but camp could get a little bit sketchy and we got our widest crossing so far of the day this might be our last crossing of the moose river actually but we'll see we definitely have more crossings after this but maybe not of this river specifically i don't think so we've been hiking and following the moose river for pretty much the whole day and you guys remember what the mooser was like earlier in the day this is what it turns into once you kind of follow it further up the mountain so just a cute little creek and then you guys see behind me the sun's starting to poke out how does it make you feel so happy she's been singing for last like 20 minutes while the sun has been slowly coming out [Music] as we gain elevation to get up to moose pass it's getting colder windier and a little bit snowier but some nice views of these mountains so there's moose pass we're going to be continuing along this valley likely and then popping over a super snowy mountain behind it oh wow so we made it up to a moose pass a lot of snow up here but it's it's beautiful the meadows these kind of alpine meadows with big mountains around are just epic and then the creeks flowing through really nice it's cold but it's beautiful there's a good peak right there so i just dropped blaze off at her campground i'm heading another 12 to 14 kilometers to another spot because i got some big days tomorrow and the next day and the next day the next day um so don't want to get get too far behind but yeah it was probably probably the first and last person that i hiked with on trail and it was it was just awesome having a company especially the last two days where it's been miserable out let's say it's been miserable out views are nice but we were able to kind of keep each other's morale up and uh that was yeah made for the start of section f a really good start to section f so thanks blaze hope you have a good rest of your trip we're gonna be carrying on and hitting probably a couple pretty big creek crossings and otherwise i really don't know what the next five days have in store because there's not a ton of information a lot of people stop at jasper so um we're there's just not a lot of information for these sections fun update as i just come down this hill behind me is that my shin splints haven't really been bothering me since jasper it was they're a little bit aggravated on the road walk coming out of jasper but then the next day and then today i haven't really felt felt it at all so that's really good news and will hopefully allow me to push push a little bit harder and faster and get these longer days done in a better time so that i'm not getting to camp super late and i can just relax and do some reading second last river forward of the day it's always a little sketchy when you can't see the bottom don't know how deep it is keeps blowing she's blowing knee deep not too bad i think because it's so cold we're not getting a lot of melt coming off the mountains so the creeks aren't quite as high as they could be so about 1.3 kilometers from the campsite apparently from a river crossing that i'd be doing very quickly here from there to the campsite it's very very wet and then the campsite has flooded in the past but i heard from someone um that there's a rainfall warning for this area so if it rains a lot overnight and the campsite floods that's not not a good scene and not something that i want to be taking part in so i'm in this area i'm gonna i'm gonna camp here leave no trace it'll be like i was never here um and then move on tomorrow i i feel bad not camping in the designated campsite but also safety first right so we're gonna set up just kind of right underneath this tree and enjoy the views because it's actually a really nice spot and dry and no risk of flooding unless the water level rises like five meters overall good day my feet have been wet all day and very cold because i don't know it's probably a dozen or more creek crossings river crossings and then like another 20 or more little stream crossings where my feet were getting wet so my feet i'm wet my rain suits wet some of you have asked why don't i just get more waterproof gear and honestly when it's raining all day and you're walking through wet shrubs there's really nothing you can do unless you're wearing like a full dry suit which would just get way too hot well not on days like today but it would not be practical looks like those rain clouds that i was talking about are starting to roll in so we'll probably have some rain overnight tonight but tomorrow 50 50 that it's gonna be a nice day we're gonna be in the alpine a lot of the day so i'm really excited for that we're gonna be walking some ridges and if it's a nice beautiful day then that would be perfect i'll be able to drive out some stuff we'll get some really nice views um looking forward to it looking forward to we'll see you guys in the morning good morning i'm just wiping down the outside of my tent i already wiped down the inside and got all the condensation off the inside if there's one tip i can give you it's wipe down the inside of the ultiplex tent because i had a ton of condensation yesterday morning when i woke up wiped it all down and then when i got to camp last night and got into the tent it was basically dry on the inside so i didn't have to deal with not having to touch the walls or being very careful and then when i went to sleep i didn't have all that moisture inside the tent getting into my sleep system so definitely worthwhile worth the five minutes i slept super warm last night and i think that's part of the reason as well i used my 1 8 inch thick thin light sleeping mat underneath my x light i think that added a little bit of warmth as well so even though it got to the same temperature as the previous night i was toasty warm last night i'm gonna finish wiping out the tent pack up eat breakfast and then we got a creek crossing within the first 200 meters so we're going to get the feet wet and cold right away and then i'll tell you a little bit more about the day because it should be a really interesting and diverse day with a lot of different things going on and it's my first day hiking alone in a couple days so we'll see if i end up crying looks like i got a few downed trees that i could use to cross this creek maybe keep my feet dry but the dismount looks like it might be tough i think i can launch off this that was a close one so i launched off there to here but then the shore gave out on me i had to tuck and roll to get one probably shouldn't have done that i should have turned the camera off stepped down there and popped over here but oh this is what it is you're wondering why i'm still wearing my rain gear it's because as you can see there's still snow up there and it's just above freezing temperatures so it is really cold even though it looks like the sky is clearing up we might get some sunshine today probably won't get warm if at all it'll be in the afternoon today starts with a bit of a forest walk then we should get out onto a river floodplain which should be really nice i love those floodplains and then the third stage of the day is getting up into the alpine onto jack pine ridge which i've heard is one of the most beautiful parts of the gt so really excited to get up there and then the big question mark for the day is will the sun come out it's raining the last three nights so my sleep system is has a lot of moisture in it it'd be great to dry down in the sun as well this is my first day in a couple days hiking alone so if it's cold and wet that may end up getting to me like i just i really just don't like being cold and wet it just does not do good things for my mental state so come on son or maybe i've uh figured out how to deal with with that and i'll have a better positive attitude this morning really reinforced to me that i need to i need to be careful like we're we're getting close to the end here and it'd be really unfortunate if just a little slip of the mind got me injured and i wasn't able to complete like for this morning i didn't need to take that risk jumping from that tree that was completely unnecessary and walking through this wet forest i'm just trying to be careful about the wet roots and rocks and i don't need to go super fast on a lot of these days because they're a little bit lower mileage so i can just take my time and be careful we're so close it'd be really unfortunate to have a twisted ankle or tweak me and the trip so i'm out of the forest made it to chown creek so we're gonna be crossing this creek and then following it up to jack pine pass and the ridge walking that we're gonna get to this afternoon hopefully the sun comes out a little bit here and i can set up on one of these gravel bars and dry out all my gear it's parts of the trail like this where i've been super happy to have my garmin fenix watch there's no trail here so i'm just able to follow the route that i've loaded and make sure that i'm staying on track this part actually isn't too bad i'm just heading up heading up the valley following the river but a couple days ago blaze and i were on a part of the trail where you were having a contour different elevations and go around patches of trees avoid willows it took a lot of micro navigation but we were able to follow the watch and make sure that from a macro navigation standpoint we are still on the trail and something that's been helping me keep pace this entire time and have the pace that i've been having is just being able to follow the watch sometimes and uh not have to take my phone out and check and make sure i'm on trail because some of the parts of the trail are really confusing got a little bit of sun should get even more shortly here so you take a pretty long break by this beautiful river great views and just dry out everything my my quilt i did not realize how wet it was but it is like i could probably squeeze water out of it there's so much condensation and moisture in it and i have a lunch that i have to cook so that's good timing i get to take my time cook it up and eat it and nice hot lunch would be delicious then we get to continue down the river and hit jackpine pass i wanna stand with you on a mountain i wanna bathe with you in the sea i wanna lay like this forever until the sky falls down on me got some aggressive willow bashing going on here but nothing compared to what apparently we're gonna be dealing with tomorrow tomorrow is pretty intense from what i hear with regards to the willows so good to get some practicing feels like i'm hiking through a mountain jungle right now i'm just hiking up streams through willows it's hot humid you really go for a machete right now clear all these willows out i made it up and over best pass that was where that beautiful waterfall was and all those willows from here i head up somewhere through these trees and then hit best shoulder up in here to get some spectacular views i think even from here it's really nice that's gonna be that's gonna be a bit of a hike to get up there whoa made it up onto best shoulder phenomenal views you can actually see the floodplain that we walked up beautiful from here we're going to contour around the side of the shoulder here drop down a little bit hit a camp and then continue on just to the right of this tree on the side of the peak that's behind it onto jack pine ridge and jack pine pass then there is jack pine pass that's where we're headed looks awesome where the heck am i wow i don't think video can truly capture how epic this area is up on jackpine ridge it's just crazy and i lucked out so hard getting a sunny day wow definitely worth dealing with two days of rain to have sunshine for this it's beautiful i slipped back into hiking solo pretty easily today was a tough day way tougher than i thought it's going to end up being about 40 kilometers and 2 000 meters of elevation gain which is not an easy day i'm gonna be getting into camp pretty late probably but yeah it's uh definitely made me realize a little bit more that it's all a mental game really every time i've been limited on this hike it's been mental i think physically i came into it really strong and i think that allowed me some confidence but i think it also maybe masked some of my weaknesses in my mental game for a big backpacking trip like this i just wasn't prepared for the emotional overload and when you're by yourself it's a lot harder to process those things and i think that's i think that's one of the reason why solo backpacking and solo through hiking is it's so difficult it's you're you're just by yourself trying to process things and if you're feeling an emotion and you're unable to process it it's just gonna get stronger and stronger and eventually that's gonna lead to a breakdown which you saw me do a couple times so far on this trip might happen again but i yeah i think i think the the solution probably is just uh better understand yourself better understand your emotions and understand what your emotions are telling you day to day plan from here i think is to continue through this rock valley and then cut across that green and then drop down right where those trees are down to blueberry lake and there's blueberry lake home for the night made it to camp blueberry lake that might have been one of the toughest physical days on trails so far that just beat me right up my feet hurt my knees hit hurt my hips hurt i'm just sore my back hurts i'm just sore all over so i'm gonna have to make sure i get a good stretch in today because tomorrow i have a lot of willow whacking to do apparently it's the worst section for having to bash through willows on the entire trail so that might break my soul might break my soul but we'll see you guys in the morning good morning i am not looking forward to today it is below freezing this morning and in 7.6 kilometers once i start hiking i'm gonna be hitting probably one of the mentally toughest sections of trail it's straight willow bashing for i think it was about 10 kilometers so that's gonna be really tough especially if it's cold wet not looking forward to it at all yesterday definitely kicked my butt 40 kilometers 2000 meters of elevation my knees and all my muscles are definitely sore i got a good stretching but still sore i think what compounded the big day was the fact that my pack had five and a half days of food in it and all the gear i picked up in jasper so it was really heavy relative to any of the other bigger days that i've done so far i had kind of always planned to do bigger days with less less weight in my pack but just goes to show even even when you're two days out three days out from the end of the trip and you have your trail legs and you're feeling great a day can still sneak up on you and kick you in the butt got a nice river crossing just before we get into all the willows i was gonna put on my rain gear for the willows but it's getting pretty warm it's actually should be a really nice day so i think i'd get too hot in the rain gear i'll just get my hiking clothes soaking wet and deal with the willows as they come you can see the evaporation of the moisture off of the willows just back there where the sun's hitting it hopefully hopefully that continues and the willows i go through for the next 10 kilometers aren't too too wet the trail actually hasn't been too bad to this point just walking along the river back there some nice views but i have no doubt that it's gonna get worse before it gets better so well not terrible the going right now is really slow there's not really any trail i'm just kind of following the riverbank because that's the the easiest place to be and then bashing through willows as i go so it's it's not terrible but but it's slow going luckily i'm next to this beautiful river this is one of the nicest rivers on the entire trail and it's just kind of keeping my spirits up i've been going so slow again right now with all these berries we're in some bad willows now very hard to navigate through but then we still got nice views when we stop take a break i'm singing follow me and everything is all right i'll be the one to duck you in at night and if you wanna leave i can guarantee you won't find nobody else like me wow just fell in a hole ah i'm gonna have to watch out for those that hurt i'm losing my mind i'm the wheeler so i had heard some rumors that there's going to be a trail crew out clearing vegetation and willows for part of this and i think i just hit it this would have been all willow encased and now it's nice and clear so thanks for the trail crew and gdta volunteers for coming out here and clearing this because oh that that last little last six kilometers or so was tough some of the toughest section of trail on the gdt this is the kind of section where having the volunteers come out and clear the willows makes a huge difference i would just be in a willow tunnel right now but now i'm on a highway a highway to the pauline campground where i can hopefully go for a swim in the river because it's a hot one i've been working hard and i just yeah i want to take a dip oh it's so beautiful out here i love this river i'm getting emotional just like looking around and just taking it all in it's wonderful so i just had an unexpected grind up to get on this hill i am a beat i am beat again another day that just is beating me down but worth it to get up onto here look at this we're gonna be dropping down into the valley here where the creek is that we're gonna cross and then camp on the other side of tomorrow we're heading up onto this ridge big shale hill and then basically ridge walking for a good while of tomorrow it's going to be pretty awesome really looking forward to it but big day tomorrow is going to be one of the biggest days of the entire trip i'm a little a little worried about it the campsite is right there but i think this might end up being a pretty deep riverboard we're just gonna have to go for it that was the deepest one yet right up to the butthole i'm gonna set up my tent right here underneath these big trees provide some cover over top hopefully help with condensation and warmth tonight while i wait for dinner to rehydrate i want to take a look at my shoe so these hoca speed goats have over 500 kilometers on them now these were brand new when i uh transitioned into them at field and the same issue that happened with the other ones the little heel bit here started lifting up and yesterday last night i superglued it see this one this one's still lifting um that part is doing pretty good but the heels lifting not too bad like it'll definitely finish out the trail 600 kilometers is pretty good for a pair of trail runners on the great divide trail i think let's see what this shoe is like this shoe is locked in so the super glue worked i must have just done a better job was a little bit more patient with this one so yeah the super glue trick works if you if your heel does start to lift you can just put that in there i keep it in my first aid kit anyways still loving the hocus speed goats they are taking me where i need to go that is for sure uh today today today what just i don't know what it is about this section but every day just surprises me and beats me down in different ways today it was it must have just been the willows and then that end of day elevation gain really just took it right out of me and tomorrow luckily we have mostly elevation gain right at the beginning it's gonna be a grind it's gonna be a big day tomorrow's gonna could be tomorrow could be the biggest day just wait the way that the kilometers end up going like today was supposed to be a 35 kilometer day ended up being close to 40. so tomorrow supposed to be a 44 kilometer day could be could be 50 with a bunch of elevation gain see how it goes yeah just taking it one day at a time getting through this good morning today is a very special day i found the golden ticket i'm pretty regimented with my poops and in true justin fashion i rationed my toilet paper for the entire trip so i get pretty regular when i'm backpacking and i know that three wipes and one wet wipe does the trick for me i get nice and clean and each wipe consists of three squares of toilet paper but i knew that when i was rationing on my toilet paper per day that one day got four wipes plus the wet wipe and i called that extra wipe the golden ticket i didn't know when it was gonna happen i just kind of randomly put all the toilet paper into bags and allocated them to each section so today was the day pretty pretty cool that i got four wipes so i'm like squeaky clean down there this is awesome i'm ready to hit the day because it's gonna be a big one probably one of the toughest days the entire trip today is also kind of a special day because it's my second last day on the great divide trail and we're starting it off with a big climb 800 meters to the top of big shale and from there we're gonna be walking some ridges getting some views and trying to complete 40 plus kilometers and 2000 meters of elevation gain today that's why it's still a little bit dark i started the day nice and early so that i could make sure i had lots of time to get the day complete without having to push my body too much because i don't want injuries at this point or my body breaking down so you can see right over there little shale hill we came up and over that yesterday and then down into the pauline creek valley so it is up here wow this is amazing so beautiful i want to be able to see it but my tears keep bunging up my eyes the wind kind of died down for a second and kind of getting a hold of uh how happy i am up here but this is big shell hill it is amazing you may be wondering like why are you crying on top of a summit like i've done lots of day hikes and i've never cried getting to a summit but i think it's more about what it what it means you put a lot to get to the summit you put a lot into a thru hike like the great divide trail and when you get to the summit it just all kind of crashes into you as to what you're accomplishing and what you're doing especially right now for me like second last day it's just really crashing crashing into me it's probably gonna be a pretty emotional couple of days here but even getting up there and thinking i could have quit so many times it's it was definitely in my mind multiple times to quit and then i didn't and then i get to exp go through these experiences like i am today on the in these places that i may never get to be again in my entire life so it's it's really special it means a lot to me and it just brings up a whole bunch of different emotions it's it's happiness it's being proud of myself and i yeah it just means a lot i don't even have the opportunity to quit at this point the last bailout point was at blueberry lake so from here on out the only option is cockwell lake finish or helicopter i'm done about half of the elevation for the day that means i still got another thousand meters over the next 30 kilometers to climb and four high points left on the day so that should be that should be fun get up see some more nice views should be a nice nice afternoon i made it to this cute little lake really unexpected and it's i feel like it's a good time to share to share something with you guys steffi pooh before i left made me a bunch of little notes so little packages with notes and there's different ones this one's when you need some cheering up there's one that's when i was starting out when i was having a bad day a whole bunch of little notes i just had little messages from her that were really nice and super uplifting and motivation motivational just really really exactly what i needed when i needed them and i've been saving the the when you need cheering up i don't need cheering up right now but i just want to highlight such a good such a good day and good moment with with this note and i actually just read it and she wrote a song on the back that i want to share with you guys so here we here we go my name is justin i love the woods you'll see me walking and eating goods i really like gear it makes me smile it helps me stay out here for a while i also like bears they're really cool but if i see one i'll jump in a pool if only i had a pool when i saw that bear and if only she knew when she was writing this that i'd actually get charged by a bear that probably uh probably wouldn't have went to made it so quite so crazy definitely a fun little song i i really appreciate her so much she did so much for me on this trail coming and visiting me bringing me resupplies the emotional support the just general support and yeah i can't wait to get back back home and just spend every day with her because i miss i miss her a lot it's it's been tough being away for 38 days but these notes definitely helped make me feel like she was with me some of the way and really really helped me on some really tough days there's there's times roz is feeling really down i'd read one of her notes or re-read one of her notes and it just picked me right back up so thanks thanks steffi as i make my way up onto more kill shoulder i just want to really express my appreciation and gratitude for steph my family friends people i've met on the trail all of you watching the positivity and support has has been unbelievable i've read almost all the comments from you guys up to this point and i just i just can't believe can't believe the positivity a friend of mine described the comment section of of my channel on these videos as just a bright spot on the internet and it truly has been the support from you guys it honestly has gotten me through some really tough moments and days so i can't express enough how much it's it's meant to me and and for all those people that are close to me in my life your support just really has meant the world so thanks everybody it's uh it's meant a lot i've made it up onto more kill shoulder and some of you might be wondering why i keep calling this the second last day when it's day 36 i've talked about this being a 38 day hike that's because technically the great divide trail will end for me tomorrow all things going well on day 37 but then on day 38 i'll have to get down a 70 kilometer forestry road which is gonna be an adventure in and of itself so i'm still gonna film that day i'll probably call it day plus one and then afterwards i plan on filming several plus days afterwards just to showcase what life is like after the trucks i think that's really important talking about things like how much weight i've lost what food i'm craving what my mindset's like and whether i'm walking down the street yelling hey bear just made it on to the featherston howe ridgecrest you can see the moorkill shoulder right over there and then came down the valley up over the feather stun howe shoulder and then came down that way and then crossed back up to get onto the ridge then from here we're gonna just hit the bottom part of that shoulder drop into that valley and then follow the valley down a little bit elevation gain and then over to the sheep river campsite we're heading down into the sheep river valley for camp tonight but then tomorrow i think we're heading up the valley and then over that pass right there tomorrow should be an awesome day a little bit of everything from the gdt nice way just to finish it off made it to camp got everything set up got a great little campsite here and yeah hopefully i get a good night's sleep i have a feeling it's gonna be a little bit tough because i'm going to be pretty excited for tomorrow good morning last day all things going to plan i'll be at the great divide trail northern terminus at cockwell lake in 30 kilometers it's raining it's supposed to rain all day today and it's dark right now um i don't know what the deal is with the time zones my watch doesn't know i don't know what time zone i'm in but i'm waking up i think in alberta time even though i'm in bc right now and as a result i'll probably have about an hour of night hiking the last little bit here has been pretty sketchy you can see those dark clouds behind me there so i was seeing lightning coming out of those clouds and hearing thunder and as i'm walking through this big open flood plain field i'm seeing charred remains of trees that have been struck by lightning so i definitely tried to stick as close to the tree line as possible for most of uh that walk but the trail just went right through the open area which just seemed sketchy to me under the conditions from here we're gonna enter into the forest and then i think we head up to surprise pass that's between these two peaks the rain stopped for now so hopefully hopefully we get a nice day that'd be that'd be a lovely a lovely surprise i there's a bunch of stuff i want to talk about today and i know i know i'm going to get the question of what's the next big hike so i'll address that at the end whether i do have plans for something like the cdt or pct with that lightning even on the last day the great dubai trail is still trying to kill me but i think if anything the last 36 days have shown that i've been physically prepared for the trail with my training and the gear i brought and it kind of highlighted that i'm my own worst enemy between different insecurities that i have lack of self-confidence and then the ever-present fear of failure i definitely was what was holding myself back and making for some really tough parts of the trail and days overall i don't think the insecurities and fear of failure are going anywhere anytime soon so i just need to not let them control my actions and not let them overwhelm my emotions when they do kick in i'm just making it my way up to surprise pass which is the highest point of the day and leaves me the segue i can't ignore and that's talking about high points of the trip for me starting off with barnaby ridge so epic so many epic parts of that entire ridge it was truly amazing meeting a bunch of you lisa james darren so many more it meant a lot to me and means more to me than you'd probably know it was really awesome to meet all of you and then doing the longest day and then the day with the most elevation back to back i was super proud of myself that really really kind of proved a lot to me and felt really good and then the most beautiful part of the trail probably cataract pass the south valley and north valley i definitely want to go back there then getting up onto jonah's shoulder with that sunrise was i don't think i've cried that much that continuously in a very long time and then getting up onto big shale hill yesterday and realizing that i was almost achieving my goal of hiking the great divide trail was really special as well so those are definitely the highlights for me from the last 37 days so some of you wanted to know what an avalanche path looks like this is this is it the snow accumulates up in the alpine area there it eventually reaches a point where it fails and slides comes down hits the the tree line and just decimates the trees they're so destructive you can see see the power behind them you do not want to get stuck in that but they also create a ton of habitat for bears and other animals so part of part of nature been following these bear prints for a good kilometer now and what's starting to make me a little bit worried is that the puddles in the bottom of the footprints are a little bit muddied still it hasn't settled out so they're they're fresher than i would like and i'm gonna be yelling lots and keeping my eye out if anyone knows tracking let me know how much time has passed since that footprint based on how much the silt is settling out i made it to the broadview lake campsite i thought maybe i'd see some people here but no one no one's camping here i think we're going on four days of not seeing another human so this is second longest amount of time i've been hiking and backpacking the great divide trail solo pretty much the whole time and i wouldn't have it any other way it's facilitated so many movements of the needle for me with regards to my backpacking skills and confidence everything from cross-country navigation to conquering my fears to enjoying each day as it comes and not always focusing on the end goal there's just been so many things that have led to the needle moving for me and i'm very thankful for all of them you guys let me know in the comments what was the biggest needle move that you saw or what resonated the most with you i'd be really curious to hear i'm gonna keep hiking i have another few kilometers to go until i hit kakwa pass less than 10 kilometers to go on the whole great divide trail and i'll share with you when i get there what the thing that i'm really gonna cling to is when i get back into the real world and off the trail because it's it's really important to me and i really hope that it's something that can stick with me after the trail so i'm still following that bear and what's starting to sketch me out is i'm getting into an area with tons of berries so that's that's where the bear was probably going into this area with the berries and the wind is blowing into my face and that's this that's the same scenario that happened with uh the bear that charged me as the wind was blowing my face so it wasn't able to smell me coming i smell a lot worse now much more strongly so hopefully that helps but at least there's no running water yet to mask me yelling because that's that's what happened last time as well i'm just gonna be so noisy and hopefully the bear hears me coming and uh allows me to just pass through and moves moves over to another berry bush as soon as i left the area with all the berries the bare footprints stopped so it's probably just up there chowing down which makes me happy i won't be sneaking up on it as we get close to the end of the trail and we're only a couple kilometers away maybe and still lots of time to get mauled by a grizzly bear i but i'm just getting bombarded by gratitude and i've had an evolving relationship with gratitude over the course of the trail it's kind of developed into this north star for me starting off by just driving home how grateful i am for the relationships that i have in my life where i live the the opportunities that i have and then also was critical for the bad days that i was having it when i was feeling really down or having a tough day gratitude just was able to bring me back up it was definitely a big factor in that and then when times were good and was having some awesome experiences and moments gratitude just highlighted those and made them even better so i'm going to claim the gratitude as i get back in the real world because i really don't want to take it for granted so what's next is probably something that a lot of you are wondering specifically am i gonna hike one of the big long trails like the continental divide trail or the pacific crest trail and the short answer is probably not anytime soon i i have i have other priorities right now and including getting married starting a family lots of travel plans so i'm gonna be and i love i love my weekend my weekend trips and and shorter week-long trips so i'll definitely be doing a bunch of those but probably probably not taking four to six months off to hike anytime in the very near or even mid-term future so that's that's that's that i think i'm going to be getting into winter camping soon in canada here and then next summer i'll probably do some more a lot of overnighters and then probably a week trip maybe a two week trip we'll see i really want to do the john muir trail that's that's on my list let's finish out this hike we're so close i just then i need to figure out am i gonna have to swim across the buchanan river and is there anyone who can give me a ride down the 70 kilometer forestry road or am i gonna have to walk all of that tomorrow i made it i'm at the end of the great divide trail and it's it's all it's all hitting me a month ago over just over a month ago i wouldn't have thought like it was just special just to take that first step on the trail and then to get here and take that last step is is really special it's been so so many tough times through snow cold bear repair charges so many times i didn't think i'd make it and then here here i am i got to the end of the great divide trail one of the toughest experiences of my life and it feels so good so good look at this yep this was this was this was a journey this was awesome all those tough times just make moments like this that much more special with that being said it's closing time you don't have to go home but you can't stay here

Channel: Justin Outdoors

Views: 307,609

Keywords: Backpacking, Hiking, Camping, ultralight, backpacking gear, backpacking gear list, camping gear, hiking gear, ultralight gear, best backpacking gear, best hiking gear, Appalachian Trail, ultralight backpacking, hiking trails, gear review, great divide trail, pacific crest trail, continental divide trail, gdt, canadian rockies, banff, best thru hike, thru-hike, thru-hike documentary, thru hike documentary, hiking documentary, backpacking documentary

Id: xEmrom8BDCU

Length: 356min 51sec (21411 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 22 2021