Day 4.....the adventure continues......Rocky Forks Campground.....47.9km's from start, 10.3km's from Climax Creek......what can I say about this walk.....bush, lots of bush.....trees...the usual. My sister was completely bored, and I have to admit I was pretty bored myself. It was not most exciting part of the trail we had walked.The privy was a log that felt like you would break through if you moved the wrong way....and let's just say you would not want to fall into the pit. This camp lacked, how do I put in in gentle terms, and good water supply. Basically it was a swamp with a bad smell to it....it was not pretty. So we ration the remanding water and when it came time for supper we got a pot full, treated and then boiled the water for 7 mins. just to be sure.....let's just say there was green stuff growing in it! The weather was pretty good, sunny and not too many clouds. We did see a cool waterfall, but the horsefly's were horrible. They weren't as bad as when I was in Wateron, but they were bad. My comrades did limit me to 50 pictures per day.....which is good cause I ended up taking 49. Which is pretty good for me.

A little more pictures of Day 3.

Day 3 Climax Creek, I know what your thinking, and no, nothing like that happened. So you can just forget about that. Anyway, it again had rained that night and so I tried to dry the tent off again. Again we left before are compodrades and again they passed us right around the time we were passing the rangers cabin. which I have to say, was not as nice as the first one. It was more or less, looked liked it was slipped in the middle of the bush. But it meant that we were getting close to a diver, which would put us right on track with the map I made. The morning was sunny and we started out walking through fire weed again and this time there was more up hill, bigger uphills. But you got to walk along this cliff edge for quite some time, so that was cool. The sucky part was seeing all the damage that was caused by the fire, I took out most of the valley we were in and most of the valley on the other side of the river. The trail was like the day before, pretty clear, one person wide, pretty flat, and a lot of weaving through trees. Once we passed the cabin and got to the river just pass, that's when things went array. The map showed us crossing but there was no bridge, the river was pretty deep looking and looked like it had a good current going through it, so we didn't think we were suppose to cross there. So after much discussion on the map, my sister took a good look at it and then we decided to backtrack, where we found another trail heading off to the right that walked along the river. It was a muddy trail and not well marked and hard to see, but we thought this had to be it....thankfully it did turn out to be the right trail. It was just fluke we managed to see it, cause the trail that lead right to the river, where it looked like you had to cross was a pretty major trail...so maybe that was something else, or it went that way at one time. After we got back onto a better more "clear" path, we came upon two other bridges further down. One half the bridge was hanging in the water and half rotten, and the other was fully submersed in water. Mark this as the first time we had to take our boots off to cross the creek. It was pretty cold, but at least there weren't a million bugs eating you. After crossing we continued and came upon another this loots like the place to cross but was not the place to cross. The trail lead straight to it. We searched for a good half hour for a bridge, a sign on the other side of the bank, so see if indeed we were suppose to cross. Yeah, no luck. Finally Sara decided to attempt to cross just to see if she could do it. She was the tallest and probably the best chance with her marathon running legs to get across....if she couldn't do it, me and Charlene definitely won't be able to. She managed to get a few feet into the water before it was practically at her waist and was to strong to go on. So we pulled her back out with the rope and dwelled on what we were going to do. We had that "what do we do no?" look. Sara decided to examine the map more carefully and thanks to her map course she took in university, she realized the mountains were suppose to be at a different angle to us, as to where we were suppose to cross. So we backtrack, again, and found the same thing as before a hidden trail going off to the right leading to a bridge. Hallelujah! The bridge was interesting a kind of scary to cross, due to the big gaping sections in it. But we all passed the best sight we had seen all day, and managed to make it to camp in one piece. Once we got to camp we set up, went down to our little babbling brook and cleaned up a bit. Then we let Sara throw the rope with the beaner on it on the bear pole.....yeah big mistake, she threw it and the beaner clipped into the rope and got stuck at the top of the tree. So the got a really log stick and Charlene jumped on Sara's back and they managed to get it off, but not after I took some nice incriminating photographs!!

Day 2 Grizzly Campground.....well just from the name of the campground, I wasn't too keen to see said campground. Well it had rained in the night and so everything was wet. So when we got up, the sun was shinning so I dried off the trap and tent so it won't be so heavy. we then had breakfast, there's something nice about sitting in the sun looking out at a beautiful lake. After we packed up and meet our new neighbours we headed off for an early start. Just about 50 paces down the trail we find nice looking running water, which we were unaware of yesterday. So we stopped and filled all the bottles with water and treated them. We also hit our first bridge and ranger cabin. Let's just say, I was hoping that the nice bridges were going to continue. After you pass the ranger cabin the trail gets bad really fast. As in, you walk through shin high foliage on both sides. You can't really see the trail but a dent in the foliage to know where your going and since it rained your pants get really wet. Oh, but wait there are sections of high bush, that's when you get really wet. But it opened up further down the trail so that when you walk your boots and pants dry off. Which was nice, cause I get a little cranky when my feet get wet. Our friends ended up passing us, and yeah, they could walk fast....they had just woke up when we headed off. We ended up walking through big areas of burnt trees with a few years of fire weed growing. It was cool for about the first two hours, then it just got boring and kind of annoying. Now, instead of wet foliage you have burnt trees to dodge and duct and jump over. Yeah, then there is the ash smear you end up getting on your pants...it's lovely....reall.....But thankfully I planned to wear my clothes for the whole two weeks....well, I wasn't going to, but then my sister and Charlene got really annoyed at me so I decided to keep wearing them. After a few hours in the burnt trees we cam out onto level ground where there was a small spot of trees that weren't burnt. Basically the only spot we hit that wasn't burnt, oh and it just happened to be the camp, which was right by the river. It was actually a pretty cool place. Most of the trial was small hills and not to much large hills. There was a lot of weaving and up/down, but it was tame, compared to big, big hills. So it wasn't too bad. The campground was you typical back country no one around campgrounds. If a flat spot for your tent and you get a fire pit, a log for a privy and bear pole with no cable. Although we did have benches that were made so we could sit on. After a while you begin to miss sitting on a nice comfy chair. So had dinner, chatted with our friends, they were making a loop and end at the end of skyline....which just so you know is like twice the distance they were going.....but I learned a few good tips from them and made me dream of wanting to be able to walk 30kms in a day. That's just a little too much for me. So we hung out food and packed her in for the night. Grizzly campground is about kms from the beginning and kms from the end. The South Boundary is approx. 176kms, with a max. elevation gain of 2255m and medicine lake....where you start hiking.....26kms from Jasper.

Here are few animal shots and our stuff waiting to be packed!

Ah, the South Boundary, another 14 day hike baby!!! So this time it was me, my friend and my sister came hiking. Well, right there you can manage me and my sister for 14 days straight...needles to say we didn't like each other that much at the end. I enjoyed the trip and it was way easier than the the North Boundary. Oh, baby when you have bug spray, things seem to be easier. Although we had rain and a lot of wet plants, which isn't any better, but still it made me happy it wasn't mosquito's! Day 1 Jacques Lake Well, this is the nicest trail of the trip. It is wide like a road, and only really has a lot of up at the beginning. It's pretty smooth and was not all that muddy. I had this really old bug spray with 98% deet in it, and I was going to cover myself in it before I went, but just my luck it leaked all over my car rug, so now I have this nice wet pee looking spot, thankfully it doesn't smell. Well, the trip started off on a high note....no, it was OK, it wasn't all that warm, but it wasn't raining. The first night you end up sleeping right beside Jacques lake, the rangers have a really sweet cabin right there . You have to book in advance cause this is a popular spot, which I didn't know, but thankfully there was only two other people there. again the signs on this trail are totally whacked, none of my distances were right. This is a horse trial is there are gates you have to go through and horse crap you have to dodge while walking but at least there was no real big mud puddles. This trip was a little touch and go for a while.....the parks people didn't open it until, I think, was a week before we went to let people hike it. Something about snow and bears, so I ended up writing to the Parks people and I think they got annoyed of me asking, cause they ended up opening up the trail. It's good that we didn't want to hike the North Boundary again, cause it didn't even open once this year. Anyways, when we did reach the camp there we bear poles a half dome privy and picnic tables. It was pretty nice camp. The bear poles had buckets at the end of the rope, so we ended up using several ropes, cause only one bag would fit under the buckets. We there was a journal, so of course we took part in adding our own two cents. Charlene did some yoga for stretching, showed me some moves and man it definitely helps to stretch after a big hike. Although my shoulders were pretty tired. Later that night while we were in our tent, two other people came and camped. Little did we know we were going to be seeing them at the next camp too. To Jacques lake from the parking lot was about 13kms, so it wasn't bad.

This was a trip I took with my Friend for a weekend, we went climbing out by Jasper at the rock Gardens and Mt. morrow. We want to try out her new squid that she got for her birthday. It was fun, you know the great weekend of just hanging out, climbing, dancing, smore' making , relaxing and good food.

One summer me and my Friend went rock climbing for a weekend, we went to the cliffs on Mt. Morroue, can't spell that....it's french, and the rock gardens, just messing around trying to learn how to use the new squid she got for her birthday. It was fun....we danced, climb and ate good food.

Last day!! We ended up at Mt. Washington.....pretty cool place. You go skiing there in"winter" and then in summer you go bike riding, down the huge mountain down unbelievable trails! You have to wear body armor when you go. My sister says she went once and they called her brave for not going with disk brakes and armor....but really she didn't know. Oh, she knows now. I read the after math of the blog.....lets just say, she went out and got some disk brakes. After we rode the ski lift to the top several times, we play chess with these really big chess pieces.....it was harder to play with them being big, you can envision the board as well. But you get to play cool battle games with the pieces. Of course they have a gift shop, and yeah....I bought something...I have an addiction ok. Later when we got back, we went for an ice cream down at the docks.....oh baby, who doesn't love ice cream!!!

After we got back from vi sting all the islands we had supper at the Quadra Inn right by the ferry landing...I had steak, of course and it was good, so was there Shirley temple. Then we went to visit this cove that was full of star fish....It was pretty cool, Sara said we could touch them, but only very carefully and put them back where we found them. We found some pretty cool ones! One more day of fun to go!!

Other cool Pictures!

Welcome to Day 4.....Another island to visit....We headed off "early" in the morning to Quadra Island. You have to take a ferry to get there from Campbell River. So we jumped onto this smaller ferry, for about a half hour, 20 mins. Not that long of a trip. We then docked at Quadra Island, Then went to Cortes Island, where we drove to a health food store with all the hippies....we then went to Manson's Landing, where they have bark-less trees. Something to do with a bug. It kills the bark on the tree's and the tree's end up dieing cause of it. We also saw some dead jellyfish in the water. We then made our way to Whaletown. Really small, we talking smaller then hick town. I don't even think you can classify it as a town or dwelling. The day was getting on so we decidied to go back and wait for the ferry back to Quadra Island. Just by the ferry is a cool little coffee shop. It's got this cool little coffee pot pouring into a teacup. You have to see it for yourself. When we got back to Quadra we had supper at the Inn right by the water....really good steak! Then we went to this really secret bay where you can see tons of starfish of all colours. It was a little hard to find...but we had inside information! I have never seen a starfish...it was pretty neat!

Day 3 and my sister hasn't killed me yet. So, That was the day we went whale watching. We got up really early, I can't remember if we had breakfast....but we got on the boat it was really cold and windy. So we decide we should go to the front of the boat. Where, just to remind all those people who don't go on boats very often, that it's really cold in the front of the boat. We went for several hours...and we managed to see a few orcas, they came pretty close to our boat...managed to get them on video. Then when we came back we and had hot chocolate at the resturant. After we warmed up, we headed back to Campbell river for some really greasy, but really good seafood. It was the coolest place called Dick's. It a resturant located right on the docks. It floats. And you get your fish and chips in a newspaper, where you stick it in a hole in the picnic table and eat it with not utensils. It was great. After we finished we went back to my sister's for a relaxing night and watched a movie.

Day 2 of my sister's we headed off to Telegraph Cove. Which quite the drive from Campbell River. We rented two kayak's and drove down there. We were staying in these cool little cabinee things. We looked arouns a bit, through the gift stores, and whale museum. Then we went kayaking. I fully admit that I didn't get very far. I had only gone kayaking once before and waves were seriously big...for me to be comfortable. So then I had some hot choclate at this little shack outside on the boardwalk. Later that night, we had dinner at this resturant that was right by the Old Salty Pub. Pretty good food...and service. After, we made a trip to the Salty Pub, where we had a shot of sourpuss and Glen attempted to drink a guinness...which me and Sara finished off. Then it was singing and dancing back to the cabin. Until morning.....

This summer I visted my sister and her hubby on the island....by island I mean Vancouver island. She just happens to live in this pretty cool city called Campbell River. There are lot of things to experience when driving there. Like the Coquihalla, or the ferry ride in Vancouver to Nanaimo. The ferry has the best banana bread. Buy 2 if you like banana bread. When we were there, we visted Telegraph cove, Quadra Island, Mt. Washington...and just saw some of the ever popular sites!! One of the first night's there we had a fire on the beach and had some hot dogs, potato salad and smore's! By far that was one of the best things we did there. Apparently you can just hang out on the beach start a small fire with the drift wood and go to town!

So the next day we got in the hot heat and head to Little Bow Provincial Park. We headed back to Milk river, then we took highway 4 upto Lethbridge. We copied everyone else and went to Tim Hortons. Where I have to say, I have never see a fuller Tims....but believe it or not they were quite fast, compare to any other Tims on the planet. I had a chicken salad, large of course. So we then headed to highway 23, where we drove to we hit Junction 529 East. While we were driving there we played this weird car game. Something about five or ten things the others person thinks of and then you have to find while you are driving. Like, a yellow car. Let's just say I totally won!! So we made it to Little bow, where it was extremely hot and dry. We set the tent up and I slept...cause that's what I do. The campsite was ok. Very open and sort of golf course looking. Not much of a lake....and one bathroom that was for a large area of campers. Not to wise. We went to Vulcan for dinner and ate at a hotel resturant, close to the gas station. Very good pie. Then we went to sleep. That night there we a horrible storm. Rain, wind, thunder and lightening. I could have swore there was a tornado. I had to pee so bad...and I was afriad of getting blown away on the way to the bathroom....so I peed in the firepit. So the next time you decide to make some food on there....maybe think agian!! The next morning we got up early, packed and drove to Vulcan agian for some pictures before heading off. After that we headed straight home. Road trip was over....thank god...cause I was so hot and muggy. Not to mention driving that far in three days is alot. But still an experience!

....Writing on stone is exactually what the park is all about. It is a small hike through some hoodoos to get to a peice of wall that has a battle scene carved into it. The hoodoo trail is very cool. Me and my friend decided to go on the hottest weekend of the Summer....so when we got there, all we wanted to do was jump into a tub of ice water. We were going to go the next day on the trail, but I thought why not go tonight, now that's it's cooled off and there is still alot of light left. Then tomorrow we can go to another place to camp the next night. It's very cool, I would do it agian. To be continued.....

This was a fun little trip I took with my friend.....It was more a road trip than anything. We went to Writing On Stone Provincial Park. It was a very long drive. The driving went fast cause of the good music. We started off taking highway 2A...or Queen Elizabeth 2 all the way too Fort Macleod. That was a striaght forward drive. Of course you get the "slow ass old farmer drivers" on highway 2A going 70 when it's 110. Then you get the "I just have to go fast" drivers who think going 150 is a safe speed. Well, we did speed a little, but only by 10. The fuzz don't care if it's only 10 over. After we reached Fort Macleod we kept going on 2 until we reached Cardston. Just outside Cardston was supose to be secondary highway 501 East. You think we could find it??? No...never agian.... So we found a 501, of course it was West instead of East. But we never saw the East, so we took it. After about a half hour of driving on it it turned into gravel....yeah, we turned around went back to Cardston and ask a guy in a video store where it was. He did really know, so we went to a grocery store, they actually knew and then proceed to tell us to turn left after the big red barn and where the church used to be. So after we finally found 501 East we headed on down it. If you want the most boreing road that's it. Pretty much flat striaght and nothing in both directions for miles. Near the end of the road we had to stop for the cow that was on the road. That's a cow...of course I had to take a picture. So we turned onto highway 4 to Milk River. Very small, but neat little town. The sign for the town is very cool. We then had to get back on the 501 East to make it to the turn of Writing on Stone. Just keep in mind, the turn is in the middle of town and the signs are not that great. After you get on that road you drive until the turnoff of the Park. To Be Continued....

So, this was a cross-country ski trip that me and a friend took. We went up to Maligne lake in Jasper. We ended up camping a Wapiti for $14 dollars a night...come one, make in an easy number to come up with. We sort of didn't plan this trip very well. We brought beans, but no can opener. So I decided to use my can opener on my pocket knife...but wait, I don't know how it works!!! So after freezy for about a half hour of trying to figure out how to use it, we got the beans open and stuck them on the fire. Ok, beans over a fire become very smoky tasteing. So, if you want good beans, suck it up and cook them over a stove. Laziness had taken over, so that's why we opted for the other way. Plus, you have to have beans over an open fire at least once in your life. This trip was a little later on in the winter season, so the ice didn't look all that frozen on the lake. I have been there skiing several times before, but the other times the ice was very frozen and very snow covered. This was a little weary. So we probably only went 5km's and then stop an took a few pictures while having a snack. We also visited Maligne Canyon. Always a good time. Although it seem's like you should have to wear crampon's when walking around it. In winter it's seriously icy. Some people have fallen and died there. But that's tourists not being careful. Kind of like when they walk on Columbia Icefield's and fall into the Carvasses. We also found the begining of the South Boundary Trail. Which are all set to do next summer. We were going to go this summer, but there have been too many wedding's that we had to go to or were a part of. But I won't tell you too much of the South Boundary, just that the trail head start's on a off shoot road on the Maligne lake road. We had a friendly little squirrel visit us at Maligne lake. He tipped over my fruitopia. Good thing it was almost empty, otherwise I would of had to have had some word's with that Squirrel.

So, I haven't updated in a while, but I have been busy with my sisters wedding, and I am the maid of honor...but enough with that. I would like to tell you about this lovely trip we have done several times in winter. It's called the Tri-Ice-a-Thon. You go spend three days ice climbing in Nordegg. Well, just outside Nordegg. You pay a certian amount, but you are feed and are provided with a place to sleep. It's actually a competition. The first night, is just registering, bonfire and some practice climbing, at the COE (Center for Outdoor Education). Then the next morning you start early in the morning at Frontier Lodge for breakfast, where you find out your teams! After breakfast you get together with you teams and start on the first climbing wall. There are three places to climb. Shunda Hostal, COE and Frontier. There is an ice wall set up at every location and three sides to each wall. So you climb three times or more at each location. There is usally a speed climb at every location and it is timed. There is also usally a technique climb on one of the walls. Previously there was..one tool climbing, stay in the line climbing, blindflod climbing and the 50ft high wall. They mark you on skill, preformance, speed and participation. At the end of the day, when you are so tired, you go for dinner and are shown pictures, have presentations from various climbers...Sean Issac. Then you are told you rank based on if your a beginner, intermediate or advanced. If you rank or end up as a wild card, you go to the big wall, and compete for top prizes. Very nice prizes from Mec, OR, Black Diamond and other outfits!!! My friend is a beginner and won first place last year. My sister was 2nd runner up for placing in beginner catagory this year and also won 9th place the year before that. It's a fun little weekend and you learn alot and meet alot of nice, smart, interesting and big name people. It's usally held in Febuary. The website is actually at the COE website. www.coe.ca

Here....I am moving on to bigger and better things....so i'm going to dive striaght into it and talk about a trip my friend did with me out in Waterton Park. It's called Crypt Lake. I actually heard about this from a guy at work, who I wouldn't take for much of a hiker, but apparently does this hike every year. It is about 17.2 km's round trip, about 6 - 8 hours, after you get off the ferry. You have to get a ticket for the ferry, which can be for there and back and then you take this ferry across the lake to the start of the hike. There are two seperate times the ferry brings people there and back. So the boats start at 9 and 10 in the morning and 4 and 5 in the afternoon. It's $14 dollars Canadian for the whole thing and the boats are usally open from June to September. It's just a day hike and is rated moderate/difficult, so make sure your in decent shape before doing this trail, the time constriants can be a little much. Pretty much from the time you start you are hiking uphill. You gain about 700m or 2, 300ft. It's in the trees for a good part of the begining, then it starts to open up into some switchbacks that take you up a rocky hill. The switchbacks continue for a couple of km's and then you cross a little river to end up on a cliff face, where you walk carefully across it to a metal ladder. You walk up the ladder into a natural cave that is also in the cliff face. The cave slowly gets smaller until you reach the other side. At this point you are looking of a huge dropoff. You then follow this metal cable that is bolted to the rock face to a open meadow above. You slowly climb a little more and reach Crypt Lake. The lake itself is spectacular and is quite huge. It is at the bottom of a mountian base. There is a off shot trial you can take on the way back, which me and a friend took. I highly recommend it if you think you have plenty of time to get back to the boat. This is a great hike and it has some really great scenery for a day hike.

Yeah...last day!!! So here we are the last day of the trip. It took forever to get there. The hike is pretty short, and we have hiked it before, so we pretty much just gum booted it to the end. We really wanted some ice cream. There is this little resturant at the bottom of Robson, right by the the info center, and they sell really good ice cream, especially after being the woods for two weeks!!! It is about 10.9 km's from Whitehorn campground to the end of the Berg Lake trail. It is about 177.6 km's from the start of the North Boundary Trail, although if you tack on Mumm Basin and Toboggan Falls, plus all the walking in the campsites, I figure about 200 km's. So the start of the trail back starts off by going over a suspenson bridge. Then walking up a large hill. The trail is really wide, well marked and not that difficult. After you reach the top, you go down, down a long way. There are a lot of switchbacks and if it's hot outside, it's a very dry heat. Once you get to the bottom, you walk across a flat semirocky area to a bridge, where you cross to go up yet some more hills and steep dropoffs. If it is wet, you have to watch your step. I don't find it that steep, but depending if you are afraid of heights you would probably not like it! Then you reach Kinney Lake, camp one. It's about 7 km's from the begining of the Berg Lake Trail. Most people walk there for a day hike. So the trail to the camp is seriously wide and well managed. The hills are not steep, but there are a few spots that are just plain hot, every time I walk by these spots it's down right hot. I don't know why it is like this, but it is. When we reached the sign that they have at the begining, we were so relieved. We took a picture and felt like we were the Queens of the world. When we got in the van, we forgot how much we love actual seats!!!!!!

So, here we are on the second last day of the trip. How could anyday top the day before??? It can't, with Robson you are lucky if you get a few really good hours. So in the morning we got up and had some breakfast. We had been on the trail before and knew that going back was pretty fast and there was no need to rush. We were headed to Whitehorn, which is the second camp on the start of the Berg Lake trail. Whitehorn is 10.9 km's from the start of the Berg Lake Trail, 9.3 km's from Berg Lake Campground and 166.7 km's from the start of the North Boundary Trail. But we included Mumm Basin and Toboggan Falls into our calculations. So it ended up being 174.8 km's walked thus far. The first km of the trail to Whitehorn, is pretty easy going. A little uphill and a little down. The trail is exceptionally well marked, and well used. Alot of other hikers also. Then you reach Marmot Campround on the other side of Berg Lake. This campground is prone to flash flooding and really isn't one of the nice campgrounds. I have stayed there once, and really not that great of a site. After you reach that, you walk along this flat rocky open area that then goes into a rocky cliff that is pretty flat. Probably the easiest part of the trail, except your feet tend to not like you afterwards. This is the area I call the desert. It at first looks like a hard trail to follow, but it really isn't. After you start walking you see it's pretty well defined. As much as it can be. Then you reach Emperor Falls Campground. I stayed there once also, the first time I went. Never agian!!! The river is right by most of the campsite and you can't sleep at all. Not to mention the washroom at this particular camp reeks!!! It's an outhouse, but a over dated one. This is a good place to stop and fill up with water, cause the next four km's are downhill and there is not water!!! The four km's are up on cliffs and have extreme downhills. If you don't like heights and are not that physically in good shape, you will not like this part very much. Although it is worse coming up it. Just image 4 km's of uphill. And I mean UPHILL! Then you walk probably one more km along a river and Bang your there. Although you really can't Robson form there really well, your are in the valley of a thousand waterfalls!!!

And yet here are the last pictures from that beautiful day....getting closer to night time!!!

Some more pictures....some of Mumm Basin and Toboggan Falls!!!

So here are a few more pictures of Robson on that uber cool day!!!

Day....oh who cares Robson, here we come!!!! Good bye North Boundary and hello best mountian ever!!! So when we woke up in the morning there was frost on everything but as soon as we saw the veiw we said screw breakfast, lets pack up and go. And thats what we did. The sky was crystal clear, not a cloud in site. Robson has never been so clear. Nornally the peak has clouds covering it and you can't get a good picture of it especailly from the back. The trail to get to the camp where we were staying at was pretty much flat. It was walking through trees for the first 2 km's then the next couple were flat, open and beautiful!!! Misquitos...ha!!! There were none. We haden't been that relieved for days!! We couldn't stop laughing and smiling. It was hard to walk cause we kept looking at the mountian. It was mesmerizing. We hit the border line of Alberta and BC. We had walked from Jasper to BC. It was the best feeling. We stoped and took a few pictures and kept going. We then started to see people, lot's of people. It was the busiest I had ever seen it. Everyone we passed on the trail smiled and said hi. I felt sorry of them. They probably walked by and smelled how bad we needed a shower. A couple of people asked us to take some pictures for them with there camera. I can't image how we looked with these big huge smiles on our faces. We also saw a warden fixing the trail, he was happy too, even though he was working. I mean how could you not be. We were to stay at Berg Lake Campground which is 157.4 km's from the start of North Boundary, 20.2 km's form the start of the Berg Lake trail and 3.3 km's from Adolphus. Which made it the smallest hike on the trail. The campsite has a chateau there. When we walked in, there was my dad and brother that we going ot meet us. They seem very suprise to see us that early. But glad we had made it there. They made us breakfast. Pancakes and eggs. God they were good. We seriously chowed down!! Then we took a few more pictures, admired the mountian some more and went to do a little day hike. There is a few little trials around the mountian area. We climbed up toboggan falls, which is spectacular and then up to Mumm Basin. Best veiw of the mountian. It is about a 8.1 km hike. If you have bad knee's then this is NOT the trail for you. You climb up a STEEP hill to the top of Toboggan falls and then walk along a ridge for several km's until you get to the border agian on the ridge and then climb down another STEEP hill. Then back to the camp. We then played cards and hackisac. Had supper and watched the mountian for the rest of the night. Me and my friend got up in the middle of the night to try and take a picture of the stars and Robson, but it didn't work. We did hear a porcupine on the deck of the chateau though. That was one of the best days in my life! If you have never been to the Berg lake trail, it is well marked, very defined and distinct trail. There are actal full blown outhouses. Of course you have to bring your own toilet paper. There are nice tent pads and a little covered area with picnic tables and a stove, for emergencys. AKA, when it rains. The only problem is that the trail is so popular you have to book three months in advance to the day to get to use the trail. You can day hike it, but have to been in some good shape to make it to the chateau in one day and out. So worth it. Here are a few pictures, there will be more!

Ok, now i'm getting excited!!! This is the last campsite until we reached Robson. The best part!! Adolphus Campground. We got up in the morning, discover the real Wolverine camp and continued on. The trail was very rocky during most of it. It traveled along a river. I don't know what river it was but it was very big. The weather wasn't all that great. We didn't get rained on, so it wasn't horrible. Adolphus is 154.1 km's from the start and 12.9 km's from Wolverine. Which the sign said 14 km's from Wolverine when we got there. The first half of the trail started in the trees. We saw a warden on a horse on the trail. We told her about the wolverine sign and she said she knew and was going to change it. Yeah, thanks for the heads up!! Anyway, she seem really nice and we chatted for a while, but then she contined on. That was the only warden we saw on that trail. That day we must have sang all the Arrogant Worms songs we knew. The middle of the trail was the rocky part. It was pretty easy walking except the pain you were feeling on the soles of your feet due to the rocks. After a couple of hours we started to climb and came upon Moose Pass Trail. It was off to the left. The called it Moose pass junction. It is located at 151.3 km's from the start of the trail. It looked like an interesting trail. I might have to go back there and do that one too. After climbing for a while we started hiking through a meadow type area until the camp. We were a little confused bacause there was a sign pointing off to the left for a camp, but it ended up being the horse camp. Ours was still like 2 km's ahead. The whole time we were trying to decided which mountian was Robson. We finally figured it out when we got to the camp. It was a nice camp. Another half plastic toilet up a huge hill, not a level spot to put your tent, a seriously high bear pole and right next to a little creek with a bridge over it. So we cleaned up by the creek and took a look around. Had supper and then the sun came out and showed a small part of Robson. Hardly any misquitos. We could tell we were near, cause it was also colder. We were happy, for the first time in several days. If you decide to go on this trip, make sure your mentally prepared and have a good friend with you. I had the best of friend with me, we were like salt and pepper, it worked slick!

Well, we didn't get flooded out that night, so I was happy. But the next day we were just about to head off when I saw a black bear running a cross the river in our direction. I tapped my friend on the shoulder. Lets just say we made record time on leaving the camp. So for about the first two hours of the trail I was freaked out that the bear was going to find us. I have been camping for my whole life and have not seen a bear, or come close to one. You keep telling yourself there out there, but you sort of think they aren't when you've been camping so much and not seen one. We did come across one on the Skyline trail, but still I did not see them. Anyway, the next camp was Wolverine Campground. Wolverine is 141.2 km's from the start and is 11.1 km's from Chown Creek Campground. The trail to the camp was alot of up hill. The trail had been wiped out in several places due to avalanches. So we had to weave around trees and rocks, little creeks and mud. It was very challenging to find the trail through all the debris. There was this cool bridge we got to cross. It was a wood bridge with a ladder at the end of it. It was quite hard to climb it. After not climbing stairs for several days and walking with a backpack on, makes it a little weird to climb. Since I climb ladders all day long for my job, I was pretty suprise by how hard it was. It took alot of effort. Near the middle of the day it started to sprinkle rain then it started to downright rain pretty hard. We were soaked and cold. It was the first day we got rained on. We got to an area that looked like the campground. It had a sign that was hard to read. It said this was the camp but it was written in felt. We decided to stay cause my friend was really cold. So I set up the tent and all the gear inside, made her change into dry clothes and put my down booties on her. So we layed in the tent in our down bags to try and get warm. We had a nap and I got up to dry our clothes off. The sun had come out just long enough to dry everything. That's when I made supper. There was this awesome stump that was perfect for cooking on. Thankfully the misquitos weren't very bad there. We had also saw a man and a women who were apparently following our tracks for several days. The first people we had seen in 9 days. The next day we found the real camp. It was probably a km away from where we were. Thats where the man and women must have stayed because they kept going past where we were. We never did see them agian.

Ahh, Chown Creek Campground was supose to bring us closer to a higher elevation and therefore not as many misquitos. At least that was the theory that was driving us there. It ended up being the long day of hiking. There is a campsite between Twintree and Chown Creek. It's called Donaldson Creek Campground. It looks like a pretty nice camp, except it is right smack in the middle of the trees, and there for, smack in the middle of the misquito town. Chown Creek is about 130.1kms from the start and 16.5kms from Twintree. Which is a lie. On the trail it ends up being 19kms from twintree. Donaldson is 9.3kms from Twintree. Anyway, I was very angry when I saw the sign at Donaldson telling me it was 19kms all together. The begining of the trail started off in the swamp to get to the start of the real trail. Then it was pretty much uphill for a very long time. It wasn't the nicest uphill, most of of the uphill had been pretty mild so far. But this was seriously tiring after not really climbing that steep of hills. I was so tired, I just wanted to stay there and not go on. But I managed to pull through and force myself to keep going. After we finally reached the "top" of the hill, be started going down. Man after climbing so long and then going down for several kms, well lets just say your legs hate you at the end of the day. If you have ever been on Skyline and experience the downhill at the end, you know what I am talking about. We stopped at Donaldson just long enough to use the log bathroom. Then pushed on. There was the cool water shoot that day. We crossed a very nice bridge that was crossing this waterfall type canyon. It's hard to explain, anyway, it was very cool. Also that day we saw one of the best signs on the trail. The Robson pass sign. I can't explain how happy I was to see it. It was like a warm shower after being in the bush for two weeks. When we finally got to the camp, we were on the edge of a river. With some pretty cool red rocks. A half flooded river. I was pretty worried about a flash flood in the middle of the night. It would have taken us out. It was time for another hair cleaning. So we cleaned up, made supper, basked in the sun and tied our food in the bear pole that was half laying on the ground. It was hit by another tree and half falling over. The bathroom was another log, just as far as the rest, but kind of put on a cliff edge. So since it was pretty windy that day, lets just say, there were drafts where there shouldn't be drafts. I do remember having not so good a sleep. I thought the wind was going to blow us away. We were camped in a wind tunnel. It was pretty breezey.

Goodbye Bying, i'll miss you!!! Specially having to hike to Twintree Campground. The next stop. Honestly I don't remember what we had for breakfast, but i'm sure it was tastey. The hike to Twintree was pretty easy going. It was basically hiking the shore of this very giant lake. Which is very nice, if I had a boat, watch out. The misquitos were pretty much the same as they were...annoying. But a good change from being in the trees for several days. Twintree is 113.6kms from the start and 11.2kms from Bying. I do believe this was the shortest day we had so far. The trail was nothing spectacular, except when you were closing in on the campground. Of course, as per usual, you had to walk off the trail to the campground. So the off shoot trail started off nice, but then it disappeared. So we try for probably a half and hour to find the trail. We eventaully saw a very small arrow pointing in a direction. So we followed it. We had to pick our way through this swap area, trying not to get your feet wet. It wasn't pleasant. It was a very bad trail. I suggest they just put a braodwalk area over it, or move the campground. Anyway, the camp was nice. Right next to a river that flows out of Twintree Lake. The campsite areas were alot nicer then previous areas. It was a horse camp, so everything was better. Really tall bear pole. It took several trys to get the water bottle over it. The washroom was another one of those half plastic toilets. Man, did it reek!!! I was getting low on toliet paper, so that was the day I started to conserve some. We started off with two rolls each, and we had just a little on one roll each in the end. At least my roll wasn't wet this time. It makes the paper not very ineffective. But there were alot of areas to sit around and veg, with lots of stumps, rocks and a big fire pit. The misquitos were tame there, so it wasn't all too bad. Just getting there sucked!! I do remember that was the day I was really clumsy. I keep dropping everything, spilling things on me. Let's just say that was my only really spazzy day. I felt sorry for my friend, but I think she was having fun laughing at me! That's what i'm here for.

Weee....here we go, off to Bying Campground. One of the better campgrounds on the trail. The night we spent at Oatmeal was rainy. It had rained all night, and I didn't think it was going to end. But then about an hour before we got up to make breakfast it stopped. It stopped for the rest of the day too. I was so glad, it would have been really sucky to walk in the rain. Breakfast was the worst. If you thought the bugs we bad durning supper, you were wrong. We had oatmeal, cause we thought it would perfect due to the fact the campground was called Oatmeal. Everytime you went to get a spoonful you would get 10 misquitos in the pot, then while the spoon was on the way to your mouth, you would get three more in the spoonful of oatmeal. So we ended up grabing a spoonful each, quickly, pulling out the misquitos that flew in the pot and putting the lid back on top of the pot. Then you had to pull the ones off you spoon then eat it. So by the time we were done, it was cold. But we did get some protein that day. When you went to pull the misquitos out, there legs would get stuck and rip off. Umm...misquito legs!! So lets just say we were not happy we had decided to do this trail. I think that was the day we said we were never doing this trail agian. So Bying is 102.4 kms from the start and 12.2 kms from Oatmeal. So the trip that day was pretty short. Except the fact that it was pretty much all uphill for half of it and then seriously downhill for the rest. That was the day you reach Snake Indiana Pass, which is at 2020m. Since we were climbing pretty high that day, the misquitos thined out. Not stopped, thined out. I actually took my toque off, but if you had seen my hair, I should have kept it on. That day was also a little worrysome. While on the climb up to the pass, there are areas of the trail that are sort of boggyish, wet and grassy. It's hard to explain, but the trail disappears in some of these areas. We had to guess where it was going. When you don't know where you are going and don't have a great map, you don't want to lose the trail. you couldn't even see other footprints to follow, so we decided to just keep heading straight. Lucky we did find the trail everytime. But I can see someone getting lost there. Other than those spots the trail is quite nice. You cross a lot of valleys. Once you get ot the pass, you start descending to the campground, which was probably five more kms. The downhill was not bad, it was a little muddy but good. There we no spots where we lost the trail. But it was long and tiring. One point in the trial I had said that this would be a good spot for a campground, well I would say this everyday, and the campground would always be a couple more kms ahead, but just as I said this, my friend saw a sign. Too my suprise that was the camp. It was so nice, I was so happy to be there. The misquitos weren't bad either. It was right by a river. So since no one was there we put our tent right by the fireplace and let it dry out. The sun was shining and it was a beautiful day. The was a bit of a trek to the washroom, agian uphill. What are they thinking when they put a washroom up a hill after you have been hiking all day?? Anyway, we had a bit of a wash and washed our socks agian. It was a good thing, we were starting to stink again. Not that we still didn't stink, but we couldn't smell each other so it was good enough. We also made some hot apple cider. Oh baby!!! That is some good stuff in the mountians. It just hit the spot. So there we were, sitting in the sun drinking our hot apple cider, it was a good day. Supper not so much. We had some kind of thai lipton noodles. I didn't really like it, so I didn't eat much that day. I won't be bringing those agian. The rest of the night went uneventfully. Just one peice of advice if you do go on a overnight camping trip, bring food that you know you like. It then tastes ten times better cause your hungry, and your not about to lose all the food you ate that morning.

Ahh...Oatmeal campground. My favorite...can you sense the sarcasm??? If the bugs weren't so bad at this camp, it would have been a pretty nice spot. The night before it had rained, so the ground was muddy and the plants were wet. The trail was actually flat. I don't think we had too much trouble finding it. The day was hot but not hot enough to dry off the plants, so our gaiters saved half our pants, but the other half was just soaked. Most of the trail was on the side of mountians. The trail went through flower meadows, and previous avalanche areas. It was winding along beside the Snake Indiana River. There were also alot of rivers/creeks to cross. I remember we had to cross this creek, after, we whiped out feet off got our socks, boots and gaiters back on, walked for about 7 minutes and had to take them off again to cross another creek. We ended up eventually taking our boots off and throwing them across the river to walk safetly across. My friend threw her gaiters with her boots and one of the gaiters flew off. We almost lost it down the river, but I was already on the other side so I ran for it, but stepped in some moose sh*t to get to it. She of course laughed at me, but was glad I had saved her gaiter. Thankfully we were right by the river so I washed my foot for about 10 minutes before putting my sock back on. Oatmeal is 12.7kms from Three Slides and 90.2kms from the start. Offically the longest I had ever hiked before. Other than crossing the creeks, the trail that day was pretty fun. It had a lot of good views. We actually didn't get many pictures cause we didn't want to stop because of the bugs. It's a shame, there were alot of "kodak" moments. Near the end of the trail my friend had to use the washroom, so when we got to the camp, which was also a horse camp, she was going to go, except we couldn't find the toilet. We must have searched for about a half-hour before we found it. So she went and came back and told me that she had trouble getting to it. That it actually was sort of an outhouse at one point and was falling apart. So when she showed me it, I kind of looked around and found the real toilet. She was pretty angry at me. I just laughed. This toilet, was nice except everything was still all wet, so of course there happen to be a board sitting right before the toilet log. So when you went to step up to the log, I slipped and almost fell in the toilet hole. That could have been, just great!!! So we set up the tent and went inside for a nap and snackes and it started to rain. Well, it rained pretty much for the rest of the night. There was a break though, so we cooked supper under this spruce tree and cleaned up, hung our food and was back in the tent before it started to rain again for the rest of the night. It wasn't light rain either. It was quite heavy. The only thing I was thinking, was how heavy the tent was going to be to carry. The campsite was right beside the river. If it hadn't been raining, it would have been a really nice spot. We played alot of crib that night, I don't think I won to many. Must have been the rain screwing up my card karma. I mean, you have to blame it on something, right?

As the adventure treks on, so does the campgrounds.....next stop Three Slides Campground. So we got up that morning and had some lovely powdered milk with granola in our ziplock bags. That doesn't really taste that good, but it's light and it's food, so I wasn't complaining. The tent was wet that morning, so we found some nicley placed sun at the horse camp that was right beside ours. So we hung the tent over the horse poles and let it dry. It was worth it. Carrying a wet tent is like forcing yourself to run a marathon without any training before hand. Anyway, so when it was dry we packed up and headed on our merry way. The frist half of the trail was trying to find a way throught all the flooding. I'm guessing that area is prone to lot's of flash flooding. Basically you just look for the bridges and try and pick your way through the washed out trail. Blue Creek was actually a very big creek. Thankfully there was a very cool bridge to cross the creek. I don't think I would have been able to cross it without that bridge. It looked very deep and the current look extremely strong. So when I saw it, it was as if a great weight had been lifted off my shoulders. Not to mention my friend would have had even more trouble cause is she is a little shorther than me. This is probably the first trip where I had to cross creeks and rivers, where my dad, who is 6'0 ft, wasn't there to help me cross. Three Slides is 15kms from Blue Creek and is about 77.5kms from the start. That day had alot of different areas to walk. The was a lake we walked along for quite some time, and some more fields. There was alot of walking along the edges of valleys and open meadows. It was just on the out skirts of them, where you could see across almost the whole meadow, Although you might not want to call them meadows. The edges were alot of trying to pick your way through swamp and trees. The trail goes right through these big puddles that are about six feet long and four feet wide. So you had to kind of off trail around them but then find the trail agian just so you don't lose the trail. Let's just say that took some time to wangle through there. There were alot of bushes with berries that bears would eat, so I was a little concerned about that, but more bugged by the mosquito's. I was wearing my rain jacket, toque and my bandana on my face. So I figured they had nothing to bit, well guess again, the were bitting just above the bandana and right in the corners by my glasses. But at least my shoulders were being spared. At that point I had to look on the positive side of things. I was getting pretty hot in all my layers. I was a farley warm day and I was wearing a jacket and a backpack and toque. So when we were getting close to the camp, I was starting to get a headache. I hadn't drank enough that day. So we got to camp and I sat there and drank about to whole waterbottles of water. So far this the worst campsite. To top it, you had to hike 500m off trail and down hill. Then when we got there and the water that was suppose to be there to drink, well, there was this very, very tiny little pond. And I mean pond. But we had our purifing drops so we weren't that worried. It just was a bad camp. I mean it had a great lookout, but the campsite was on a hill, so finding a flat spot to camp was next to impossible. The bear pole was seriously high in that camp. It took a few trys to get the rope over the pole. The toilet was...actually it was basically like the rest. Just a pole to sit on. We decided to wash our hair there. It had been a couple of days since we washed our hair. It felt good. Sitting at the pond wasn't as nice. The pond sort of had a fowl smell to it. But that also could have been us. My sleeping bag was at an angle in the tent. I was sort of leaning towards the side of the tent and down at the same time. I didn't have that great of a sleep.

Day 4, onto Blue Creek campground. This was getting onto the last days I didn't wear my rainjacket and bandana on my face to save myself from the mosquito's. That was the day I got really angry, I could of jumped off the cliff and not cared cause I was away from the bugs. That was just a horrible day, I would like not to remember it. Alot of the walk was in a boggy swam area. So that didn't help to much with the bug situation. The trail was really chewed up because of it. Not to mention the the fact that I was already angry that there were bridges where there was no water to cross and no bridges were there was water to cross. It was just very upsetting. I did end up wearing my toque because they were biting my ears so bad they were red and begining to really hurt. I had a hard time sleeping on them the night before. So, Blue Creek is about 11.9kms from Welbourne, and about 62.5kms from the start. That was about the only good news I had that day. You see, we got this map from the cabin in Jasper, not a great map, but one to track the progress. Anyway, I must have looked at that map 4 times a day and I had this peice of paper that had all the kms on it. So the night before I keep telling my friend, it's ok, it's a short day....the bugs won't be as bad. Ha!!! When we were probably about 5 kms from the actual camp, I figured we were getting pretty close, so then the pain and agony would be over, but low and behold, we came upon a sign that said the campground was at least 3 more kms. Now That was tacked on to that 11.9kms. So I know for sure that from Welbourne to Blue Creek that it is not 11.9kms. Let's just say I was not happy. My friend was laughing at me, and probably was just happy she wasn't the one angry. The thing is, I don't usally get that mad about anything, but with the bugs...I just couldn't handle it. So when we finally arrive at camp, which was about 500m off trail, we set up the tent in some random area and our matresses and bags and jumped in the tent and took a nap. That really helped. We woke up later and had some beef jerky and crystal light. Just when we were about to go make supper, we heard something outside our tent. I sounded like a grunting noise. We didn't actually take a look, but we tell everyone it was a moose. Honestly, I just hope it wasn't a bear. When we heard nothing more, we peaked our heads out and cooked supper. The bugs were bad there too. So, as soon as we ate and washed up, we ventured on out for the washroom. Well, this turned out to be one of those half plastic toilet seat things. Pretty nice when it doesn't have a block of ice or maggets crawling on it....another story. But man did it reek. One of the worst washrooms yet. Sure the seat was nice, but I would rather do a balancing act, than spend two seconds to go to that toilet. So we tied our food in the pole, with what do you know, an actual rope and hook that was suppose to be there. It was almost if they had designed it that way. I was just glad to be out of the bugs, and the fact we hadn't seen a bear yet.

Day3...the adventure continues. So where was I? Ah...yes, Horseshoe campground. So next stop was Welborne campground. To tell you the truth, there were so many campgrounds and so much ground that we covered....I don't remember that much about the hike to it. All I really remember is that it was alot like the hike from Shalebanks to Horseshoe. A little more in open valleys and feilds. Alot less in the trees. A little side note, by this time I have had come to the conclusion that between each campground you walk out of the trees, climb some hills till your farley high, walk along a ridge of the bank of Snake Indiana River then when you were about 5kms to the next camp, climb back down to the safety of the trees and a come to a spot that you thought would be a good place for a campground, but no.....you walked for a few more kms, after seeing many more spots good enough for a campground. Then after you have given up all hope and figured you weren't going to make it to the next camp, there just around the corner...was the camp. Just as good as all the rest of the spots you had seen. But the fact that you were there was good enough, that you didn't complain. So this campsite was not the only one we could have stayed at. There was one called Willow Creek Campground about 2.3kms from Horseshoe. It is more of a horse camp, but hikers can stay there too. I didn't smell that good. Personally I like Horseshoe much better. And since that was so close to Horseshoe I decided to go to Welbourne. It is about 15kms from Horseshoe and 50.6kms from the start. Plas it also had a Warden station. Of course we never saw any of the stations actually being used, but the ranger guy in Jasper said there would be wardens around. So I will just take his word for it, I mean he is a guy just sitting in a comfy office with a window. I guess he knows more than me, I was just on the trail that's all. Anyway, When we got to Welbourne we started a fire and created a whole bunch of smoke to see if we could smoke the mosquito's out, it sort of worked it you were directly in the smoke. My clothes smelled great after that, but could really tell over the socks I had been wearing for two days. So after we gave each other a fowl look, we decided to wash up. It's a little weird to be naked by the creek having a wash. You end up looking around for people watching you, except there's no one. It's creepy. If you want something crazy to do, that would be it. Strip down naked and just stand by a creek in the middle of no where, that will get the adrenaline pumping. So after we washed up, we had supper and brushed our teeth, since we hadn't in a couple of days. Man, that felt good. Almost like you were a human being agian. The one thing I remember is, that the was washroom was a freaking hike to get too. The trail was pretty much flat, but way back in the trees. In the middle of the night, it's a little freaky, when all you have is you little head light and some tp in hand. Agian all there was, was a really skinny log to sit on. And actually it was quite high, you kind of had to do a balancing act while trying to hold onto the tree. Also the trail to get there had a dead tree over it, so navigating through that was a little tricky in the dark. Shouldn't of had the extra crytal light that night.

So the next camp we stayed at was called Horseshoe. It is about 35.6kms from the start. It is about 18.3kms from Shalebanks campground. There was a campsite between shalebanks and horseshoe called Seldom Inn campground, which is about 25kms in, from the start. But it was to short of a walk, so I opted for the longer walk. From Shalebanks to Horseshoe was a pretty easy walk. The hard part was the bugs and length. The awesome part was that was the day we saw Snake Inadian Falls. Man, I haven't seen something that cool since Emperor falls at Robson. I didn't even know it exisited until I heard about this trail. It's definetly something a person needs to see. The path is wide enough to make it by bike. The cool thing is you can walk right up to it. Now of course, you end up on the top of the waterfall, but you can take some pretty awesome pictures. You do have to walk 200m to get to it, but it's worth it. After you reach that about a km away, the trail becomes really small and not rideable. So if you going to stay somewhere I suggest Seldom Inn or Shalebanks. Now I have totally forgot to mention this is a horse trail also. There are camps along the way that are just horse camps. So there is alot of horse s**t along the way. Keep that in mind. Also since the horses use the path the trail is pretty chewed up and uneven. But it doesn't get that way until after the falls. Horseshoe campground was nicer than Shalebanks. I was so happy to see it, I thought we had taken a wrong turn and miss it. It felt like it took forever to get there. It had a nice lookout. There were little wooden benches to sit. The campgrounds also have fire pits to start a fire. The washroom was so much better. It was almost like you were back home with a flush....but then you looked around and saw trees. This log they used was a little wider and even had a carved divet for, you know....The water was a little harder to get too, then the last one. You had to walk down this farley step hill. Now I don't know about you, but after walking 18kms that day, it was a little hard to navigate down the hill without completely losing it, a making a head dive. But we managed and even made it up the hill on the way back. It was easier to find a place to put the tent too. There were alot more flat spots to choose from. 'How about right by the fire pit?? Ok, why not, there's not a soul in sight.' The mosquito's weren't as bad at the camp....but the walk there, I was ready to start killing something, they were driving me insane. It was nice a sunny when we got there and we relaxed for a while before we decided to make supper. Me and my hiking mate are farely small, more her then me, and we can't carry all that much. So when we were planning for the trip we had tryed a few experiments. We were trying to lighten the amount of food we had to bring. So we tryed minute rice in ziplock bags. You stick 3/4 of a cup of rice and a dash of salt and some chicken powder brooth in a ziplock bag. Then when your ready to eat, you heat up some water to a boil and put 3/4 of a cup of water in the ziplock and close it and let it sit for 5 mins. Wala...chicken flavored rice, that is actually pretty good. And the best part is all you have to wash is the spoon and wash the ziplock out. This way you don't have to take as much dishsoap, cause that is really heavy. The rest of the night went smoothly, except the damn mosquitos. My worst enemy!!!

So i'm going to call this part 2 of North Boundary.....got any problems with that...you can see my lawyer Mr. Wine. Ok, so campgrounds. The first campground is Shalebanks. It is 17.3km, according to the book. The trail to the camp was good and dry. It was well used and quite wide and rocky. There was quite a few hills at the begining, until you come to the first sign where it turns flat for almost the rest of the way. Once it turns flat, your pretty much in the trees all the way. Anyway, it sits farley close to the first river you came across that does not have a bridge. Just a note, most water crossing do NOT have bridges. Me and my friend almost missed it. In fact we did pass it. We were getting really tired and crossed the river, convinced it should have been right there. Stopped on the other side and looked around for it. Finally we found it back on the other side, where we had just come. The book says the trail is well marked and the signage is good. Ha!!! I laugh at that. That wasn't the only time we were totally confused. So, we found the small sign stuck in behind some trees. We walked a little off the path. There was the campground. Really...where is the washroom??? Where is the bear bins??? Where is the designated tent pads???? Yeah, worst campsite ever. The washroom consisted of literally a log on the ground with a dug hole to, you know, and bear bin....a log between to trees. First off, thank god my mother suggested taking rope, cause I don't know how we would have got our food in the trees. No cords to tie the food to. Nothing just a naked pole. Ok, that's great now how to get the rope, that is 20 or 30 feet in the air, over the pole??? Yes, let's use Jana's Nalgene water bottle. WATCH OUT FOR THAT ROCK....BANG!!!! it's ok, the water bottle survived!!! I know you were worried too. So we finally got that figured out. Ok, but where to put the tent? How about right here. 'Points to a clear space in the middle of nowhere.' Ok, why not there? No ones here. So were in the middle of making supper and here comes these two city slickers. They asked where they were and where we were going. I told them Shalebanks. They couldn't believe it. They were planning on camping over night at this little lake that is close to the begining of the trail about 12kms back. They must have been so tired. They ate supper and then went into there tent, and we never saw them agian. I had two blisters on my heels the size of toonies and my hiking mate couldn't remember the name of the campsite, which was driving me completely insane. It was fine, except there seemed to be alot of mosquito's. So we bundled up and tryed to keep them away, but they were driving us nuts, so we retired to the tent for the rest of the night. That was the first night we regretted not taking our bug spray. We figured it would be better the next day.

So This summer...ok technically it was last year's summer, anyway, me and a friend, decided we wanted to do a large hiking trip. So we had heard about the North boundary. So I started to research. Ha!!! Try finding information about some trail in the canadian rockies thats not all that popular. First off, I never really did find a great map for it. A map for this type of trip is sort of important. As the trip was going to take exactly two weeks. I found several sources that had distances on them. All had different distances. And we not talking a km or two off, were talking about 10 km's off. Now in the jist of all of it, it really isn't that much, but when you have to plan what to eat and sources of water, weather.... then you have to plan well. So we started to plan. I used a book called "The Canadian Rockies Trial Guide" by: Brian Patton and Brat Robinson. Now in this book it lays out the distances for the trail and in between the campsites. So in this book the total distance is 179.4km. It tells you the maximum elevation 2020m and minimun elevation 855m. It also tells you all the the names of the campgrounds and how to get to the start. The trail ends at Mt. Robson. Which they do not mention you have to book the campsites three months in advance. But since I had already been there several time I was good. So you do have to get a backcountry pass and book in the cabin in the middle of Jasper for the North Boundary, but not three months in advance. As it is not a well traveled trail. Keep that in mind. Didn't see people for seven days! There are 14 campgrounds on the trail not including Robson. Which there are seven. You start by driving the Celestine Lake road to the locked gate at the road's end.....which you can only get onto the road at certian hours of the day. They tell you the hours at the cabin in Jasper. Also if you are affraid of height's or DEATH...this road is seriously terriffing. Now, I do alot of climbing and am not that scare of jumping off a cliff, but that road...yeah...I laugh at you road to the sun!!! I will tell you more about the campgrounds later, and get into a little more detail. But I will leave you with....if you are thinking about going....bring....BUG SPRAY!!!!

Yes, so I realize I spelt trail wrong....anyway...Most of my trips have been with my sister and my friend and my dad. But this trip I was actually doing the tourist thing in Banff. See, we usally end up going to Jasper, just because....well....it's Jasper. But We decided, since I haven't been there in several years, let's go. Actually not a bad place. Many trails you can go on and alot of different things to see. We went and saw, Lake Louise, Lake Morraine, some Hoodoos...very cool....and a indoor hotspring cave. Although I can't remember the name of it.....but it was pretty cool.

So basically this blog, I made to ramble on about, well...anything, but mostly to post all my little adventure's I have taken and want to take. Have you ever tryed to search for hiking trail's and place's that you want to camp and you can't find any information on them. Yeah, I know how that feel's. So, my solution is creating this and making it access to information about some not well known trail's...like the North Boundary. So basically this is me, at the best part of the North Boundary....which is a 200km hike, which start's in Jasper National Park and end's up at the Mt. Robson Provincial park.....As for people who have ever meet me, Robson is my Favorite place. I hope to climb it one day. But There is this trail called the Berg lake trail...I have hiked it about six or seven times now, it's kind of a tradition, anyway, one of the best hikes ever!! I'll get into that much later.

Introduction

Well, let's see...Where do I start. First, I think I will start by saying that everyone I have ever meet has at one point or another called me crazy or werid. So I decided to let the crazy out and hopefully make it rub off on the rest of world.....I mean who really wants to be just like their neighbour. I know I don't, personally he's a little old and just not my type. I will start by saying these things, that I just need to get off my head.... 1) I hate people who talk on their cell phones while driving....well, I just hate cell phones in general. 2) Cheese on a sub sandwich is implied. 3) Female friends are just too emotional. 4) Brad Pitt is one of the most uglyiest actor I have ever seen. and last but not least.... 5)Rock music should be played as loud as you ear drums can handle it.