We woke up to the dimness of another overcast day on Bear Beach. The waves crashed in, just meters from our tent set up in the slim belt of trees above the winter storm line, and at the base of the cliff to our backs. The sound bounced off the cliff, providing a constant sound, dampening out all others. I had slept very soundly. And we had slept it! I checked Justin’s watch, and found it to be about 9am. Oh my, that was later than I had hoped. It usually took us about two hours to break camp and eat a hot breakfast, so I was a little dismayed. We only had to go 11km today, to Chin Beach campsite, but it would be in the “most difficult” section all the way. I wondered how bad it would be, how it would compare to the West Coast Trail, which was less than 100km from where we were now, further up this same coast. the WCT was indeed difficult. I well remembered our first day on that trail, making only 6km, and a hard 6km it was.

We had made a little fire the night before, gathering driftwood thrown up last winter, during the storms. As it was nearing the end of the season, the driftwood was a little picked over, but we had managed. Justin had brought along a baggie of little pieces of waxed paper. He crumple one up, and stuffed it into the little teepee of old evergreen twigs draped with old man beard type moss and surrounded by small splinters of wood I had erected. The wax paper caught far better than the old moss had, and a little flame licked the twigs. I had gently blown on the fledgling fire, and it had caught on the twigs. A warm fire, a hot bowl of food rehydrated from a package. The constant hush of waves. A little bit of wine. It had been a very nice evening.

This morning, I pulled the fuel and stove down from the tree we had hung it in, just in case. A few cursing attempts with cold fingers, and I had the temperamental stove roaring. Water soon boiled, and breakfast gruel was ready. We had soaked some quinoa overnight, so it took only a little boiling, and therefor a little fuel, to open up the grains. Once they were, I added some more water and dumped in one of the packets I had prepared before we left. A healthy serving of chia seeds, some walnuts, some cranberries, some dried apple slices, nutmeg, cinnamon, and some powdered milk. And some dried goldenberries! Oh man, those little things pack a taste punch that goes perfectly with the more gentle flavours of spices and milk. Stir it up. The chia seeds “puffed” up, the apple slices softened, and the goldenberries plumped up. This is my favorite camping breakfast.

Bellies full, tea in mugs, water shaken off tent as possible, and all packed up, we were ready to go.

We started hiking across the beach, scrambled up a sandstone gully, hopping a small creek sliding down the smooth rock, and began to climb the muddy path. Roots sometimes formed helpful steps, but more often hurdles. I drove my hiking poles into the soft ground, using my arms to assist the upward climb, and slowing my upper body on the downward falls. This turned into the way of things. A steady upward climb, switchbacking up the steep sides of gulleys. Cresting the ridge at the top, switchback down the other side. Cross a small creek using rocks, but more often a slippery and muddy log sawn in half to form a bridge. Start the long hike up the other side. And roots. So many roots to step over, step on, stumble around. There were very few mud bogs, so that was different than the WCT for sure. There were a few “shortcuts” across some of the switchbacks. During one of these shortcuts, I managed to slip (again), but this time landed on a sawn off tree limb while stepping over a log. The limb snagged my lower back, and I awkwardly tried to hold myself off it, using my backpack and legs. Justin hurried back, concern in his eyes. I asked him to grab my pack straps and haul me off the log. Once back up, I inspected the site of injury. No blood, no broken skin even. Just a hell of a sore spot right where the main pad of my pack rests on my lower back. Well. It could’ve been worse. I limped down the trail slowly, settling my back on this new injury, getting used to it. Soon enough, we were back up to speed. A non-limiting injury then. Just sore.

At one point, we hiked way up, switchbacking away from the ocean until we couldn’t even hear the waves anymore. The forest was eerily quiet without the waves, and a thick mist had crept into the trees. The day must’ve been overcast, for the forest was darkened. We were snaking along towards a ridge in this dim misty world when an eerie sight came into view. A straight line! We crept forward, and there before us was an old logging road, grown over and mossed in, but still a level surface in a world of organic shapes. We stood up on the bank and peered down at the oddity, before following the trail that would back into the trees. Soon enough, we were descending again, leaving the signs of roads far behind.

There are supposed to be trail markers every km along the way, but in this most difficult section, we had gone quite a ways without seeing one. Trees had fallen over, hills had slid, requiring new paths to be forged, and wasp nests had been discovered, with the affected hikers leaving signs to detour around them if possible, or which side of the trail to creep by on. It was no wonder that markers fell by the wayside. So when we saw one just ahead, we wagered what km it would be. Justin thought km 16, I figured we had come farther than that, so maybe km 17. We were shocked to find this marker read km 20! So we were less than a km from Chin Beach campsite, which was supposed to be at km 20.6, or 21. I was glad of it, as I felt a little wobbly legged from all the climbing.

Sure enough, the welcoming steps down announced the descent to Chin Beach. Hot food would be soon! And changing out of my muddy hikers, into soft dry camp shoes.

We stumbled along the rocky beach, finding a little clear spot next to a fire ring. Some french speaking girls were camped nearby, and invited us to share the fire they planned on making later that night. Justin rearranged the seating around the fire ring, and I set up camp and made dinner while he gathered wood. He had to range even farther to find suitable wood, but once we got the fire going, it was nice and toasty. We dried our socks by the fire, Justin carefully turning his and monitoring the heat. I had discovered that I had not brought a spare pair of socks for my camp shoes, and the pair I had used this morning to wipe the mud and water off the tent was in fact, my only pair. So I also was drying socks by the fire. I figured the level of caution Justin was displaying was typical of his careful nature in general. My socks were far back from the flames, they should be fine. We sipped tequila lemonaide, and watched the stars. Justin dried his socks perfectly. I melted a hole in mine. Turns out some things actually require that level of attention.

Eyes cracking open, still looks dim out there. Back to sleep, must be early. Wake again, surely it must be time to move, tho it is still quite dim out.

When we finally crawled out of the dewy tent, it became clear that the mountains and the overcast day had conspired to make it feel earlier than it actually was. We turned on Justin’s cell phone briefly, and discovered it was actually 10am already! Oh man, there goes our early start. But now that the sun was finally peaking above the gentle mountains around us, the tent could dry. It was quite humid here, and the lightweight tent I had just gotten had a rather airtight fly, so the little venting that happened under the edge of the fly hadn’t been enough to combat the condensation. The inside of the fly was dripping with it. We hung our gear on the rails of the roundpen, and got to heating water for breakfast. Justin had some vitamins and protein shakes he had brought for breakfast as well. The vitamins promised energy and focus, and with the vitamin B content in them, I didn’t doubt it! Sure enough, as we were cramming all our gear back into our bags, I could feel the buzz, like I’d just had a really strong coffee. Or three. We “saddled” up, and left the picturesque cabin, walking deeper into the mountains.

It was around this time that we discovered Justin’s phone hadn’t been all too great at saving the map we had hoped to use. It could find our location, but on a screen of white, that did little good. We still had the topo map I had bought, showing the hiking trail we were on in bold dashed lines. Of course, it showed the path we had taken off the main path in a similar dashed line, and the start of that path had been no more than a couple reflectors on some trees. And that was in the park, where they take care to mark such things. We were still in the park, but our proposed trail led us back out of Jasper park, and back into the Willmore Wilderness Area.

We climbed out of the little valley we had overnighted in, passing an established camp announced on the signs as Wolf Pass Camp. The rusty firepit ring was overgrown with grass. A sign pointed to the toilet, which I wanted to use, but I lost the trail to it in a thick stand of bush. Ah well, those bushes looked like they needed some watering. We swung our packs back on, and pressed on. The map indicated our path went over a relatively low pass, not quite breaking out of the treeline, with a small lake nestled in the top, and then down a gentle slope on the other side. there was a couple mountain ranges there, creating another bowl of a valley. Following the valley to the north would have us meet up with another dotted line, Moosehorn Trail, with a lake half a km east of that junction. That was the intended lunch spot. Then it should be an easy hike down the valley to the gravel road we came in on. We would camp somewhere in that valley, and then carry on the last handful of km to the gravel access road, and hopefully hitch a ride back to the car. All told, it looked like about a 40 km loop, give or take. We were looking forward to lunching at this lake.

We crested Wolf Pass, and the small lake nestled in its saddle turned out to be a marshy spot. We watched insects skim across the surface, and I was glad for the water purification pump I had. I know algae is nature’s water filter, but I didn’t fancy bug eggs in my drinking water. The path kept almost disappearing in the long grass overhanging it, as we skirted the edges of the pond and headed down the other side. Shortly after the crest, we passed back into Willmore. Judging from the tracks, the moose and the sheep were the only ones keeping this trail from fading away. We yelled to let the moose and bear both know that we were in their valley, and snaked down the other side. A small creek ran along, sometimes disappearing into the earth, sometimes spreading out into a shoe trapping mossy swamp. Although the day was warm, we both wore our long pants, fending off the ever hungry mosquitoes and the skin stinging branches.

Sooner than expected, we came to a well established path meeting the rough trail we had been following. In the dead and gnarled tree right before us, a weathered moose antler had been jammed into the branches. Well! That was quick, but we had evidently reached the Moosehorn. We turned left or east onto it, intending to go down valley. Justin said perhaps we ought to at least look at the lake, since it was our lunch spot, even tho it was half a km down the right turn of the trail, to the west. Might as well, we were so close! So we turned around, and went along the new well established trail, to the lake.

Or so we thought.

We waded across the grassy meadow, eventually finding the faint shade of a path. Walking gamely toward the reflective triangle, the path became more pronounced, eventually becoming a respectable path, if little used. Winding thru the trees, we marvelled at the variety of trees, and the lush underbrush. A small stream chuckled off to our right, the bushes greener in that direction.

I looked down, and saw a rather sizeable pile of bear crap. Sure enough, there was some moss dug up a short way further, evidence of the bear digging for bug dinner. We started looking around rather nervously, and called repeatedly, yelling “YO BEAR!” in a carrying voice. The general theory being that a bear will do its best to avoid you if it kows you are about. Although we continued to see bear sign, we didn’t see any bears. We would pass a pile of poop on the trail, then half a km further on or less, we would see another. I became convinced that this was the bears way of defining its territory. I as always a little disheartened to find another pile of bear poop soon after, leading me to conclude we had passed into another bears territory.

After another climb up a steep hill, leving me panting and Justin waiting patiently for me to catch up (even tho he had the heavier bag, dammit) we wound our way down the flank of a hill and confronted a split rail fence. It was the first human thing we had seen in about 3 hours, so I was surprised. We crawled under it, and shortly thereafter found an alpine cabin couched in the high end of a valley,commanding a beautiful view. The cabin looked snug and dry, and very welcoming in the lowering sun. We could just see the stovepipe twinkling in the last rays of the sun. Such a welcoming sight to the traveller at the end of a 20km hike. Sadly, we had not made any arrangements to rent the cabin from the alpine club, so had no keys, and the cabin was destined to remain locked to us. We did set up camp in the round pen nearby, where they must keep their horses. It appeared no one had used the pen in a couple of years, the grass and weed mix being lush. It looked quite inviting, tho we did discover the greenery hid the slowly softening churned earth. No matter, we were in the pen, and Justin said we could put up the rails across the gate. I’m pretty sure he was humoring me, and my nerves, but I must say that it set my mind at ease to be behind a fence that night.

The mosquitoes were quite bad at dusk, as we were heating water for our dinner. We ended up putting on all our pants, our rain gear, toques, and face wraps. This discouraged the bugs, but Justin managed to clap mosquitoes out of the air while the water was on. By the time we ate, he had a significant pile of small bodies at his feet.

Justin dug a little circle of sod up, and we scavenged some deadfall (and soon-to-fall) wood to make a tidy little blaze. We roasted some bannock I had prepared, not really being sure if it would work. It did, rather well! We mixed a very small amount of water into the flour mixture I had packed, and managed to get it to wrap on green preheated sticks. Then we smeared some ghee on it. About the time we got the hang of it, we were out of dough. That was fine, as we were exhausted by this point, and dropped into bed with hardly a goodnight hug. The bugs had relented sometime during our fire, tho we did have to put a few out of our misery in the tent. Fire out, moquitoes executed, sleeping bags zipped tight, we fell asleep pretty darn quickly. There’s your remedy for tossing and turning: walk 20km in fear of bears with a 30 to 40 pound bag on your back,then fight mosquitoes for your dinner. I slept quite well.

We started down a fairly wide trail in the Willmore Wilderness area, leaving the back country staging area parking lot. The lot had been full of cars and horse trailers. Just before we had left, a pair on horses had set out. There was also two rangers untacking their horses, and getting ready to leave after a morning partol of the area. I presumed we would see a few people. As we ambled down the wide path, we could see many imprints of hooves in the dry soil, and a few shoe/ boot treads as well. We were a little concerned about the shared use trailsing being boggy, or churned up by the horse hooves. Owing to the dry weather, and the rocky composition of the soil however, this was not the case at all. We had to pick our way across some rocky areas, some places where the flooding had run down paths, stripping the soil away, but no mud!

After a couple kilometers, we turned off on a smaller trail, intending to complete a broad loop that should take three days, two nights. Well, we hoper to get back to the car early afternoon on Monday, and with our late start, it was really more like two full days and two nights. The smaller trail was good, and we were making good time. We crossed the border of the Jasper Park, past the signs advising us that carrying firearms was not permitted in the park, or they must be safely locked up or something like that. I was really focusing more on the hills rising up around us, and the trees.

We forded a river, having to take off our shoes to do so, and saw our first and only fellow hiker. He was carrying a big bag, and had a small dog on a leash. Rather unusual, but each to their own. He crossed the river as we were still pumping water thru our purifier, and disappeared from sight. And that was the last other human we saw.

Shortly after that, in a broad meadow where three valleys converge, we saw a trail sign. Turns out we had already walked 9km, according to the sign. We could go on, down the well work trail, or we could go to Wolf Pass, 24 km down a different valley. We looked in the direction the sign indicated and saw nothing but a grass and shrub covered meadow. Then, Justin spotted a trio of small dead trees, raised teepee style, and with a small orange refelctor. Further on, we could just make out one nailed to a tree. So that was the path. We looked at each other, shrugged, and took the path less travelled.