Ancient Wall, Natural Arch, Deep Thoughts

hey stuart here jenny and i are gonna find out how's the hike out to blue creek up ancient wall to the natural arch we're gonna park ourselves there for a couple nights and explore come back down up over mclaren past a little heaven and back should be epic look at this busy spot four cars or five cars for folks hiking and the rest are horses and uh there's a lot of horse traffic out here right now how do i know that well i'm looking at trailers but i also have a little deja vu i was just here two weeks ago that's right not the north boundary i was just here two weeks ago with the girls if you're a follower of our channel you saw i posted online that we're back in jasper and we started to do this exact hike and olivia had a condition that wasn't getting better that required some medical attention so rather than risk it we did an out and back to willow creek which is where jenny and i are heading today out to willow creek so i will post that video after this one a little bit out of order interesting to see bear scout so close to trailhead and uh lots of berries looks like me after three days of eating pro bars anyway [Laughter] because a black bear just ran across the road and i had just said to jenny that she's the bear person we've been out here in the past we see bears all the time on the roads and everything that was a little black bear that just ran across the road in front of us so that bear scout was fresh for sure about 1.65 kilometers from the car you branch off left on the willow creek trail and i'll just show you the sign here there's our campsite 13 kilometers away and that's actually right on the money it's about 14.7 kilometers to uh to the campsite from the car so 13 more kilometers what a difference a year makes well okay let me say that differently what a difference time makes so when brian and joey and i did the north boundary it was september well very late august going into september and we waded through this up to my waist basically and uh when the girls and i were out here on that failed hike we actually went that way and bushwhacked around and that wasn't there so somebody's been doing some engineering there's a milestone i'll give you the uh flash the kilometers up on the screen right now that's how far it was from the car and you can see the cut line the cut line goes right up there it's insane isn't it and then back this way as well so we're now entering jasper national park wow what a difference two weeks can make this is almost bone dry compared to when i was out here with the girls on our attempt at this hike lots of tracks to see too now so it looked like a moose and there's definitely wolves out here some big big wolf prints so let's have a look at that love it rock creek and uh wow she's low when i was here in the north family with brian and joey this whole section here was up to at least our knees and uh there were three braids here at that time to cross so i'm gonna go up here and have a look i'm gonna sound like a broken record but when the girls and i were out here it was a single braid but it was moving pretty good and that happens sometimes when you get down to a single channel it starts moving a little quicker because the water's not being broken up into different channels because it's not high enough that doesn't mean it can't be fast so jenny's first water crossing in the wild yeah and i'm glad to see this because i'm thirsty it is a dry run from the car to here for the most part well how was that it was kind of scary about it got your feet nice and cool though didn't it my feet are wet and uh you have to really work on your balance yeah it's a balancing act but uh not bad right now i've seen it lowers which is a good thing it was exhilarating it is look at that rock creek seven more k to the camp hello hey this is one of those times i mentioned we are walking into the wind for the most part so the animals cannot smell you or hear you so you gotta call out especially in meadows with willows and with all the forest fire smoke in the air probably making it even harder for them so i would imagine they're reacting like we are with runny noses and eyes and even my raspy voice so call out oh look at this going to show you something right here this is falling down and can't get up so rock lake 9k willow creek 6 that's right on the money wolf pass that way go short as well so lots of hiking out here folks lots and lots of opportunities to explore this section of the park there it is almost looks like a weather station over there too actually it's interesting place over here for the horses barn attack shed and uh obviously nobody here tonight as i always say wardens get the best views look at that beautiful all right let's go up here and look at the sign i need to take a picture you do that i'll come up here and take the sign we're just talking about what snags were and the fires and all these sorts of things and i mean from the ash just comes more beauty look at these flowers the forest floor rejuvenating itself providing feed animals grasses things that typically starve out when there's too dense of forest so it's a it's a cycle little creek horse camp nobody's here nobody's here oh no somebody is here look at this it's a horse party oh my gosh this is amazing never seen this before look at that wow well fantastic we don't want to disturb them it looks like there must be resting yeah quite a show hey look at that some big tents some beautiful horses let's zoom in for you here a little bit yeah look at that wow all right we're heading over to the hiker camp well there we are all set up i'm gonna keep referencing my hike with the girls when we were here because that's pretty much where i was set up it's the north boundary right and you're parked underneath your food half the time and sleeping beside the trail so you know whatever bear pools are over there and kind of on the opposite side there's a trail through here that takes you to the pole in the hole and i have to say um folks are now being very kind to one another and they are um what's the word [Music] they're covering their tracks with the pole in the hole which is great leave no trace right but this is in my opinion slightly different what they're doing is they're filling it up with moss to cover up what they've done and i mean again that's the heart is in the right place but now the holes are getting full of moss so i know with more traffic out here that becomes a dilemma when i did the north boundary uh previously there were poles with holes that looked like they hadn't been used for very many years so we'll all adjust to everyone out here supporting these amazing trails which is what we want jenny's playing some sort of game on her phone and uh you know the usual stuff charging laundry look at that we're hanging stuff in trees all that kind of stuff so i'm going to uh going to relax for a bit and then i'll uh well i'll show them my trip planning with you all right i'll make this quick trip planning a modified version of what i did have planned with the girls couple of weeks ago when olivia had to leave with uh an infection that was resistant to antibiotics and we were right here at willow creek and i thought we're not going to carry on that's crazy the car is 15k that way make the right call you know me i tend to make the right call especially when it comes to people who are my kids or someone like jenny who i care about and who's new to backpacking sort of um her first hike was in skokie with me that video will follow and it'll follow because it was another failed hike just like the one i have with the girls out here so i modified the trip we're going to go to wellborn tomorrow night then we're going to go to blue creek to set ourselves up to go up to ancient wall and natural arch we're not going to carry on to the wilmore wilderness because of the amount of river forting that has to be required that is required coming down the west sulphur river i don't know that river i've never seen it um i suppose i could have asked you know i know water levels are low but i just don't know the scope of that river on a map it doesn't look too bad but not going to risk it with somebody new the girls and i would have been fine they're experienced at this but today was jenny's first fording ever at rock creek now rock creek was down to a single braid i've been there when it's been triple braided and moving and deep um but i knew when i invited jenny to come out and do this hike that to the water levels were already low and there's been no rain events so we're gonna come back down step it back down to ancient wall and then back to blue creek and then we're at blue creek to set ourselves up for mclaren pass we're going to come back up the trail a bit cut up mclaren pass and then down to little heaven back here to willow creek and back to the car it's a great plan the only trepidation i have the only trepidation i have is that i know that kilometer and a half going uphill to mclaren pass is gonna be a beast it's like this on the map and that'll be tough but after that pretty smooth sailing um yeah that's the plan i think you know when you bring somebody out new uh and you're introducing them to something different than the skokie hike which is every people everywhere and beautiful views and vistas you bring them to somewhere more wild well i mean you just have to be smart about it and this is still going to be it's going to be an amazing amazing trip these are places i've never seen that i've wanted to see and uh we're just sitting here tonight having a peaceful night horse is over at the horse camp i mean it's it's it's really cool so that's the plan it's gonna be epic and i think uh i think time for some epic supper well as i wrap up day one just thought i'd show you my knee look at that hey um just uh lovely 14 and three quarter kilometers today and 12 and three quarter to well born tomorrow let me show you a little bit around here just to listen just listen let's have a sec water and nothing oh there's some guys over the horse um interesting evening we had a lovely dinner we shared a pad thai and uh just before that we listened to the horsemen uh get out the chainsaw and then start building something and anyway well it was so quiet it's startling hearing a chainsaw in the middle of nowhere so how was your first day yeah really great me too we're gonna try to sleep uh similar to me i like getting into camp two oh there goes the first sighting a squirrel uh we're gonna take some time now and hang our orsacs and we're gonna leave the rain fly off and just uh sit and relax and call this day one so i'll leave you with this and we'll see in the morning picking up right where we left off day two good morning look at that no big mountain vista this morning but the tranquility here is just fantastic boiling water for some coffee we were able to sleep open air last night basically well you know open air would be no tent but uh yeah stars came out rain held off no smoke had a lovely evening of listening to the bells uh over at the horse camp and this morning the bell's apparently how the horseman is uh and i mean i'm totally ignorant on this i know nothing about it apparently how the horseman was communicating with his group of horses so we learn something new all the time off to wellborn 12 and 3 4 kilometers and uh wow back on the north boundary trail that's pretty cool man so many great memories of being out here on this trail one of those bucket list trails right speaking of bucket lists a couple days ancient wall and natural arch in that area so pretty excited so yeah coffee breakfast and we'll get underway how'd you sleep great now i meant to say that one of the best night's sleep i've ever had in the rockies yeah must be the company must be the company thank you willow creek i'm gonna come up here and turn left i'm gonna show you the sign first well born science is 14. folks it's 1275 because i've done it so hey jenny yes welcome to the north boundary trail let's go this way it's been a dry little hike i remember this bridge we've got running water look at that beautiful bridge we're going to uh sit here and have our first break and uh hydrate because she's warm i'll show you an error on this sign we're 5.6 kilometers from willow creek

not eight also we're five points where they got it backwards basically willow creek campsite is five point six so they said six willow creek warden station is about two kilometers further going that direction so if you get to mud creek junction look at this no the willow creek and the warden station are backwards well born at six is fairly accurate when i was out here a couple years ago on the north boundary i pointed this intersection out and it's important for us on this trip because this ends this end of the lollipop the lollipop stick ends here and we start the first part of the loop this is the trail up to little heaven spruce tree and up over glacier pass into the woolmore wilderness this is the north boundary trail proper as we continue on to well-born and blue creek and then up ancient wall and uh natural arch i'll just show you this for a sec well born at four uh that's reasonably accurate actually hey babe hey hey almost as tall as you [Applause] [Music] get a picture coming up to the intersection with well-born falls which i think if i remember about 600 meters down this spur trail no 475 meters even better now we've decided because it's really hot and i smell uh that we're actually gonna go into camp which is 8 or 900 meters from here we're gonna set up clean up and do a little day hike back here so let's go to camp i'll show you wellborn and then let's all hike back here together and see wellborn falls which are not to be missed some views from the snake indian river and we're going that way camp is not far as i said we're gonna freshen up now if you look down there i don't know if you can see it but right down there where that rock cliff is right around that corner are the falls well born falls so we'll easily head back there after we've cleaned up and set up camp and uh we'll just feel a lot fresher in this blistering heat gorgeous namesake for this campsite wellborn creek and i for the life of me just thought i heard a chainsaw i'm not kidding all right we'll see deja vu all over again right around 12.7 last time the guy i said 1275. i probably walked into the campsite but uh here we are hey jenny where you going oh okay another time here okay thanks looks like it's seen better days well-born campsite one of my absolute favorite on the north boundary trail it is beautiful [Laughter] take that backpack a little shot around camp as promised we've tucked in over here out of the sun because it's like being on the surface of the sun right now uh supposed to be 21 out here according to garmin's weather and it's 26. and rather humid 65 humidity i think is what they said so we tucked in over here get a bit of a breeze off the current of the water did some laundry and some cleaning up oh yes so here's the story so i'm down in the creek cleaning up doing that thing you have to do when you're out here in the heat and uh jenny had already gone and she was dressed in like a swimming bikini fine no big deal but she's wandered around the campsite and all of a sudden how many horsemen go by i think six okay and they all stopped and waved and they weren't waving at me [Laughter] oh they definitely weren't waving at me pretty fast to get here from camp we're just discussing how much easier it is to walk without 35 pounds in your back we made it welcome to wilborn falls there's jenny very adventurous this reminds me of my friend joey coconado going up there and go way over there to get the video for his channel my own frontier joey was always joking about needing to come up here and meet a canadian girl well my friend here's what you get when you meet a canadian girl point made well born false man alive well we're putting the wrap on day two kilometers we came to camp uh cleaned up i already told that story uh how do you feel about the cowboys well they unnerved me a little bit i wasn't expecting any visitors so it was a bit of a surprise yeah we just finished cleaning up and you know i was walking around in my underwear basically so um yeah so 1275 we did a nice day trip back to the falls what'd you think of the falls it was the highlight so far just gorgeous yeah they were really good we're watching the smoke billowing behind me however right over there this way and uh not good so we're going to keep an eye on that it's um it's a little buggy too well how come the fire smoke doesn't stop the bugs it's in my ear hair ah anyway i want to give a shout out to matt and bill bill beg fair no [Laughter] madame bill bill bagshaw from michael fair junior high school kids get out here and hike he's a great guy i met a couple guys on the trail today uh they've been out here matt recognized me from uh the brazo loop video and maybe a couple others or whatever and we had a nice long chat uh very rare to see people out here so you take the time when you do to say hello so shout out to you guys uh thanks for chatting with us and for watching the videos and uh we're gonna eat down here by the water i've set up a couple of stools let me just show you set up a couple of stools down here stumps and we're gonna take in the view and watch the uh watch the smoke rolling another hot day expected tomorrow about 26 to 27 celsius where we sit and not getting down to super cold overnight and then a big change in the weather lots of rain on the way maybe three days of it as we're supposed to be hitting the scenic part of the trail but as always out here you just never know so uh supper time what do you think can't wait all right see you in the morning ooh good morning day three and we are packed up and ready to go but man alive has the smoke moved in you'll never see it on video i mean it's actually doesn't look too bad right here because this is closer but if you look down there i can barely see anything it's i mean i don't know if you'll be able to see this on video or not but it's pretty bad and last night coughing hacking burning eyes running noses uh like i said we're going to keep an eye on this because i mean i if we're suffering this way i can't imagine what those everybody in bc is going through right now it's just it's horrific for lack of a better word this section of trail between here and blue creek can finally start to get some views [Applause] just showed you that little waterfall uh it got me thinking about water so i've switched to this uh beefree system and carrying a very small bit of uh water and uh from rock lake to willow creek it's pretty dry so in fact you get closer to willow creek you get some water options but before that it's super dry so if you're going to switch from a water bladder like i did to save weight as you get older every time you see water like i just showed you you have to stop and fill up i mean it's it's critical so i sit by suck back a couple of these refill and then start again downside is all of these places with water are buggy bugs are worse today as i said a minute ago water first i remember this beautiful little place excuse me while i blow the mosquito off my nose holy bugs but worth it look at that jenny's taking a picture of the sun and i'm not sure this will show up on video but yeah it doesn't look like it to me but to us the sun looks orange on the ground like looks like we're on mars so much smoke in the air filtering the sun and you know as a kid from the maritimes you see something like that in the sky and you think oh the fog is going to burn off soon no it's not it's not smog or fog no it's orange and uh you could see it in my picture could you it came up really orange oh okay well maybe i'll flash that up here if you share it with me terry hold on let me get it out no i mean i'll flash it up in the video after oh yeah yeah yeah we could do that in real time that'd be cool this is not a live broadcast somebody's going to kill me if we're talking about old heights but i know north boundary trail that elk came out on this cut line i'll flash that up here in a minute and uh well here here's that clip hello sweetie where's your boyfriend hopefully not nearby yep she looked at me for a long time that was a cool encounter she started moving when brian and i started moving to water pretty cool not sure these old fences would do much for the horses anymore but uh we're going in and up that hill we're definitely less than a kilometer from the camp there's the sign jenny let's look at the wardens cabin interesting infrastructure here what they're doing interesting they've dropped in this lumber oh roofing okay so this isn't for a trail this is for blue creek headquarters cabin well we made it we'll look around and uh well we'll show you around once we get set up and hydrated here we go here she goes day two oh raspberry pack sorry good thing they're so cheap okay the guys we met yesterday had a tip they said the old hiker camp is just off here kind of across the river here now there was a trail that we crossed coming in and when they rerouted the hikers and that might have been the root end so uh i think really quickly we're going to walk across here and see if we can find the old hiker camp i found it not far from where i showed you old bridge here this might be rough guys so i'm going to walk through the mud that's not even muddy a lot of moose tracks a lot of moose tree oh look at that size of that moose hello there big fella uh there's the tracks of the hikers we told us it was back here old trail marker must be on the right track so to speak pardon the pun [Applause] oh another bridge wow this is way back here well here it is folks the old blue creek hiker camp look at this wow nice view look at that nice views from here no there it is okay i just turned around i want to show you this there's the old bear hangs uh cable and pulley system still intact that's remarkable it's like stepping back in time we just shot around camp we've set up over there and i'll just gonna spin around here doing some drying over there and i'm gonna come sit with you put our tent over there because i've learned over the years in the horse camps uh always put your tent where the horsemen had their tent you can kind of tell if you're following them because it's flat because there's no poop the poop's everywhere else so when you come into these camps you've got to look around and if the horsemen have been here look for a place where there's no poop uh there'll be lots of mosquitoes however buggy day uh worst on the trail so far and uh that's to be expected the first two days were kind of a treat i was like shocked that there weren't that many bugs but as we got closer to blue creek um well just a lot more bugs so yeah that's the tip when you're in a horse camp look for where they were because there'd be no horse poop around supper and then uh well we'll just lounge around and enjoy this beautiful quiet place well 12.11 kilometers and uh

i felt longer didn't it it was a hot day lots of bugs yeah lots of smoke lots of smoke your chest was hurting yeah well it it it's uh it's a burning feeling and in my nose too every time you breathe in it's uh there's lots of you know you're breathing in that heavy smoke yeah i must say i've done a lot of longer days this one felt really long especially at the end it was just hot there was no breeze whatsoever and and the smoke was really bad so we're gonna get in a tent because the bugs are really bad and they've been good the first two nights yeah it's been just fine so far but they're bad here yeah so they're swarming so we're gonna have a tent night and play some cards and then uh as i mentioned earlier i beat him last night oh lordy lord well i guess we'll have to beat you tonight crib um actually last night crib we each were at the last peg before the wind and then i've never seen that in all my years of playing crib so it was pretty cool uh we're going to wake up in the morning and assess uh assess what we're going to do i mean if it's really smoky again then again i might alter the trip still to get some new stuff in which would be awesome but it's uh today was tough and so you have to adapt and make different choices if that's the case so we'll uh we'll table that for tonight but we had a good day though had a great day when we got here oh yeah being in camp is just just peaceful and quiet fantastic i washed all we washed all our clothes again again yeah and and bathed and um i sat out and listened to a book and a little sudoku and peace and quiet very peaceful yeah peace and quiet and that's the goal you know it's just just being out here and and just being at peace which is uh a rarity in our world and we have a yummy supper we did have a yummy supper so it's a good day it was a good day thank you for saying this because i'm the one that drugged you out here i wasn't drive see you in the morning [Applause] morning day four and uh a wet one to start had a pretty good evening um saw lots of fun stuff going on here in the woods was dust came the bats came out and they were swooping down over the tent we were trying to encourage our friends here around us our little family of mosquitoes to go visit them not sure we were very successful because there's tons of them around this morning i did see a squirrel go up a tree at one point way way way up high this is a ground dwelling uh rodent i don't know what it was in search of but i know at home they'll go up in the trees and eat eggs from nests so i don't know if bats lay eggs to be honest with you but uh that was interesting and jenny went out for her final bathroom break and uh [Applause] scared the heck out of some little animal the size of a small dog apparently that took off was it a raccoon do you think uh i think it was a small bear just want to show you something i'm doing here jenny's got uh jenny's got a something going on here between her ankle and up here that's really causing a lot of pain and redness so we've been watching it for the last couple days and and what i'm trying to do is i've yesterday i tried to take a piece of a sit pad let me just show you yeah sit pad and i put it like here and it didn't it helped a bit but today if you can see this i'm going to try to make a i'm going to try to put it here so that the boot hits here and here and this area doesn't get touched at all because it's quite painful for her so um another video this summer about me being macgyver it's a theme stu macgyver underway and we're heading up the valley uh rain has kind of stopped this sign confuses me a little bit but i'm gonna well we're gonna see it says ancient wall uh it says ancient wall 15 kilometers and the map says eleven nine but i'm hoping for eleven nine and not fifteen and it would make sense to be honest because it's only 30k after azure so when i look at a map the map kind of looks like it might be right we're gonna find out [Music] okay an intersection here if you're doing the north boundary there's a sign back there that says footbridge ignore it you're going that way you're not going that way but you can see that says blue creek valley and mclaren's pass that's where we're going you don't go that way you stay that way and head to blue creek if you're doing the north boundary so the climb begins i gotta tell you no smoke jenny that we can see crossings right down there i can see the yellow marker you can't but then that little clearing right there that's the northbound trail folks and uh blue creek is passable long before it should be wow finally something to see as i always say look behind you a little confused when i'm looking at my gps because there used to be a another blue creek trail i believe a little lower than the one we're on but that is mclaren pass trail so we found it there it is first view of the ancient wall wow thank goodness we can see it today too what a blessing that is all right armor we just came down to this beauty and talk about this mountain a little bit later but uh look at that jenny's getting a picture down there holy look at the color colors are gorgeous hopefully you can see all this flagging this is done by horse parties and i mean parks canada doesn't come out here anymore they admit it and uh it's the horse parties that bring the chainsaws and cut all the stuff down and make the trail passable for themselves and obviously drop flagging like this to get us through this meadow to camp which is right over there now i have my utm coordinates but really nice for anyone not using those to have the opportunity to follow these these flags we're gonna have to go right way way right i think even more over here i think obviously the horse party's ahead of us we can see where they walk through all right we're going to go in and show your camp by the way our view tonight not only snake indian mountain let me show you this the ancient wall i'm going to say it folks you know you can only get here if you walk in and it's spectacular my goodness me ancient wall camp door-to-door 12.1 kilometers we're gonna do some exploring find out where folks typically set up their tents and uh home i'm done i'll show you around a little shot around camp ginny's over looking for the privy which we still haven't found so we've been uh probably been mountain manning it a little bit of chaos in camp right now the sun comes and goes a little bit of rain comes and goes hey look at my shadow hello how are you uh so yeah i just we've got stuff in and out then in and out we're trying to dry things and you know stew and the racing solar chargers all over the place trying to make sure i get everything charged anyway tents set up right by the eating area but really well if you've done the north boundary of the south boundary that wouldn't bother you poor jenny lost her comb today her brush so i suggested i found this and i said hey you could use this that was flatly rejected just for the record so let me just turn around here and show you our view look at this i know i said it early but you really only can see this if you walk in and this is i mean it's spectacular spectacular look at that so that's going to be our view for dinner ancient wall highly highly highly recommended tough walk to get here though today good news on the hairbrush front we do not have to use the jawbone [Laughter] who found your hairbrush you did i did in the bottom of her sleeping bag which is a mystery of itself listen funny thing about these campsites we picked here because it was flat and like i said on the north and south boundary trail you're camping underneath the bear hang anyway oh by the way which is right over there but then i saw this little path looking for a place to hang some uh sacks look at this little piece of paradise back here and i'm really kicking my butt we didn't find this because this would have been oh man look at this campsite here you could pitch a four-person tent here easily or a couple two-person tents little places to sit and then a view of this look at that but we were in the hurry because of the rain uh that was threatening us coming over here wrap her up uh 12.1 there we go 12.1 kilometers today um from blue creek ancient wall the first 4k up to mclaren pass were pretty much all uphill but the trail was good once we passed mclaren pass to get here rocky rudy muddy boggy and horsey meaning they've dug it up recently and then it rained so pretty slippery and chunky and all that stuff it was a slog it's a bit of a slog and then when we got here we ended up with a couple hours of often on sunshine which was absolutely stunning so i think for us we're going to wait and see what the weather says tomorrow before we decide what our next move is we have some options and i think right now we're just going to quietly sit here and see if we can see enemy animals any enemy animals any animals out in the meadow see in the morning good morning day number five up blue creek to ancient wall look at that what a place to wake up and behind us those red mountains which are part of the range that connect to snake indian pass on the north boundary which is really cool sneaking the mountains over there as well pretty easy day for us we're taking our time this morning only 9k up to natural arch horse hiker camp and we're going to pass the topaz patrol cabin at just under three kilometers and then we're gonna pass the old topaz campground somewhere around four kilometers and i'm hoping to see that because it could come into play on this trip for us if it's still in pretty decent shape because we plan to spend two nights up at natural arch instead of one because this campsite uh the day after tomorrow is sold out apparently now we've seen lots of reservations out here that made the campsites look like they're gonna be pretty full and we've been alone so i really don't know but the idea now is maybe instead of spending two days up at one we can come back to topaz and we can maybe shorten this trip by one day since there's nobody out here and i've got enough permits booked to choke a horse anyway so pardon the pun what you doing in there cleaning up all your mess my mess good luck with that it might take all day anyway pretty good night um i'm gonna look up at the sky here you can see i hope a little bit of mix of cloud a little bit of blue sky poking through pretty similar to yesterday afternoon when we get into camp so the we're hoping fingers crossed that um you know once we get up there we'll get some sun to dry some things off because it did rain overnight and the you know the rain flies wet and all that kind of stuff there's not a bit of wind to dry anything off so but yeah pretty leisurely day and i'm kind of excited because we're heading up now to the most remote part of this trail and if we keep going we go up over hard scrabble pass and into the wilmore wilderness and around the glacier so um keep that to look forward to another time because i might come in from a different direction and do that so anyway a little more to do and uh we'll go exploring nice leisurely morning we're underway there's a little fork here as you come out of camp that would take you back out to go uh back toward blue creek down the ancient wall i'm gonna take this little track to the left yesterday when i came in i got confused with the flagging i thought camp was over where there were three notches in this dead tree and another flag that's actually the trail so when you come in here bear left and not right toward the flags i'll show you that up here in just a second right so we've come across here's the trail proper just up here a little bit and these are the uh these are the trees i saw earlier with that flagging right there that's the trail up to natural arch not the campsite campsite follow the flagging to go over there now i have the utm coordinates on my phone and that's exactly where it showed the campsite always suggest having a gps app where you can input those because it does get sketchy out here there's those mountains i was mentioning earlier kind of on this side of a rather long range that henzo heads over to uh snake indian pass when i look at the map there's no names on these mountains so i wonder if it's all part of the snake indian mountain i don't know i'm not a cartographer and i'm just guessing but gorgeous huh if you want a feeling of isolation desolation being out there look at this add to that some cold wind like it's october some rain there you go i just said to jenny i think i see a lot of willows in our future sure it's nice just being on this open meadow remember that book series where's waldo where's jenny jenny where are you well all part of the initiation but hey stop for a sec look back to your what right the other one yeah it's worth it it is 2.85 kilometers from camp topaz patrol cabin which means we're not far from the campsite too so we're gonna sit here have a quick break and uh for that piece of history all of these cabins are national historic buildings a little firewood all bucked up over there very cool anything else to see over here oh got a ladder and a wash basin jenny i don't see the privy interesting and then we'll look over here oh yeah lots of firewood here and some communications very cool certainly missed the topaz campsite it's kind of weird we've cut up through the woods here and that'd be a strange place to put a campsite called topaz i wish i'd hiked out here back in the heyday when everything was you know here so a lot of history that we don't get to see anymore anyway i'm sure our night at the natural arch will be spectacular jenny's bush walking down here because there are two trails one actually an old old trail actually goes up to the uh natural arch horse camp and i'm going to flash that up on the screen right now here it is but apparently it's gone so when in doubt follow the horses so i cut back down because i didn't want to keep bushwick and we could have got there but uh jenny look jenny's done with willows so we're back on the track now we'll stay with the horses yeah no point in keeping your feet dry they're already wet all right you got a sign here natural large 200 meters that way to the campsite ancient wall topaz heart scrabble pass topaz doesn't exist maybe we'll find it tomorrow all right we're going that way we got rain approaching so 200 meters to the campsite well this is it and man does it stink there are the horse pins that can't be where we're sleeping privy's over there so we're going to keep looking around i don't even see any water nearby that's where the horses would have been down because that's where all the poop is let's go find out where everybody slept you go first i'll go first okay waiting out some rain found a tent spot down there that doesn't smell too bad from the horses uh kind of jenny's up there tucked under a tree i'll show you that in a minute water source is up here around that way it's just a nice fast moving little brook another place you can put a tent up in here let's come on up to the fire pit area and see jenny hiding under a christmas tree merry christmas do you like this gift i gave you yes thank you what a view what a view anyway we're gonna head down to the main trail and then up that way to show you hopefully natural arch because i wasn't good at finding those two campsites so let's hope we can find a large landmark i'm also going to record the distance says 1.7 in canadian rocky's trail guy

which is probably uber accurate due to the wheel but uh what do you think there tilly let's go i've got my nice wet socks on and my nice wet boots let's do it let's do it all right on we go just steps out of camp and i had to stop because i don't know if the light will be this way when we come back but oh my god oh my god look at that we've come up about 1900 meters and i don't see what i'm looking for honestly and uh we're gonna go back and climb the hill up back here at about 1.6 ish and see if we can look at ancient wall you backtracked just a little bit and there's a rise here you can climb up i'm going to zoom in and use the clip for my iphone for this there is natural arch i'm doing my best on the iphone i hope this is steady for you turned around from looking at natural arch let me just look at this okay we've just walked past where we were a little bit see these flaggings here look there's an old sign here jenny this says arch look at that now you never see that but look some horsemen have put the flagging on if i just walk over here just a little bit on this trail boom there it is and we missed it on the way up we didn't see the flagging we didn't see anything so i'm going to zoom in again and i hope this video helps you because it's easy to miss things this even better view zoom in even more try to be steady wow look at that we've chose to be down here in the meadow had some clothes drying over there horses have been around all over the place uh to take you up to the evening area because i want to show you something there's a fire ban in jasper national park and in alberta there's a horse party ahead of us they were here on august 6th or august 5th this fire was burnt last night of the night before guaranteed even fresh matches there's food tin foil left look look at this absolutely 100 yesterday's fresh rye bread left here not packed out we're in the middle of nowhere literally and that's an attractant for all sorts of animals well that's a wrap on day five five day five here at uh that i'm keeping track here at natural arch it's looking like we might get some showers so we're gonna tuck in early um 9.5 kilometers wasn't as easy as it sounds um how'd you like those willows not so much no a lot of willow bashing today most of them were taller than me that's true actually as you can tell anyway we're gonna turn in tomorrow we're supposed to stay here a second night because ancient wall was sold out tomorrow night but uh well we're gonna ponder that overnight and especially given what we've seen here and and just generally well i mean i'll be honest just generally just generally that so i mean there are places we could explore but uh we've already seen natural arch and we're not going up to uh caribou in our heart scrabble so we might just find a way to turn around and go back and i'm gonna try to be creative so i'll fill you in on that in the morning uh highlight of your day the mountains yeah look at this i mean really even at dusk or getting dusk look at that it is a glorious glorious spot and we were talking earlier about all these all these meadows up here on the mountains something's got to be up there having something to eat what do you think oh for sure yeah i think the nicest part for me is when the sun hits the mountains in a certain place and then all these different colors shine out yeah the sun paints the mountains it's really it's just gorgeous so all right well we're going to turn in play a little crib and see in the morning good morning day six and uh garmin is not doing well with the weather on this trip supposed to wake up to mostly clear skies but uh some low hanging clouds look up there that cool speaking of cool uh we went out last night and had a look down the valley to see if we could see any animals and we did here's a video clip i know it's going to be kind of blurry and grainy because what we saw was probably more than a kilometer away but thanks to the wonders of the iphone uh here's what we saw we just came out from the tent for a walk and you'll never get this on video on the iphone but that's a moose that's a moose down there in blue creek right down there only i could zoom in even more i came out looking for animals well there's an animal sorry about the zoom guys it's very shaky but very cool pretty cool eh i will say uh that's all we saw this is the this is the quietest campsite ever no other humans there was no wind and there were no animals no nothing moving around not even a squirrel which is a good thing because they anyway pretty easy day for us we're gonna head down the valley uh probably to the warden's cabin i explained last night that uh when we checked the reservations just before we left um ancient walls sold out tonight and uh just because of this campsite being well what it is we're gonna start heading down the valley oh another trip update as well we've decided or i've decided that uh the trip to mclaren pass uh will will pass and i'll tell you why we climbed up blue creek and uh it was almost four kilometers basically uphill and then 3.2 kilometers up to the pass basically straight uphill and that's bad planning on my part i didn't really realize it would be seven and seven kilometers hiking straight uphill uh and then another what another ten basically down to little heaven so i think the best idea is to approach uh mclaren pass from the little heaven side which i'll table for another hike um probably that's when i'll come up and come up the valley again and do hard scrabble and come back over glacier and go out that way on a lollipop so we're gonna head back to blue creek tomorrow and then hoof our way back to the car um through wellborn where jenny said she'd like to move and stay forever right it's beautiful it is a gorgeous spot so we're gonna head up there and have breakfast mmm oatmeal another nice leisurely morning i want to show you something jenny discovered earlier remember last night i ranted rather forcefully about garbage and other things look at that right beside our tent folks that's an orange peel that's a complete like tangerine peel tossed tossed from the tent into the woods by whatever party was here on the fourth fifth or sixth of august so uh jeez we take such care to leave it in a pristine condition for the next folks it's just really oh you know you've seen the videos i get agitated about it but so you can see right across blue creek which is moving that little kind of lakey bogey area where that moose was last night what a thing to see wasn't it it was amazing yeah it was amazing i know you didn't see it clearly on video obviously because we were so far away you know a little less than a kilometer but still pretty neat [Laughter] where'd jenny go sat here on this little rise like we did yesterday to have a break and we were discussing the noise and uh what's interesting about the noise is that until we got here we really haven't had any and last night i'll just say first was the most silent night i've ever had in camp second silent night was in uh on the south boundary trail on south ask campsite which was a sink lake the only thing that ruined that evening were the thousands of mosquitoes but last night nothing nothing not even a mosquito ever happened to you before no last night was um unique for sure i woke up in the middle of the night and the only thing i could hear was the sound of my own heartbeat and my own breathing and it was startling uh a little bit because we are so accustomed to hearing so many sounds and it was deafeningly quiet almost like you've fallen off the face of the earth it was i've never i've never experienced anything like it at all not yeah it was very neat and not even in hiking have i ever experienced that usually you're beside a river or a creek or like i said earlier there's bugs making noises there weren't even any animal sounds we didn't even hear like um a stick no nothing yeah rustling of the willows or anything nothing and there was no wind no yeah so a pretty unique experience it doesn't happen very often especially because there was no wind so pretty cool anyway we're gonna finish our break and head down the valley look at that holy crap look what jenny just found and we walked right by this topaz 50 meters let's go look whoa yep look at that there it is down there topaz look nice job kiddo hey look stick with me secretly that's my plan all right let's go down here and see a piece of history arrow going right wow wow well well well jenny found it look at this obviously a fire ring this has been used recently folks not this year for sure a while maybe oh yeah there's garbage in there some tin foil so topaz has been used you gotta know where to look going to go up that way wow is that the water source from here i wonder huh we're going to scout around if i can find anything i'm going to show you nice job jt that's what i'm here for [Laughter] still haven't found the privy but here's your old food storage area and you can see that the uh the old bear pole that would have been up there is long gone and that's why we carry earth sacks out here in these remote areas you can't depend on those i mean heck even wellborns was down oh here's a path this is where is this going oops oh yeah there's a marker up here privy found it oh man that's a hike and it is a pole and a hole the question is and this is gross turn away if you don't like it has topaz been used this year the answer is no all right oh my gosh i'm so glad we found this i know that sounds geeky but awesome all right this takes you right back down to the fire pit coming into the warden's cabin the trail goes off that way before we decide for sure we're going to stay here we're going to scope out the water situation always backtrack the topaz if we had to all right so the water is pretty much inaccessible to blue creek we've tried for 40 odd minutes to get down there uh the creek is on the high side on this side where it turns so it's deep and fast and the kind of beachy areas are on the other side you could forward i suppose but you can't even get there it's all overgrown with willows so what we're going to do is stay here we've already backtracked to a little stream that crosses the trail about i don't know 200 meters up that way and uh we're just going to stay here and bring our water in jenny and i really wanted to clean up in the creek today but uh and as much as i would have liked staying at topaz it would have been cool we just don't want to add the 1.7 kilometers or so tomorrow uh because we're heading to blue creek so we're gonna make do here and uh how you doing over there doing good taking off let's do an update with your feet all right we got a uh a foot update so i showed you before that i had to take i just start cutting a sit pad the therm-a-rest sit pad and uh use it kind of to push the boot away from this area of jenny's ankle so i had one piece on there before now i've got two trying to push it away now the ankle is probably still extending above this but it's better right it's better now the update is i had to do the other side swing around so here we have a really great pair of boots that worked really well until we got out here and what's happening like these are obviously these are obviously salomon i mean these are the top end boots for ladies but they're mid and we think that because they're mid they're doing something to your feet to your up here so we're gonna see if we can maybe get you a pair of uh hocus or maybe some high rise something that's not high rise something that's not high rise right okay it hurts yeah so uh it's my year of macgyver you bring out the macgyver in me yeah you're very talented oh my well we've only got uh a few more days out here and you're holding up pretty well so nice job you're tough tilly tough hi dad sitting here pondering the ancient wall and the shade the sun has come out and it's allowed us to do some charging and things like that and uh been pondering a lot today actually missed opportunities uh certainly this summer jenny and i flew out earlier to do skokie that's the one of the first hikes i ever did in the rockies and um it was her first hike in the rockies and i had an equipment malfunction that was my own fault and we had to cut that trip short that video is coming out um girls and i were coming out to do this hike we were out actually a few weeks ago and we were going to go up over hard scrabble and come around to little heaven over glacier pass and olivia had some a medical issue that wasn't going away and was antibiotic resistance so i called that hike after the first night and then finally jenny and i are out and we're going to complete this one although i'm going to change like i said the mclaren past part of excite that's just you know for 7k no thanks um and that's just bad planning on my part but still i mean we got to see the ancient wall and the natural arch and that was the whole purpose of the trip and it's pretty stunning out here but on the broader picture you know when you're out here and you're staying at horse hiker camps you realize there were a lot more hiker camps here uh back in the day and you know i just think of uh brian patton and bart from the canadian rockies trail guide who got to lug a wheel around out here and do all these hikes for their books and then you know brian and i uh we email and he continues to work on updating the trail guide and unfortunately updating the trail guide these days means decommissioned trails decommissioned campsites stuff like that so you know i just um that's a natural evolution of a park system perhaps and i'm not going to comment on that but it's for me you know i'm not getting any younger and the opportunity to see some of these things would have been great had i been able to do it you know 30 years ago and i i didn't so you just start to think wow these these are are disappearing and the years ahead of me are disappearing and how much time do i have left to see as much as i possibly can and i want to go to places that i like this you know and they so finding topaz finally at the end of the hike because jenny saw the sign was really really cool because you know i just wanted to see this old decommissioned campsite we certainly could have stayed there tonight and it was an option in my head but uh you know as things disappear out here and as opportunities disappear for me like they did this summer with the big plans i had you know you just start to ponder life and uh and wonder what's ahead and how much time you have left to explore as much of this area as you possibly can deep thoughts but uh that's kind of what happens out here i mean ignore the laundry but when you look up at something like that above the cabin uh it's hard not to think and just reflect any day doing some charging a little view around camp obviously drying off some wet boots we know they're going to get wet on the last day as we go over rock creek uh supper is hydrating we're having we're going to share the pad thai tonight because we really like it and then the chicken and mashed potatoes jenny doesn't eat meat but she'll eat some of the mashed potatoes so we're going to have a nice little buffet um i've kind of been drying stuff all day nice and leisurely jenny's got her own little christmas tree over here with interesting things uh we're making a list right now of things we've talked about on the trail we want to look up when we get home this is something the girls and i used to do and i do want to do a public service now it is true clothes can stand up on their own not this way but watch this watch watch look honestly look look i'm pushing down that is absolutely needed to be washed today and you saw what happened with the uh you saw what happened with the uh look look this one too look look hard as a rock wow do they smell oh my god it's time for supper [Music] well that's a wrap on day six that's a wrap on day six uh supposed to be a zero it was 7k uh we then meandered around looking for water we contemplated going back to topaz and we ended up staying here so uh highlight of your day the scenery yeah and the sunshine and the sun came out it's been beautiful and jenny just sat out there for what half an hour at least at least half an hour by yourself on a stump looking into the world which is why we're out here uh highlight of my day jenny finding topaz yes really i was like a little kid yes he was is that just dumb it's just the dumbest thing in the world that i'd be so excited about seeing some old camp but it was great uh tomorrow probably 14 and change down to blue creek where day ahead of schedule uh if it's busy down there we're to sneak over to the old camper's camp which we found too great hike for finding old camps um but it's all downhill we looked at the elevation on the way up and it should be a pretty easy day so ready to go down and look at the valley and see if we see any more moose what do you think our bears see in the morning good morning day number seven day number seven of doo doo doo the blue creek beard what do you think i don't know why i do that ah we're having breakfast look at this mess we've made over here but look isn't it nice to have a veranda you know just to set up and have your breakfast what a night eh most beautiful night ever it really was it was a real real rocky mountain night um the stars came out and jenny took a picture uh well it took a few pictures but i'm gonna flash one up here that kind of turned out it's hard i mean let me just show you i mean we're in the middle of this valley like where we've camped and i mean it's open most campsites for campers you know for tents are in the woods and i mean we had an unobstructed view and it was a crystal clear night we saw the milky way and uh it's one of those nights that makes you not want to leave i mean really you just don't want to leave so i mean the shadows of the starlight were softer than a lullaby i've heard that i think i've heard that before it gives you a rocky mountain high really alberta anyway uh no i mean i'm being serious we did see the milky way and it was pretty cool anyway we're heading down that way i don't know if you can see it blue creek gonna follow the willows for a while you love willows don't you i love them that are bigger than me and there's a few we showed that yesterday that's right we're underway and uh nice morning look at this eh just a few meters from the cabin gorgeous and jenny's willow's await i can't get over that night last night i mean the shadows of the starlight are soft and then a lullaby rocky mountain high alberta [Music] we're back into the ancient wall horse camp meadow not sure if there's anybody here but as i said earlier it showed the big red triangle i've sold out and yeah i think there's people there are people over there yeah definitely people over there in camp so thank goodness we didn't try to infringe upon their permits it's just not a cool thing to do but look at that view they enjoyed last night beautiful all right if i recall it's a bit buggy there's a bit sign up here i'm going to show you jimmy's going to take some pictures i'll just walk on up here show you this again there we are mclaren's pass was in our plans and it's not anymore blue creek folks is not 15 kilometers blue creek is 11 9 to 12 from here 12-ish that sign is absolutely incorrect so right homeward jenny wants to document this for her friends back home in new brunswick hi tribe of five and uh don't ask me what that means anyway um yeah we've had a lot of this and i haven't shown it because we're too busy picking our way through it but it's been up to jenny's knee almost to her knees a couple times when you picked the wrong spot that said it's very dry here and jenny doesn't have any idea how lucky she really is because that could be absolutely swampy muck it is in the middle i'm gonna take your picture you ready got it a little documentation for the folks at home just stopped to take a little break after over an hour of walking what do you think not a bad place for a break eh it's my favorite mountain it is it definitely is your favorite mountain as i said before way way way way way on the other side of that snake indian pass north boundary trail nice view down the range a lot of good scenery opening up along here as we knew there would be from the way up what i do see there's some haze building in him but not smoke because i have gotten a couple of whiffs now of uh smoke from the wildfires just the tiniest hint we've had a few days of clear skies without it but the wind has shifted and i wouldn't be surprised if if we saw it again or smelled it again look at that jenny was just commenting how that looks just like lake louise color and it sure is and i was just commenting that it'd be nice to be down there on an inner tube right now floating around that cave because it's hot that gorgeous though really beautiful we were just laughing we got here in the rain i said look behind you jenny it was pouring rain as we were coming through this section but this was our first real good glimpse of the ancient wall now we're heading back the other way toward blue creek but uh that's why an open back go ahead if you're ready that's why an open back in a place like this or some sort of lollipop is not a bad thing because you're surrounded by scenery so you don't get really bored on these open backs or lollipops because there's lots to see in both directions like for example from blue creek to willow creek now that we've kind of altered what we're doing i've never walked that trail in that direction before so i don't know what i'm gonna see you know when i was in with the girls just to willow creek you'll see that video later so i know that section of trail but the rest of it i've never walked the other way so we did the north boundary from rock lake to berg lake so always something to see typically in both directions like this uphill jus

2021-08-29 10:42

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