Mileage: 13.7km

So maybe this coloured my opinion of today (or vice versa), but I decided that Section B is my least favourite. It’s too long, starts with the nice parts (High Rock and Tornado Saddle), and ends in an unpleasant car-centric frontcountry area. Maybe it would be nicer to do SOBO?

Today was one of those cold mornings where you really don’t want to get out from under the quilt, but eventually Toothless was persistent enough that I needed to get up to feed him and nudge Kyle to actually get dressed and stop enjoying the warm covers. The cold morning along with camp chores we postponed yesterday (getting water, diaper laundry) meant we had an exceptionally slow start today – at least the trail was going to be straightforward and we had a low mileage day planned.

The wildfire smoke that had been following us seemed to have caught up again and made the climbs more challenging and the views at the top less rewarding as well. We could see the mountains directly to our west, but everything to the south and east was obscured with smoke.

I tried to remember what I enjoyed from Section B in 2018 and couldn’t really remember anything other than Tornado Saddle, Fording River Pass and the Elk Lakes campground. So without too much to look forward to, I was in a rather glum mood most of the day.

We reached our camp spot after a very muggy and sweaty climb and discovered it really wasn’t much of anything. Just a couple exposed flattish spots by a creek. We settled on the least worst flattish spot and got on with our evening routine.

After getting Toothless down for bed, we looked ahead to try and see if we could get ahead a bit and camp closer to the end so our walk into Peter Lougheed would be shorter. And I was reminded of another reason I wasn’t a fan of this section – despite the fact it is all pretty much random camping, the campable areas are awkward distances from each other. We’re hoping to push and do a big day tomorrow, but we’ll see what happens.