Mileage: 25.9 km

I get knocked down, but I get up again…

Chumbawumba, (I think?)

Excuse the probably wrong lyrics; I’m writing this at camp without internet to verify.

So yesterday was a not so very good day. I won’t write a post about that because I’m pretty sure Natasha already did. What I will say is, we didn’t go that far (13 kms or so I think) and were tired at the end. The wildfire smoke not only took our edge off but it blocked our views so although I hiked some of my favourite snippets of the GDT (mostly around Beehive) I missed the views.

Thankfully at the end of the day yesterday the smoke started clearing and I fell asleep with a great view of the waterfall and mountain.

I woke up to clear skies again and was feeling rested. Toothless woke at 6:00am and we were less inefficient breaking camp..so we started hiking at 7:30am. An hour and a half is not great but I’ll take the earlier start!

While at camp Toothless was playing. He tried putting the cooking pot lid on the pot. I think this is the first time he has tried fitting two objects together. This was so much fun; he was having a good time despite not quite getting it right.

Natasha started by carrying Toothless. Last night we discussed a stretch goal of hiking to Lost Creek (almost 26 km away) to help push our itinerary along and spend more time at Peter Lougheed at our campsite and shorter days road walking. So we had a lofty goal!

We set off and made a good pace. 2.5 km/hr in the first hour; not too bad. After about an hour and a half Toothless decided he wanted a break so we stopped. We did our usual wiggle break, diaper change (or two) and snacks. I grabbed water and did laundry.

They should call me the Maytag guy – I both wash and dry laundry on trail.

At this point my pack weight is lower due to me carrying less food so we decided to swap carrying Toothless. I gave some food to Natasha and I took the baby. My pack felt good so I took off trying to keep the pace.

And I hiked hard and fast.

Natasha described this as a “blistering pace”. I usually can’t hike fast, just all day. I can hike 35km in a day because I hike using all daylight. Hiking with Toothless limits how far we go because we have much less time in a day to hike. But today we hiked fast; some sections were being knocked out at more than 4km/hr. I’m a short guy so it is hard to hike fast. I felt good (sweaty, but good) and in control.

We arrived at Memory Lake before noon. We took and early lunch and after getting eaten alive we kept on.

Our next stop was High Rock Camp. We stayed here in 2018 and I am glad it’s been cleaned up. We arrived at 2:07pm, took a short break (wiggles, water, snacks) and pushed on away from the bugs.

It’s about 10km from High Rock to Lost Creek. This is kind of fun trail in spots with some loose footing. There is also the old mining cart and equipment just beyond High Rock that I loved last time. We pushed by this but smiled as we passed.

We bumped into a SOBO hiker (I think his trail name was Febreeze??) and chatted briefly. We are under a time crunch and were exhausted so I’m afraid we didn’t offer great conversation.

We got to camp at around 5:45pm and quickly prioritized dinner. The table and chairs were welcome! Toothless was hungry and ate a pouch, string cheese and some of Natasha’s dinner. I ate pesto noodles. Then some conversation with other hikers and off to bed!

Overall today was a big day. It would not have happened if everything didn’t line up though. Toothless was in a great mood and was happy being carried by me without much interaction or wiggles. He slept well. The smoke was gone and we felt energized. My pack weight was low enough to carry Toothless. The elevation was relatively flat.

So yesterday we got knocked down but today we picked ourselves up and kicked some ass.