Mileage: 19.3 km

I’d say my highlight of today was our conversation during breakfast with Steve and his son Owen. Those two are great fun and just a pleasure to talk to at camp. I think we were very fortunate to meet them.

Other than that, there’s not much to say about today. It’s basically a connection day between Height of the Rockies and Mount Assiniboine.

In 2018 we hiked this in the morning starting at Birdwood, went over Wonder Pass and camped at Og Lake.

This year, with shorter days and the way our permits worked, we started at Burstal and hiked to Marvel Lake. This ends short of the pass and Mount Assiniboine so you just get a lot of boring, flat, wide trail. Even the meadow walks get a little tiring. It just feels like you are moving from point A to point B. I know that’s what it is, but a lot of hiking can feel like where you are now is part of the destination rather than feeling like you are in the middle of walking to a far off destination.

This year it has been so incredibly quiet in Banff. We have seen so few people. I was bracing to bump into people on trail and at camp but each camp has been almost empty (weird considering the challenges getting permits…) and we only saw one person on trail today before we reached Marvel Lake camp and saw a small group leaving.

We had a couple nice moments together but overall I think we were just trying to put today behind us.

So unfortunately we saw very little today, did fairly simple and boring hiking and didn’t see anyone.

Necessary but not a highly rewarding day.

I’m hoping tomorrow will be a little more fun.