Mileage: 18.6 km

After tucking into bed last night, I was happy to discover we had pitched the tent in a way that did not result in anyone sliding around during the night. The tent sites in Jasper tend to be lumpy and slanted, so it is always a “fun” puzzle trying to figure out the optimum way to orient the tent, and for once, we nailed it!

Toothless lack of interest in dinner does not extend to breakfast. He enthusiastically ate his portion of the chia pudding and then requested more, so we made him a bowl of cereal from a future breakfast. After our double breakfast, we finally started to slowly make our way down the trail. We passed quite a few hikers heading out, but no one in the same direction as us which was surprising. I guess the weather forecast of storms for tomorrow scared folks off?

It was getting late in the morning when Toothless had several meltdowns – first about not having the “right” snacks and then he was stuck in a loop about not wanting to walk or be carried. Classic “I’m not tired” toddler. We got the carrier out and I managed to wrangle a protesting toddler into it. 15 minutes later, he was fast asleep.

Despite the carrier being great for back carrying, somehow in front carrying mode it eventually transfers all 32 lbs of his weight to my shoulders. I think an unspoken part of backpacking with babies and toddlers is that it is honestly pretty painful at times. But much like labour, the happy hormones somehow make the pain fade away and you are more than willing to do it again. Or something like that.

We take a brief break for lunch, and the rest of the afternoon, we cycle between carrying Toothless on our shoulders, snack breaks, and participating in pretend games to keep him walking down the trail in the correct direction. We reach camp around 6:30 pm after about 10 hours of hiking. A truly blistering pace of less than 2 km/hour.

The camp features several bones in the eating area that Toothless gets a huge kick out of. He wields them like a tiny caveman and tries to use the jawbone as a saw to dismantle the picnic tables.

By the time we finish dinner, Toothless is truly exhausted and bounces off the walls of the tent while I try to get him into his sleep clothes, but he is magically willing to lay on his sleeping pad once his clothes are on. Then we say goodnight and I leave him to fall asleep while Kyle and I finish up sorting food for tomorrow and refilling water.