Wednesday, July 17th, 2024, 0600-0900
Lower Elk Lake to Boulton Creek Campground, mm 211.5
6 miles plus 1.5 mile detour to campground, Gain: 945′, Loss: 920′, elevation 5720′
We were up early for our town day…but not really a town day. The commercial campground was a place that others went to get away, but for us it was our closest pass by civilization in a week. Ah, the paradox. A slice of nature, but mostly built society. It’s not camping by my book, but I guess it fills a need for some folks. For us, it was a place to take hot showers, charge electronics and get some ice cream… can’t find any of those things in the backcountry.
We only had about 6 miles to go to Elk Pass trailhead, where lockers with our resupply boxes were waiting. The strategy was to mail a box to lady named Nicole Sharpe. For a small fee, she’d deliver the box all the way from Canmore to the lockers. The miles flew by and soon we were grabbing our boxes and sifting through the hiker box. The usual trading and bartering went on among the 3 of us (Woody, Michelle and me).
Actually, it was mostly Michelle getting rid of a bunch of her stuff and me taking these things I didn’t really need. I often intentionally carried less than what I needed because I was also acutely aware of my tendencies to hoard food. I couldn’t resist a good give-away from another hiker or trail angel… things like drink mixes, chocolate, or fancy dehydrated meals. Michelle gave me most of her granola along with Nido, which I gladly added to my already sufficient stash. I also found some good hygiene items in the hiker box…like a whole bottle of both body wash and lotion. Finally I gathered up my giant hoard and somehow moved it down the road another mile to the general store and campground.
We hit up the store for coffee, but it was too early to check into our site. We walked a long ways…almost half a mile…to find our loop area as well as the Strawbridges. Finally we were reunited with the rest of our tramily. They’d camped at a nearby site the night before and gave us the low down on the showers and electrical outlets. The campground was designed solely for those with cars, seeing as how we had to walk another half mile just to get to these important amenities. There was a large parking area outside the showers and everyone but us were driving from their respective sites to use the facilities. The building seemed to serve as the one central location for all the loops in the campground. I appreciated having some luxuries around, but it was definitely the worst campground for thru hikers (or pedestrians) I ever stayed in. Cars or bikes were pretty much needed to get from one area to another.
Nicole arrived just after noon, bringing Yani, Goat and Strider with her. They had gotten a day ahead of us on Section B and had hitched into a nearby town the night before. Suddenly, thru hikers began to trickle in, attracted to the scent of hot dogs and burgers. Nicole went all out, providing salad, fruit, condiments, buns, and all the cooking supplies. Goat and Yani stepped up to the plate to do all the cooking while Nicole made trips back and forth to collect more hikers. I couldn’t believe how many there were! Alex, Collin, Ricky Bobby and Helena all made it, along with a whole group I hadn’t seen before. There were 3 guys from Montreal that were all sharing a giant tent and 2 women, also from Montreal. I did get a chance to talk to many of them, so I unfortunately didn’t get all their names.
Another new guy, Jan, arrived. I learned he was from the Czech Republic and had hiked the PCT the year before. I might have already crossed paths with him. I had an affinity for Czechs and enjoyed talking to him at the picnic. In total, there were 18 of us GDT hikers, plus Nicole and her daughter. It was such a great hiker feed, probably the best I’ve even had the pleasure of attending. Plus what a wonderfully grateful and friendly group of hikers. The Canadian hikers by far had us foreigners outnumbered… 10 of them to us 6 Americans, 1 Aussie, and 1 Czech…as it should be I suppose. No wonder it was such a nice and friendly group. And it was all thanks to the generosity of Nicole. Thank you Nicole!
Things wound down by 5 pm (pretty much as soon as all the food was gone), and the hikers wandered off to their respective sites. We had a conundrum in that there were 5 of us planning on staying on our site, with a total of 4 tents. The rules were 2 tents and 4 people, but because our tents were so small, we figured it wouldn’t be a big deal. Woody, the Strawbridges, and Alex set up their 3 tents and then went down to the general store for ice cream. I’d decided to wait a little while longer to pitch my tent and stayed behind to watch the site. We did a great job of cleaning up after the picnic and had already stored all our food in the nearby lockers, leaving nothing on the picnic table. Our site looked barely used, except for the 3 tiny tents using less than 1\4th of our total space. Other sites had giant RVs taking up the whole driveway, plus camp furniture, dog kennels, playpens, bikes, toys, tents, you name it.
The camp host had driven by several times during the picnic, giving us the eye, but hadn’t said anything. This time he came by and it was just me, quietly sitting at the table. He rolled up in his golf cart and condescendingly pointed at each tent, counting and holding up a finger for each. Of course I already knew how to count to 3 on my fingers, but he made sure to show me very pointedly. He then held up 2 fingers and proclaimed “you’re only allowed 2 tents!” There was no need for such antics, all he had to do was just politely say we had too many tents for what the rules allowed. I should have called him out on his unprofessional and uncalled for demeanor, but I simply stated that they weren’t my tents and I would pass on the message to the others when they returned.
We tried to buy another site for the night, but they were all booked. There were numerous empty sites all around, but it would have been too obvious if we moved our unmistakable backpacker tents to a vacant site. Plus what if the people holding the reservation actually showed up late? So Alex took his tent down and vowed to just go off into the woods to camp. I offered to join him, since my tent would also be breaking the rules if I pitched there.
The camp host came by a final time just as we were leaving and suggested that we ask some of the nearby sites if they had room…as in all the sites that were already completely full of other people’s crap. I understood that the rules existed so that people didn’t cheat the campground out of their money by cramming too many onto one site, but given that every site was booked and they’d profited to the fullest extent that night, how was cramming us onto an RV site any different from allowing 3 or 4 small tents on our site? The one we’d paid for. What an idiot that camp host was. We just blew him off and walked away. Woody was pissed, since he’d paid for the booking, and Georgie was the most upset. After not camping together for quite a few days, we’d been looking forward to a night together. I was actually just kind of happy to get away from such a terrible campground, despite the great time we’d had there earlier in the day. Never would I go back there to stay.
Alex and I went back to the highway and walked down to Boulton creek. We noticed a day use area and some flat spots pretty well hidden by the trees, out of sight of the highway and parking lot. We laughed that it was so easy to find a great spot, free of the noise of the commercial campground and therefore much more pleasant. There were toilets and trash cans even closer than at the campground. Sure it wasn’t probably legal to stay there, but we pitched in the dark and were gone by 6 am the next morning, leaving no trace. All’s well that ends well. Suck it Boulton Creek Campground.
