Wednesday, July 24th, 2024, 0700-1800
Helmet Falls Campground to Ottertail trailhead, mm 332.6
17.2 miles, Gain: 2340′, Loss: 4200′, elevation 3880′
Woody actually beat me out of camp in the morning…I guess he was that eager to get out, too. I was slow to begin moving, despondent about our thru hike ending so prematurely. But I pushed my way up our final pass (Good Sir) pretty fast and easily. Far Out notes warned of some bushwhacky sections on the descent, but I didn’t find it to be that bad. I caught up to Woody and we took a short morning break at the McArthur ranger cabin. It was to have been our campsite this night, but we were obviously pushing on. Parks Canada got one whole extra night of fees out of us…perhaps they could use the revenue to do some prescribed burns….hint hint?
We continued down an old road along the Ottertail river. We figured the remaining 9 miles would be cruisey, but we were surprised to encounter a lot of blowdowns. The road had fresh tire tracks in the vicinity of the cabin, belonging to a vehicle that I assumed to have come all the way from Field. It must have taken a different route, because shortly the tire tracks ended and we were crawling on our hands and knees to get under some of the blowdowns. Even in the final 2 miles, I had to take my pack off to crawl through a particularly bad one. Woody snagged his expensive Jolly Gear shirt crawling under the same blowdown, putting a big rip in the back. He’d gone unscathed the whole trip, only to get torn up in the final 2 miles. It annoyed us, especially since the road was good enough for a vehicle to travel, making it easy to tote along a chain saw for some “trail” maintenance. A final ‘FU’ from Parks Canada it seemed like …can you tell I’d grown to somewhat dislike this agency? I was definitely disgruntled about all the planning we’d done in order to abide by their plethora of permit restrictions…all for naught. It wasn’t quite their fault either, but they were the easiest to point a finger at.
We unceremoniously made it to the highway for our GDT finale and immediately began walking west, trying to hitch. It didn’t take long before a nice man gave us a ride to Golden. That was it pretty much, the end of our hike. We ate lunch in a stupor, as we read all the terrible news about the fires. We got our boxes from our planned hotel, which didn’t have any vacancy a day ahead of our reservations. The evacuation of Jasper had caused all the nearby tourist towns to be flooded by the overflow. There didn’t seem to be a single room available in town, not even a space at the hostel. Plus, Golden was under threat of its own evacuation from a nearby fire. We watched the giant plume of smoke billowing up, highlighted apocalyptically by the afternoon sun. Suddenly I just wanted so badly to get away.
We took a late bus to Calgary and Woody’s mom generously used her Marriott points to get us a room at the airport. I could barely see Lake Louise or Banff as we drove past, the wildfire smoke was so thick. We didn’t get to the hotel until after midnight and it was all I could to do to take a proper hot shower after 2 weeks, then collapse into a bed. I woke the next morning to the awful images of historic Jasper landmarks on fire (the Maligne Lodge). It sounded like the whole town could be ablaze. I’d earlier wondered if the evacuation had been necessary, but the images left no doubt: the fire was out of control and absolutely devastating. It would be many months, even years, before Jasper and the surrounding areas recovered. We had no choice but to end our hike for good this year.
I’d later come to learn that the AirBnB we’d reserved in Jasper miraculously didn’t burn completely, despite being in the western side of town where all the other structures did. But the owners still declared its contents a total loss…including our 5 resupply boxes that were inside, complete with new shoes and clothing. It all got thrown away, buried in the rubble. But a lot of people sadly lost so much more…whole houses, businesses, and livelihoods. Truly there were much worse outcomes than what happened to us.
I was also unable to recover my resupply box that I mailed to The Crossing Resort at the end of section D, but was later able to release it to another hiker that was in need when section D reopened a month later. I was glad that the 5 days of food at least got used. Additionally, all our backcountry permit fees were refunded, as well as hotel and AirBnB reservations. We were able to undo almost all our plans at almost no cost. Months later, I filed an interrupted trip claim with the travel insurance policy I wisely purchased back in February, when I bought my plane tickets. I figured I might as well try to recover some of the expenses from the lost boxes and travel, like the bus ride. Small potatoes.
An upside of our speedy retreat to the Calgary Airport was that we got to see Georgie and Vince one last time before they flew out that Thursday. It provided some better closure than our uncertain parting on the trail 2 days prior. We discussed possibilities of coming back to complete the second half of the GDT in summers to come, but had to leave it quiet up in the air. None of us were excited about the prospect of doing so much planning once again. We pondered whether it was worth it to make permit reservations 6 months in advance, or just try to wing-it, getting last minute reservations or none at all. We played by the rules planning this trip, which just turned out to be a lot of wasted time.
Woody flew home to Utah the next day, while I pivoted quite dramatically to seek adventures south, back in the US. As joyous as I was to make it to Canada after an American Airlines snafu cost me over $400 additional to buy another ticket (their mechanical issue caused me to miss my connection), I was equally happy to leave Canada. It wasn’t easy getting there and it was equally stressful getting out, but I did at least enjoy the 3 weeks we spent hiking. I’d still say it was worth it.
Upcoming, I’ll post pictures and summaries about all my unexpected hikes that followed, which included the Teton Crest Trail, Gros Ventre Wilderness, Wind River High Route, Sawtooth Wilderness, and Uinta Highline Trail. I bounced from Montana to Wyoming to Idaho to Utah, and finally Colorado. I wrapped up a phenomenal summer by climbing 16 CO 14ers, bringing my total to over 40. I also got to reunite and hike with Strider, Woody and Alex during some of these hikes, plus make many more new friends and bump into some old ones. I certainly made the most out of this unfinished thru hike!