Daily Distance: 21.4 km (I accidentally stopped today’s Strava, so no elevation profile or map available for this day!)
We enjoyed a relaxed sleep-in morning without alarms today, first in a while! Funny, our alarm is usually set for 6 or 6:30. This morning we just naturally woke up at around 7 am. I love when your internal clock just sets itself during long trips outdoors.
We were enjoying some coffee before breakfast, discussing day trip plans, when one of the park rangers came by around 9:30 or so. She told us she had two snippets of bad news – first, that we were being evacuated, second, that hikers were not being provided with any helicopter transport outside of the park. They said they wanted us to leave within a few hours, and they were keeping track of our planned route/campground leaving Assiniboine in case there were any concerns.
We managed to get our things packed together without too much trouble – the only thing was, Kat was missing her hiking poles. She is so careful with her belongings, and we looked everywhere around our campsite. Sadly, we had to assume that someone else must have decided to take them. A little unfortunate that this was one of the few busy campgrounds we’ve stayed at in the backcountry, and something valuable happened to go missing. They’re specifically designed for splitboarding to break down into four parts and fit inside a pack, and I’ve never seen another pair like them.
We checked in at the lodge before leaving, and the lodge graciously offered to fly out and extra food or belongings that we wouldn’t need, now that we had to leave early. They also gave us free cookies! It was obvious that the staff were upset but were working well together as a team despite the difficult situation. It was also obvious the threat of the fires was very real. Although the guests and hikers were being evacuated, the staff had been and would continue to be hard at work, trying to cut down as many trees as possible around the lodge in the hope that it would be saved, until it was unsafe to stay. “Fuel reduction measures,” as they called it.
View of Mt Assiniboine from the lodge
We offered to stay and help out, and it seemed for a moment that they really wanted to say yes. But them they realized we were hikers and insisted that we start our hike out to safety over Wonder Pass.
So we started out trek out over the pass, with helicopters whirring overhead every 15 minutes. Despite the fires, there was little smoke in the air. There were also few clouds in the sky, and the wind was quite warm throughout the day. It was going to be a very hot day!
We made it up over the pass in good time. I had told our friend Irene, who was planning to meet us in Assiniboine, via our inReach devices that we were being evacuated. She’s been a great sport, trying to catch up quickly (she has also hiked from Waterton) and putting up with a ton of last minute agenda changes as we have tried to come up with alternate routes around Sunshine so we could still try to do a continuous hike somehow. In the end, there were no alternate routes available, and we were now being evacuated. No chances of doing a complete through-hike this year any longer – we will definitely have to skip this section. Unfortunate, since it’s supposed to be a highlight, but nothing can be done about it. Really, we’re lucky we were allowed to hike this close into the area at all, with the confidence that we would be kept safe and informed about any changes to the wildfire.
Wonder Pass was stunning, and we agreed that we much preferred our route over any helicopter lift out of the park.
Look! It’s a bunch of Lorax clones!
As we dropped down closer to Marvel Lake, we started looking for Irene, who was hiking up towards us to meet us on our way down. So exciting to finally see her and hear all her stories! We are now, for the first (and likely last) time on the trail, a group of four awesome women.
Irene, showing off her excess food supply. Apparently we’re not the only ones who have more than enough!
We made it back to Big Springs in good time, despite the late and interesting start to the day. Tomorrow we will be off the trail for a few forced rest days and a few birthdays – Erin and I both have our birthdays on August 2nd!
“I like to go into the mountains with women as long as it’s someone I’m not trying to impress, which as a middle-aged bald guy is an increasingly moot point anyway. It seems like women are not afraid to be afraid and are quick to balk at unnecessary risk.”
-Bruce Tremper, Staying Alive in Avalanche Terrain
Over the divide 