32.4 km. Creek past Centre Pass to the 6th Ford of Moose River

The greatest thing about today was meeting a family with 9 and 11 year old girls doing this GDT segment from Jasper to Mt Robson. The girls are strong. The father was as concerned as we were about the potentially difficult fords and the forecasted rain and lower temperatures tomorrow. We saw them several times as we were backtracking on a particularly confusing section.

The most frustrating thing about today was walking thru miles and miles of a 1998 burn area. It is supposed to be better than it was. The equestrians have done an amazing amount of sawing downed trees but there are still many, many out there. I made one bad step over a log and caught my right calf on a sharp branch. It made a 1 inch triangular flap in my skin. And hurt like hell for about 15 minutes. Rockin had some steri strips and bandages that I closed the gash with. And then I proceeded to ford way too many creeks and rivers. I’m sure washing my leg in all that water was good for it.

All the fords were definitely the most challenging part of the day. Fast flowing, up to crotch deep, and no visibility due to glacial silt. We crossed the Upright Creek and remained upright. We forded the Moose River 5 times, then Steppe Creek 3 times and one more Moose River Ford. At the far end of that it was at least 9:30pm and we finally called it a day and set up our tents.

The first Moose River ford

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We pushed long and hard today because of the weather forecast and the fact that we have the worst ford still to come. The Smoky River is best crossed early in the morning. It is glacial fed and the flow drops significantly in the morning. The forecast keeps changing but it looks like reason around 3 tomorrow afternoon..