Day 10
Having been lured to the town of Blairmore by the siren call of ice-cream, the Flea-bitten Tramp and the Slovenly Loafer were now, predictably, nauseous and disconsolate. As night fell they scoured the streets for a stealthy spot to do some urban camping. Before you could say Waltzing Matilda, they were accosted by Jordy and Tanya and offered a place to stay. “Are you sure?” Slov said, “we’re very, very dirty.” They were sure. Tanya, originally from Australia, instantly recognised the Kiwi accent. So they whisked the boys off to their new home, plied them with fizzy drinks, bestowed upon their unworthy heads a heavenly shower and supplied them with a king bed so soft Flea shed a tear.

Next morning, the boys gracious hosts presented them with a shopping bag with Antipodean treats. Tanya’s Mum brought a suitcase full of these sorts of things every time she flew up from Aussie, and they needed to divest themselves of the copious remainder of the last haul before her next visit.

After a spot of shoe shopping and a raid on the supermarket for chocolate oat milk, Slov and Flea hitched the 5km to Coleman. There, they’d booked a stay at the famous Safe Haven Bnb, where they would soon meet their dear friend John. He would be joining them for the following 500kms, which they hoped to squeeze into the English secondary school’s summer holiday, him being a physics teacher. The boys were terribly excited to have him along, not merely for his sharp intellect and sharper wit, but because he’d been appointed as the arbitrator of Flea and Slov’s many disputes. They also intended to saddle him up with most of the provisions. He’d been preemptively dubbed ‘The Overburdened Ass’ in anticipation.

John was standing out the front of the BnB when they arrived, attired in a blue cap, blue shirt, tiny blue shorts, and black socks with skull and crossbones on them. He looked like a jumbo size boy scout. Several years back in the UK had intensified his quintessentially English pastiness, and if he wanted to wear that outfit, he was informed by way of a greeting, he’d have to carry half a liter of SPF 50.

First things first, the boys went to the pub, outlined the shape of their disputes and called for John’s ostensibly sage adjudication. He ruled, without fail, in Flea’s favour. It cannot be said that Flea was gracious in victory. Slov, giving John a chance to redeem himself, asked him what he thought of the blog. 

“Haven’t read it.”

You’re going to be in the blimmen blog! If you aren’t reading it, who will?”

“I did open one. It looked… obnoxiously long.”

Slov fixed him with his most wrathful stare and, like a recalcitrant child, John opened a blog and began to read. A few expectant minutes passed before he lowered his phone. 

“Isn’t it a bit, you know, pretentious?”

“What! How?”

“Let’s see… tumescent—what does that mean exactly?”

“Sort of swollen… usually used in the context of erect penises. Kind of goes with the homosocial atmosphere of the piece.” 

“Ephebic?”

“Well, that pertains to young Greek boys, mostly—it denotes a kind of slender, pubescent beauty which I thought I was pulling off rather well actually.”

“Right… but, I mean, some of this is unreadable. How about: ‘To the east, a chain of sheer passes and sheerer peaks, severe and pallid of countenance, a cortege of pale stone kings wearing heavy crowns of granodiorite.’? How can you justify that? You’re only getting yourself off, mate.”

The only other guest at Safe Haven was a gutsy, pint-sized Canadian lass called Nadia, who was also on the GDT. Allanah and Dan, the proprietors of Safe Haven, have for obscure reasons decided that their preferred clientele are thru-hikers, and are attuned to their every need. “You’ll probably need to put every item of clothing you own in the wash”, Allanah said, all matronly. “Be sure to make use of the robes in your closet.” Tanya had done all of Flea and Slov’s washing, and the boy scout uniform had not yet been acquainted with sweat and dirt, but the boys got in the robes anyway. It was exorbitantly hot. 30 something degrees. 

Between shoveled mouthfuls of chickpea casserole that night, Slov asked Dan, “What motivates you two to cater for the likes of us? I mean, thru-hikers are probably the worst guests any self-respecting BnB could hope for. Here we are eating ludicrous quantities of food with an eagerness bordering on the animalistic, stuff from our packs is strewn everywhere, we arrive caked with mud and sweat, we smell terrible and we’re kind of cheapos besides.” Dan blinked. Nadia said “Speak for yourselves.”

Slov and Flea washed down dinner with another 2L of chocolate oat milk. Slov, in classically slovenly fashion, spilled a fair portion of it onto his immaculate white robe, for which Allanah chided him severely. 

Day 11

The next morning, the boys divvied up the food. The Ass, yet to work up an appetite, took one look at the pile and said, “that’s obviously too much food.” Slov, who two days ago had swilled water in the dregs of a mayonnaise bottle and drunk the residue thereof, reckoned it wasn’t quite enough.  Nadia, who ate half as much per day and took half as long to hike any given section, saw the enormous spread and burst out laughing.

When the disappointingly egalitarian divvying was over, Allanah dropped the boys off at the trailhead—a wide 4WD track frequented by enormous pickup trucks. The forecast had it at over 30 degrees again and it was oppressively muggy and dusty besides. A round of sweaty hugs ensued. Then the Flea-Bitten Tramp, the Slovenly Loafer and the Overburdened Ass set off into the sweltering afternoon and the least inspiring terrain of the trail thus far. The Atlas Staging Area: a playground for motorbikes, ATVs, and ludicrously big RVs. 

They made it 5kms, stopping for a swampy swim they shared with two wiry youths decked out with some of the finest mullets to be seen in Alberta. Giant power lines were strung across the swamp, humming the song of channeled energy. The hillbilly boys jumped in their motorized buggy and rode off. Flea said, “Brokeback mountain.” The Ass slapped at bugs with his cap. Later, they pitched camp amidst cow pats in a spot halfway between two big RV camps. Swarms of motorbikers and ATVers hurtled past at regular intervals, revving, swerving and hollering until after the sun went down. Helmeted and visored figures on 70 ccs, many of them barely 4 feet tall, flung their headlights at the tents as they drifted the nearby corner at pace. It was like something out of Mad Max. From his tent that ight, Slov called out to his British friend f, raising his voice above the din, “nothing beats the tranquility of nature, ay John?” 

Day 12

After their reposeful eve, the three compadres had a mercifully short day on the cards, 17kms to Window Mountain Lake—a camp reviewed somewhat more favorably than the shit splattered spot next to the dirtbike arena they’d suffered through last night. They picked their way through the labyrinth of ATV trails and finally made it back onto a walking track which they needn’t share with post-apocalyptic petrolheads. Nary had they been walking an hour when they heard panting behind them. They turned in fear but beheld not bear not moose but what must surely be their human counterpart, a Herculean figure—a man 6 and a half feet tall with a towering pack, a frightfully rugged disposition, and calves the size of Christmas hams. His name, he told us, as we laboured to keep up, was Anthony, and he was attempting to do the GDT in record time—18 days—without resupplying once. His pack weighed 60 pounds and looked, if it were inadvertently dropped, like it would crush a small child. He was perspiring in a manner one associates with embattled gladiators in Hollywood movies. We wished him well. He and his magnificent calves marched off.

Although he hasn’t the calves to show for it, the Ass is himself obnoxiously fit. Runs 5k in 18 minutes on the dot. He powered ahead of his hapless Kiwi associates. Over the course of the day, the combination of his cute navy outfit and propensity for paternal condescension led him to acquire the additional nickname “Camp Daddy”.  Despite his heavy pack and perky toosh it was deemed that this suited him better than the Overburdened Ass, especially given he was not so overburdened as Flea and Slov had hoped. Everyone was struggling in the heat and with seven days food, however, and when Window Mountain Lake finally presented itself that afternoon, they immediately pitched themselves in. 

Around dinner time they made the acquaintance of another GDT hiker called Washout, a gentleman of Canadian origin who looked, misleadingly, like he was in his mid 30s. He had a relaxing affect and a charming accent which inspired many imitations. That night, in the absence of throbbing engines, the silence was instead filled by the drumming of thunder, strong enough to rattle the panes on Window Mountain. 

Day 13

Alarms went a-dinging at the customary 5am. Flea and Slov did 30 mins of drowsy, cramped meditation in their tents. Camp Daddy, evidently content to be reborn as a donkey, slept in. Enlightenment or no, he led the way up and out of the lake that morning and set a stiff pace in the hours that followed. It was agreed that the best strategy in the heat was to take a Spanish approach: early start, siesta, and a later finish. 

A river adjoining the lunch spot that day played host to the first of many amusing instances of Camp Daddy trying and mostly failing to dunk himself in shallow bodies of water. Each episode followed a predictable pattern. He was the first to strip and first to enter, but then invariably he would stand waveringly in the knee deep water with high shoulders and little T-Rex arms. He would feint as if to lower himself in, fooling nobody, and then retreat with a slow backpedal to the bank of the frigid stream, where he’d try to psych himself up again. This was always repeated 3 or 4 times, during which Flea and Slov would have dunked, dried off, and sat down to watch the spectacle. 

A tidy 35kms that day deposited them an hours walk shy of the base of Tornado Saddle. By all accounts, it was steep, scree-laden and mildly scrambly, so the boys wanted to polish it off in the early AM. They pitched tents in the narrow margin of another 4WD road, hoping no Dodge Rams would run them over in the middle of the night. 

Day 14

A fine morning after drizzle overnight. The grasses were agleam with dew. The day held a pale blue promise against its rosy bosom. Camp Daddy tossed fitfully in his sleep, suffering a premonition of the overwrought prose that would be used to describe the morning he’d soon wake up to. In the Dutch Creek campsite at the foot of the Saddle, they found a plaid shirt slung from a tree containing several zip lock bags full of muesli bars. Someone, presumably reckoning they had too much food, had jettisoned them pre-Saddle. Poor form in bear country—if a grizzly happened upon this calorific stash it’d associate the camp with food and endanger people there. Nothing for it but to carry the food out. Flea stashed several bars in his snack bag. Camp Daddy, with his meagre appetite, consented to take one. Slov, determining that the best place to store his bars was in his stomach, ate five on the spot. 

Consequences of compulsive overeating aside, the ascent wasn’t too bad, and nor were the views atop the saddle. The orderly Funnel range jagged up to the West, and, on either side of the saddle sheer peaks punctured the aforementioned sky bosom. Slov figured that the scramble up Tornado peak “might go” and was mocked. For the remainder of the day, Flea and Camp Daddy took great delight pointing to impossibly steep routes and asking each other, “reckon it’d go?” 

“Yeah bro it probably goes”

“I don’t know bro, it’s pretty tumescent.”

A dip in another shallow river afforded Camp Daddy an opportunity to do his cute wee routine. During the protracted process, while shouting encouragement from the riverbank, he was inexplicably bestowed with another trail name. Like a master Jazz pianist elaborating a musical motif, Flea had been working over variations of ‘Spunk’ all day, proceeding innocuously enough from J-Spunk to Spunkmeister to Spunkasaurus, and he now struck upon Spunky Monkey, which he cawed repeatedly in an offensively bad English accent as the victim shivered in the icy dribble of Hidden Creek. The rinse was followed by a long siesta under the pines and a few sweat-greased hours walking in the afternoon and evening.

Days 15-16

The next days consolidated the rhythm—30-40kms eeked out in the heat, the slog broken only by long post prandial naps and marginal banter. The Spunky Monkey and Slov relitigated a few old disputes and the boys generally whiled away the hours unspooling yarns about books, flims, people, places and notions. Flea and Slov made inroads into their snack supplies that their future selves would find hard to forgive.

Then, on the afternoon of the 15th day, an alleged spring failed to materialize. They scouted around to no avail. For the first time, thirst overtook hunger as the most pressing physical concern. The Spunky Monkey called happy hour on BBQ peanuts. Despite their pathetically meagre snack supplies, neither Flea or Slov took him up on it. When they finally arrived at Lost Creek, Spunk was thirsty enough to forgo the foreplay and dive straight in—with the assistance of Slov, who held his pasty English hand as they went under. 

The next day, Slov strode out in front to try to curb Spunk’s sadistic pace. Along sparsely forested ridges, the vista opened up on manifold peaks; the Beehive, Mt Lyall, Mt Gass. On the topic of gass, the sceptical Brit mentioned that he’d yet to smell Flea’s infamous concoction. “Maybe”, he muttered conspiratorially as he eyed the long-suffering Slov, “it’s a myth.” Slov spluttered with disbelief. To be assaulted unrelentingly by Fleas effluvium and to have his suffering and his integrity negated by accusations of slander was too much to bear. Evidently, the Spunky Monkey needed to spend more time walking behind Flea and his tailpipe. Meanwhile, the mosquitoes drummed up a crescendo. The author of the fake-gas conspiracy gave himself a deet bath and formulated the much more reasonable hypothesis that mosquitoes exist in direct proportion to an area’s natural beauty.

Day 17

A big day was on the cards: 38kms over the Fording River Pass. The boys were hustling to make it to the start of an alternate route called Coral Pass which promised to stretch their food supplies to the limit. Flea and Slov’s supplies, specifically. Spunk had plenty of snacks, and was feeling pretty smug about it. His spirits high as they clocked kms in the morning, he treated his friends to an inspiriting rendition of Backcountry classic “Bearleen” in his melodious baritone. 

“Bearleen, Bearleen, Bearleen, Bearleee-ee-eeen…

I’m begging of you, please don’t eat my face…..

You could have your choice of men but I could never live again, it’s the only life for me Bearleen…

I think about you in my sleep and there’s nothing I can do to keep from whimpering when I hear your breath Bearl–“

He cut off abruptly with a strangled whine. He’d been acquainted with Flea’s “mythical” brew for the first time. Slov smiled the sweet smile of vindication. “Misery shared is misery halved Johnny boy.”   

Atop Fording River Pass, it was discovered that the last of the TP was gone and a transition to the Backcountry bidet method was effected. A rare moment of concord on the trail ensued: there was a general consensus among the otherwise querulous thruplet that the bidet is a more civilized procedure than the ineffectual smearing we do with paper in the Western world.

The descent from the pass was long and wearisome, and the mosquitoes that greeted them at the camp at the bottom were some of the worst yet. Despite not being as quite as aggressive as their American counterparts, they waged a steady war of attrition. Slov, for the first but not last time, scratched himself bloody. 

Day 18

Flea broke camp and immediately set off with pep and confidence in exactly the wrong direction. “Heading Southbound now, are we?” Slov mocked. Directly thereafter, Slov slipped on a rock over a river crossing and soaked both his shoes. Flea mimicked his tone exactly, “Waterbound now are we?” and then slipped on exactly the same rock and went tumbling into the river with a decisiveness that the Spunky Monkey could only dream of. His friends amusement was not even slightly diminished by the minor tragedy of Flea’s hiking pole being bent out of shape. 

Spunk and his wet companions hustled along a wide flat gravel road for a few hours before hitting the turn off to Coral Pass, entirely oblivious to the suffering which would ensue. The Elk River lay between them and the alternate of their dreams, however. Depending on the time of year and the snow melt, it could be dicy. They found a safe spot to ford, however, and Spunk and Slov relished the opportunity to activate “River-crossing Mode” on their shorts. Flea lost his phone in the long grass on the other side. Slov, not willing to be usurped in both his role as chief loser, then managed to lose his phone in the long grass while looking for Flea’s phone. Ultimately, both were found and the troupe set off again.

The afternoon was expended on a long and brushy schlep up a valley hemmed in by preposterous peaks formed of sedimentary rock prized up a tidy 90 degrees. The range looked like the serrated fin of some ginormous antediluvian fossil. Flea inexplicably found some nunchucks on the side of the overgrown trail, and promptly performed a routine with them that endangered the health and wellbeing of the ever-beleagered Slov. Hard words were had, but the pair found common cause in their hunger—for truly the lean days had come again. Flea and Slov’s debauched food frenzy in Coleman seemed long past. Now their MnMs could be counted on their fingers, their salt and vinegar chips by the palmful. The Spunky Monkey flaunted his surplus but shared it not. Like the proletariat of Marx’s premonitions, the ravenous Flea and Slov plotted discretely overthrow the snackourgoise. 

That night, they camped in what felt like the deepest wilderness they’d yet penetrated, on the fringe of Cadorna Lake beyond which an enormous multiheaded massif reared like Cerberus at the gates of Hades. There, they were accosted repeatedly by a night-time visitor, which, after some clutching at bear spray was identified as a particularly tenacious Porcupine.

Day 19

The last day of Section B was here, and it was a stiff proposition over Coral Pass. It entailed strenuous climbing, sustained bushwhacking and exposed scrambling, all with little to no snackage for motivation. The forecast on the satellite phone had it at a 20% chance of rain, which the boys knew from experience made it a practical certainty. Propelled by thoughts of ice-cream, they awoke at 5am and set off barely an hour later, just as the sun rose. They gained the pass by 9:30, even allowing for stops to admire the fossils on the way up. Shells like little curved horns or claws littered the rocks, little ancient beings scooped up from the deep for belated appraisal. Atop the pass, Spunk, in an uncharacteristically liberal mood, portioned out the remainder of his snacks to his famished pals. Equal parts astonished and grateful, they sung an impromptu song praising his generous heart and lithe legs. He explained he’d waited till their most desperate hour so he could get “maximum return on his altruism”.

The rain started almost immediately on the descent, so the boys hightailed it down through the snowfields, shoeskiing to safety. The glaciers above them, awash in flat gray light, looked like dirty rags. They made it to the tree-line and began the torturous trail-less descent through dense, spikey forest, which effectively eviscerated them. After a couple hours thrashing through the undergrowth, each was bleeding from multiple sites and bellowing with rage at regular intervals. A niggly, but not unconscionably sketchy, descent down a steep wet gully spat them out onto the river plain, looking significantly worse than they did 3 hours prior. Truly, they could have faced down a posse of feral cats and come out with more intact skin. The Spunky Monkey, a tributary of blood streaming down his leg, said, “If I never get touched by a tree again, it will be too soon.” 

Several rounds of increasingly controversial 20 questions and a pacy 12kms later, they found themselves at the Boulton camp at last. Civilization and its accoutrements! Showers, power, wifi, pizza and, most importantly, ice-cream. Section B, Coral Pass and 350km of the Great Divide Trail lay to the South. To the North, another month’s worth of walking and more Rockies than you could shake a hiking pole at. Slov, mid-way through his fifth scoop of Salted Caramel Praline, exclaimed, “no diminishing returns!”, Flea, mouth stuffed with an icing covered cinnamon scroll, gave muffled affirmation. The Spunky Monkey, not for the first nor the last time, looked on in disgust.