Day 27, Field

After a modest coffee & cafe food orgy, Slov and Flea strode down the road to collect their food resupply and the new shoes Slov had ordered. At the innocuous site of the post office, however, their town fates radically diverged. Slov’s shoes weren’t there. He’d have to hitch to Golden or Lake Louise and back to get another pair. As he was being acquainted with this unfortunate piece of news, Flea was accosted by a vivacious local woman by the name of Lorraine. Upon hearing he was doing the GDT, she whisked him back to her BnB for tea and treats. In a storm of competence, foresight and generosity, she gifted him and the boys a stash of food that another GDT hiker (who’d had to pull out) had left, proposed a jaunt to Emerald Lake for an evening canoe excursion, and made calls to sports shoe retailers in Lake Louise and Golden. The pickings were slim, but one place in Golden said they stocked Hokas, so Slov was to hitch Westward.

Slov grabbed his daybag and walked dejectedly to the gas station off the highway. It was swelteringly hot. Lorraine had given Flea some cardboard signs to equip his hapless friend with. An hour and a half of fruitless thumbing later, Slov was just about willing to commandeer one of the many burly pickups rolling blithely past, rednecks and their guns be damned. He was saved from a stomachfull of shotgun pallet by a lively youth on a roadie. The youth immediately furnished the mildly bewildered Slov with another pair of sunglasses—he’d just purchased 5 pairs for a dollar each at a bargain store. Might be a good idea to carry a spare pair, Slov thought, given the ol’ track record. When they arrived at Golden, which is named for its superb weather, the township was cast in dark shadow by enormous thunderheads. He had to be fast. 

Flea and Spunk, back in sunny Field, reclined in luxury at the Truffle Pig for a while and then visited the Siding Cafe for vegetarian burgers and another round of coffee. Spunk finished reading The English Patient. Flea did some stretching. 

Slov found the shoe store and went in to scan the shelves. No Hokas. Not really much of anything in the way of trail runners. He asked the lady working there if they had any of the shoe brands they said they had over the phone. Nope, never heard of them. “Well, I guess… can I try those Scarpas in a 10?” The lady gestured with her head. “All the shoes are stacked up back there. Easy to find.” Slov went to the back, administered himself some customer service, and made the purchase. Flea called. If Slov returned before 6, he could come canoeing with Lorraine. 

Slov hustled through the supermarket, getting everyone some supplies for the next section, and then back down the main street towards the highway. It started to rain. His paper grocery bag went mushy. He cradled it with his new shoes balanced precariously on top, as he approached the overpass. Then Slov’s nose began bleeding, bled right on the groceries and on his freshly laundered clothes. “Fucking fuck” he said. He put down his groceries, sat down on the sidewalk and used the tissue paper in the shoebox to staunch the flow. A group of girls in activewear strode past, gazes averted. Slov checked his face in his phone camera. Blood everywhere. He spat on his hands to rub most of it off and then resumed his journey.

In the meantime, Lorraine picked up Spunk and Flea and whizzed them out to Emerald lake. There she launched a canoe and called for Flea to climb in. She took off, leaving Spunk and his kayak in the proverbial dust. After weeks of jolting foot travel their frictionless passage across the water felt silky and luxurious. Without Slov the boys were left to adorn the lake with their own befitting similes and metaphors. Recapping for their friend later, they said “Emerald lake was… very emeraldy.” They docked at Lorraine’s favourite diving rock. She, like Spunk, professed a deep distrust for swimming in shallow water. The happy trio agreed that the dive was the most enobling way to enter freezing water. Lorraine epitomized that nobility as she flung herself gracefully from the tall rock and arced into the emerald waters.  Spunk scored her dives 9, 9.5 and 7. Flea was awarded a 6 and “a generous 4.” Having rinsed off the heat, the trio reclined on the padded chairs Lorraine had brought and carmalised pleasantly in the sun. The rock was hot, the mountains big, the lake green, life very good. It was remarked that this here, right now, was paradise. 

Slov was meanwhile discovering that Golden was a hitchiker’s nightmare. Either he could try the highway, which had barely any shoulder to stop on and fast moving cars, or the on-ramp, which had no shoulder whatsoever but slower moving cars. He was now considerably wet and rueing his basic lack of foresight in leaving behind his rainjacket. He didn’t like his chances of getting a ride. An hour passed—no Iuck. The sky was cement grey and the winds ripped through between the odd peal of thunder. He was now prodigiously wet. A young man gave Slov the thumbs up as he drove past, which was neither original nor inspiriting. 6 o’clock came and went. Then 6:30. Finally, just before 7pm that evening, Europe came to the resue when a young Czech couple pulled over. Slov was so relieved he got a bleeding nose. He biffed his stuff in the backseat, gave hearty thanks, apologized for being so wet and for bleeding everywehere and if they had any spare tissues. They did. And a spare beer, too.

Slov told them his friend had been given a lift by Czechs earlier that day. “They never heard of public transport in this country” they said, “just think of us as your European funded public transport. “I love the Czechs”, he said enthusiastically. “A great people.” He listed all the Czechs he could remember. “Johannes Kepler … Franz Kafka… Adam Ondra. Yes. A great people, the Czechs.” They dropped him off at the Kicking Horse campground just after 8. No sign of Flea and Spunk. Slov sat and waited. Eventually they returned, bustling into camp with a pep and verve that the low-spirited Slov found borderline offensive. 

Day 28

That night, the trains kept up a steady cacophony and the boys were disinclined to stay another: there would be no zero day in Field. They walked up the road to the more expensive adjacent campground and took heavenly showers there. They have only one little bottle of liquid soap between them, and in the process of handing it between shower cubicles they came perilously close to indecently exposing themselves to a family of five.  

The boys were to set off on the Kiwetinok alternate, which circumvented the arduous bushwhack through the Amiskwi valley and promised terrific views of juicy glaciers at the expense of a short sharp bushwhack at the end. Before they left, however, Flea had ample time to consume, in addition to a hefty breakfast, 2L of chocolate milk, several blueberry muffins and a coke. “I’m feeling kinda sick” he said, upending the contents of a packet-pasta into his pot. “Maybe… don’t eat more?” Spunk suggested. “Nah a bitta pasta won’t hurt.” Within 15 minutes, Flea was laid down outside Field’s public toilet, hands cradling his distended belly.

Spunk realized he’d lost his blue cap. The petrol station furnished him with a straw-woven cowboy hat as a replacement. He strode off, his new headwear transforming him from Camp Daddy into a roving hillbilly. Slov, in his new shoes, was not far behind. Flea waddled slowly across the highway and took up the rearguard. 

There was a thousand metre ascent right off the bat, but, as Slov put it to Spunk as they waited atop the ridge for their indigestion-stricken friend, “it felt like we were wafted up on the vapours of youth and good health.” Spunk agreed. Flea, when he stumbled out of the forest, did not. The sun had at least broken through the clouds and lit up a superb panorama: row upon row of glaciated peaks roughing up the horizon in every direction dovefeather clouds above, suspended in the evening light. Flea lifted up his shirt, revealing a belly which wouldn’t look out of place on a woman 6 months pregnant. “Feeling pretty swol” he said, caressing the soft hill of his abdomen. “Sun’s out… distended tums out?” Spunk tried. Everyone winced. Spunk donned his new hat. “It’s so versatile” he said, folding it in various ways. “Cowboy hat… picnic hat… now a bit of a medieval peasant vibe… and even, aha… the musketeer!” Slov scowled. “that’s my look, bro.” Flee piped up: “You can fight it out with your rapiers!” 

They siddled along the ridge and the glorious visage of Emerald Lake came into view. “Aw man Emerald Lake was so great yesterday” Flea said. Spunk: “Gosh it was so beautiful.” Slov said nothing. “And Lorraine…” Flea continued. “Truly one of the greats.” “Her dives!” “Her dives were incredible.” And her loon calls!” “Yeah, man, you don’t get to meet people like her every—” “That’s enough.” Slov interjected. “I forbid you two to talk about the lake. Or Lorraine. Or, for that matter, the moose from section C.”

They made it to camp without any more unnecessary reminiscences and pitched themselves into Little Yoho Lake. It was marvelously warm. Slov felt better.

Day 29

A stupendously good start the next day as they gained elevation and the view opened up. This part of the alternate followed the ‘Iceline’ trail. The mountains all around were stippled with glaciers and pocked with tarns. The mighty Takkakaw Falls launched off a cliff on the other side of the valley in a showy, high-dive sort of way. They stopped off for a midmorning baptism in one of the high alpine tarns and were promptly sprung in the nude by a bemused young man coming the other way. Flea went off for a scenic poo and Slov unwrapped his muffin, which had been thoroughly flattened. “Looks like a brownie” he mourned. “That’s how they make ’em.” Spunk said. Muffin compaction. Muffins are igneous, brownies are metamorphic.” Slov asked if he had any other insights into the geology of baked goods. “We-eell… there’s Caramel slice,” Spunk elaborated, “that’s your classic sedimentary sweet treat.”

Flea returned, triumphant, from his poo, and interrupted the lecture. “Buried that shit under the biggest boulder.” He made a big shape with his arms. “That poo couldn’t get out from under there if it was the good lord Christ himself.”

They dipped down to the valley and then scooted up a pass where they swam again and partook of light victuals. Spunk did some modelling in his hat (picnic mode). There wasn’t anywhere to look that wasn’t absolutely magnificent. The boys smiled giddily at it all.

They made their way down talus, had lunch, sustained a food coma, and then lugged up steeply through dense bush to the Kiwetinok gap. Spunk powered ahead so that he could spend some extra time at the top being molested by horseflies. A small pile of them lay executed at his feet when Flea and Slov finally arrived. The bush bash down from the gap to the main track wasn’t as heinous as the reviews made it out to be. The boys had seen worse—they still nursed the scars from their evisceration on Coral Pass.

Back on the main route, they schlepped a couple more hours to camp at Amiskwi pass, where the world’s mosquitoes seemed to be having some kind of conference.

Day 30

Another alternate the next day to avoid valley walking. Amiskwi ridge. The view to effort ratio seemed—as they crested the ridge and got an eyeful of Geology’s handiwork—almost criminal. “Fucking hell” said Slov, locquacious as always, “it just doesn’t stop.”  

Then it stopped. The boys were soon mincing their way through the devastated remains of a clear cut. Little forestry flags in pink and blue fluttered in the wind like streamers, and tiny branches were strewn a foot deep like brown confetti after a party. 

They dipped down to Collie Creek, a new section of trail built by the GDTA which got walkers off the forestry roads. Spunk, who is generally far better at retaining his possessions then Flea and Slov, lost a camp shoe. Slov smugly chastised him for not securing it properly. Shortly thereafter, while climbing over deadfall, he skewered Spunk in the back of his leg with his pole. This was approximately the 7th time the pole wielding contingent (i.e. Flea and Slov) had (accidentally) done this. Spunk, who neither uses nor respects hiking poles, called them useless and a menace, and argued for instituting a licensing system.  

At lunch by the river, Slov inflicted a reading of the draft blog for Section B on his companions, who bestowed their customarily tepid endorsement. Flea had one reservation: “my arsehole comes off really badly in this.”

Spunk interlaced his fingers over his pale knee. “I’d say it comes off… realistically. Actually, it gets better press than it deserves.” 

Slov said, “I have been feeling that the blog could be a bit classier, less toilet-humour, more philosophy, literary references, etc… I’ll try to tone down the fart parts from now on.”

“Just so long as you spare us your insufferable nature writing,” Spunk said. “It’s sickening.”

After the customary postprandial snooze, the trio set off up the Blaeberry river. They’d been told that Parks Canada release a lot of “problem bears” there. The boy’s bear calls had, at this point, undergone several evolutions. The innocent days of the “Heyyy Bear” had spawned two divergent approaches in Section B. Slov elected to shift the emphasis and retain the form when he realized that a shorter “Hey” and elongated “Bear-rrr” produced a rather camp and perhaps even mildly seductive call. He thought it was cute and fun and would put nearby bears at their ease. Win ’em over with kindness, that was his approach. Flea, ever the Machievellian, sought to harness fear. He compressed the Hey Bear into a gravelly “Heey-yo”—the sort of call you’d expect from a mulleted redneck type who’d have no qualms about peppering a bear’s ass with shotgun pallet. “You want those bears to think you’re packin’” Flea explained, “put a bit of fear in ’em.” Whenever Slov had sent out his friendly call Flea had begun reflexively overlaying it with his own. “I don’t want the bears to think we’re a bunch of townies”, he said. This from a guy who listens to Chopin’s nocturnes every night before sleep.

During section C, however, Washout had completely revolutionized the boy’s understanding of the bear call. They’d been walking innocuously enough towards a blind corner when, out of nowhere, he ripped an enormous “Boo-ooo-weeee!”, which tore through the forest and reverberated off the surrounding hills. Now THAT is a bear call, was the general consensus. They’d dubbed it the screaming banshee and deployed it now, striving to perfect the low “Boo” and the soaring “Wee”, which, if done right, frightened every animal in a 2 mile radius, other hikers included.

Avalanches from winter had flattened the forest and turned sections of the Blaeberry track into an obstacle course that promised to reward missteps with a thorough skewering. As they clambered through, under and over, the splintered trunks Slov got a good look at Spunk’s calves. “Is that a slight tan coming on!?” They gathered round to inspect the miraculous transformation. “Looks more like a light coating of dust to me” Flea said. Spunk brushed himself down. A faint but unmistakable beige tint remained. “That’ll go down well back in the sunless Motherland” Slov said, encouragingly. 

The trail subsequently made its way into the river, through which they waded a while before Flea exclaimed, “Bear!” It was a little black bear,hightailing it uptrail. Flea gave it a stern “Heyyy-o” in his menacing baritone, for good measure. 

That night, they parked up next to a thunderous waterfall. Spunk, an impeccable outdoorsman, helped Slov improve his fire making. Then they lit up some Jungle Sunset and retreated to their tents. Flea moaned softly with pleasure while he was ravished by the melodies of a certain virtuoso Polish pianist. 

Day 31

Sometimes the relations even among the most peaceful provinces rupture without warning and their citizens are plunged into war. So too with relations between friends. It started innocuously enough—three amigos strolling through the woods one fine morning, chatting and laughing. Suddenly, Spunk, perched on a log he was climbing over, tilted forward a little at the hips and emitted, directly into Flea’s face, a little trumpet toot of a fart. Flea, enraged to the point of using biblical hyperbole, swore he would smite Spunk in “furious vengeance.” As he jostled his adversary to get in front, where he might effectively strike, Slov acknowledged private that The Trudge Report, for all his aspirations, would never become a classy blog. It was forever consigned to report upon the muck and gunk of the body and its manifold odours and excretions, its absurd appendages and undignified postures. No matter how many literary references he made, no matter how many philosophical digressions he inserted, the foul body would remain the blog’s beating heart—or, perhaps more accurately, its pulsating colon. 

Flea, meanwhile, had succeeded in thrusting past Spunk, who settled uneasily a good distance back. His manner now had the furtive, flighty quality one associates with animals of prey. A half hour passed. They approached the infamous Howse River flood plain. Spunk, fatally, relaxed his guard. Unthinkingly, he strode directly behind Flea without the security of a buffer zone. Just as he opened his mouth to ask about the next section of trail, he stiffened, choked out an “Oh God”, and fled into the undergrowth. “That’s feral” he said. “That’s absolutely feral.” Slov had to duck off trail too. “It’s like something crawled up there and died. A week ago. That’s the rank odour of a rotting corpse, I swear.”

“That was just a little entree. To whet the pallette.” Flea said, menacingly. “The main course is yet to come.”

With two of the party coughing and spluttering, they made it to the Howse Floodplain: a broad flat valley braided by a fearsomely cold river and embanked by dense brush. It was this part more than anything which reinforced Section D’s reputation as a bushwhackers paradise. The boys were promptly and unnecessarily sowsed by the Howse when they attempted an early ford to avoid the bush. They backed off at hip height and limped awkwardly out with their lower halves emptied of all sensation. The bush was exfoliating, but not so much so as Coral Pass, and they were able to rinse their lacerated legs in the river as they siddled around a rocky outcrop.

When they regained solid ground, they found a scruffy hiker busy scratching himself with a maniacal intensity. He introduced himself as Larry, “The Slowest Hiker on the GDT!” while he continued vigorously scratching his leg through his pants with a gloved hand. “I was the slowest last year and I’m the slowest this year too! 10kms a day. 15 at a push.” 

“That’s the way to do it,” Slov said “soak up the atmosphere.” 

“Well, you young bucks always say that. Then you stride off in a hurry to clock your 30kms or whatever. How far are you walking today?”

“…30kms.”

“Exactly.”

Spunk, always perspicacious, noticed that Larry’s shoes were dry. This was improbable given he was standing just beyond a seemingly mandatory schlep through one of the river’s braids.  

Larry pointed to a faint overland trail threading through the trees. 

“I might be the slowest hiker, but I’m not the stupidest. Found that little trail there and saved myself some wet boots. Not like that guy,” he gestured at Spunk, “climbing out of the river with his little shorts yanked up like Borat in his mankini.” 

It was always a pleasure when Spunk was mocked for a change. The boys bid their garrulous new friend farewell and set off once again to do the Glacier Lake alternate. Reviews of the alternate had reported that the river crossing was 10ft deep and swimming was the only option. The boys thought that sounded fun. It’d be Spunk’s last day before he returned to England to tend to his garden plot of budding physicists, so might as well end it with a splash. 

A little further down from Larry, they dared another crossing so as to circumvent more bush bashing and extra milage, and this time they pulled it off, crossing the main braid at a stiff mid-thigh. They made their way down the wide riverbed along its western side, amidst bits of branches and grasses snagged on the rocks that looked a little like clumps of hair in the tub. The mountains reared up on either side, great big molars of rock fixed firmly in the gums of the Howse. Somewhat less firmly fixed: Slov’s camp shoes, one of which was pulled off his pack during a short spurt of bushwhacking en route to the Glacier Lake river crossing. Spunk was unsympathetic. Earlier that day, he had parlayed his abundant snackage into a new pair of camp shoes, trading a dozen MnMs for Flea’s slides.

The river looked deep but it was sleepy and slow moving, draining lazily from a small lake into the nearby Howse. Flea bravely waded in to do reconnaissance. He found a spot where he thought it might be plausibly crossed. Spunk striped completely naked, except for his straw hat (in cowboy mode), hoisted his pack overhead, and forged confidently forward. His perky toosh was swiftly engulfed. Mid-river, the water climbed to his nipples, and then a little higher. His plentiful back muscles flexed manfully as he lifted his pack clear of the river and confidently climbed up and out the other side. Bravo. Flea and Slov followed suit and likewise kept their packs, if not their shorts and armpits, dry. 

Camp that night was hard up against the magnificent Glacier lake. Flea sullenly handed over his camp shoes after their introductory swim and limped off to set up his tent. Spunk paraded about ostentatiously in his new footwear, doing several passes of Flea’s tent while repeating in a pompous English accent “Oh, how sweet it is.”  Slov discreetly checked which foot Spunk’s remaining unused camp shoe was for. Just as he’d hoped, it formed a pair with his own. He quietly extracted the shoe and slipped it on, innocuous as can be. 

That evening, the boys threw rocks at floating sticks. When that got old, they read a short story and did some reminiscing. The reign of the Spunky Monkey was soon to end. As with any regime change, it was accompanied by the sweet waft of nostalgia—the horrors suffered under some autocrat or tyrant diminishing in the soft light of their imminent passing, fanciful notions of their beneficence and grace rising in their stead. Perhaps the Spunky Monkey’s scathing ripostes, merciless pace and cruel, inaccurate renditions of the Kiwi accent weren’t such great atrocities after all… His final despotic demand abruptly dispelled these illusions: “tomorrow morning, before we set off, we swim.” His tone brooked no complaints. The sadistic monkey’s final edict. 

Day 32

5:30am: Flea and Slov were yanked into wakefulness by Spunk’s enthusiastic rendition of the reggae classic, “Israelites.” Dimly in the predawn light they saw his pale white form spilling out of his sleeping bag, crooning in a Jamaican accent only slightly more credible than his Kiwi one. He sang that famous reprise:

“Get up in the morning, slaving for bread, sir

So that every mouth can be fed

Poor me Israelites, ah”

Poor me indeed, Slov thought as he and Flea were marched down to the edge of the lake. The cold bit like a pack of dogs but the time honoured maxim held true: you never regret a swim. Cheaper than coffee, too.

They forwent breakfast that morning so as to prime themselves for the breakfast buffet that lay in wait at the Saskatchewan River Crossing Resort. Unfortunately, the buffet wasn’t the only thing on the menu. With 4 of the morning’s 8 kilometres behind them, Flea broke off mid-conversation and thrust past Spunk to release what was described by the survivors as the hydrogen bomb of flatological emissions. Spunk and Flea desperately scrambled into the undergrowth to escape the fallout zone. “That,” said the perpetrator, “was the main course.”

Slov whimpered, feeling a little like Poland in the 20th century. Spunk skirted the smell as best he could and then, when it had finally dissipated, pounced on Flea and pinned him to the ground. Flea grinned a lunatic grin and threatened to serve up dessert. Spunk and Slov walked very briskly ahead.

Within seconds of arriving at the buffet their three plates were stacked to the tits with pancakes, French toast, syrup, fruit compote and yoghurt. Seconds and thirds soon followed, at which point Slov and Spunk slowed down. Flea went back for fourths. Then, with that same lunatic grin, he piled up a fifth. His friends looked on in alarm as he engulfed pancake after pancake. “That’s not natural,” said Slov. “Unholy,” Spunk agreed. Eventually, fifth plate mopped clean, Flea slid down a few inches in his chair and rested his hand on his once again distended belly. His head lolled a little on his neck and his words came out slurred. He kept saying, with syrupy vowel sounds, “Victory.”

They retreated to the resort’s front lawn and promptly collapsed in the meagre shade cast by a park bench. Slov moaned a little and curled into the fetal position. Flea went a greyish colour and passed out. Spunk read a little of On Chesil Beach on his e-reader. After an hour, he roused his ailing companions for a muted farewell and bestowed various gifts upon them: his inflatable pillow and nifty folding bowl for Slov, and—with great foresight—his sewing kit and stash of painkillers for Flea. 

“What are we gonna do without you?” Slov said, as he embraced his friend. “Well,” Spunk thought a moment, “You’ll probably lapse back into silence and walk very slowly to Jasper.”

Slov and Flea once again prostrated themselves under the picnic table and resumed their pitiful moaning. Spunk ambled down to the David Thompson Highway and into the harsh light of the day. There he stood, with his straw cowboy hat on and his thumb out. The first step of a long and arduous journey to the wet rock his people call home. Slov looked again half an hour later and he was still there, seemingly giving the thumbs up to the massed mountains, the bracing glacial rivers, and the mammalian denizens of the Rockies. “Good show,” he seemed to be saying. “Jolly good show.” 

The next time Slov looked, he was gone.