The sun is high as I wrestle with a face-full of branches. They’re spindly, sinewy and surprisingly solid. Less than 20 metres away, my boyfriend and hiking partner, Ben, is looking for another way forward, but I can’t see him through the woods. We’re deep in the Jackpine Valley, a remote corner of Alberta’s Willmore Wilderness. Miles from civilization, we’re hiking north along the Great Divide Trail (GDT). We’d begun in Waterton Lakes National Park 42 days earlier, tagging the lakeside border monument and then hiking north.
As thru-hikers, we carry everything we’ll need for this roughly eight-day section in backpacks. We favour a light, but sensible kit, wear trail runners and athletic shorts—even through the dense brush—and use two trekking poles. It’s harder, though not impossible, to fall when…
