17th Apr We set off in the afternoon from Sunwapta Falls to Big Bend Campsite. The trail was easy and had recently been packed by a skidoo so we made good time. A few snow flurries along the way but nothing major. We set up a nice camp at Big Bend Campsite, which, as always provided us a spectacular view. The pictures show our camp complete with windbreak as the wind at the campground can be vicously windy. Although we snow-shoed out here, no shovelling was required – we were very pleased to find the campground bare of snow.
18th Apr A longer snow-shoe today although much the same as the day before; packed trail by skidoo. After leaving the campground we noticed bear tracks on the trail heading towards our next campsite. These trails continued all the way to Athabasca Crossing campground (9km away) – I didn’t realise bears used the trail system so much! Unfortunately, just over 1km away from the camp the packed skidoo trail ended and we had to battle through deep snow to our knees with almost every step and our waist at times, which was very tiring. Athabasca Crossing campground is still very much in the grip of winter so we had to dig out a campsite. We also tried out some new snow/sand-pegs which worked remarkably well. I had my doubts but was very impressed. The only issue was that at 6am the next morning when we broke camp the snow was frozen so the pegs required some ingenuity to find under the snow and remove. We hiked up towards the glacier a few km to see how hard it will be to get there and were very pleased; with the ice still frozen in place along the river banks walking is easy and hopefully – fingers crossed – this will hold until we get to and return from the glacier. After that, melt away river!
19th Apr We left early in the morning and had an uneventful day. We snowshoed at 4km an hour which I was very pleased with and meant that we were back at Sunwapta Falls early in the afternoon. A great few days; it calmed our nerves and built our confidence with every aspect of our initial weeks’ journey.
