3 August 2010

Scouting Howse Pass along the David Thompson Trail

I’ve recently returned from an exploratory trip with Shane and a handful of our friends to the historical David Thompson Trail that crosses the continental divide through the Howse Pass. Since we had heard that the quality of the trail may be questionable, we had hoped to check the feasibility of portaging canoes along it next year. During our previous trip to British Columbia in May, we had approached the David Thompson trailhead from Blaeberry road but our time constraints and hatchback meant that we couldn’t quite make it all the way to the trailhead. This time, we chose to approach the historical portage on foot starting from Mystaya Canyon in Banff National Park. The first portion of the trail was in very good condition, however, the quality of the trail decreased rapidly as we passed the park boundary. This trail, that runs parallel to the Howse River, was thoroughly rutted, overgrown, and blocked by plenty of deadfall. We greatly improved our speed when we abandoned the trail altogether and walked along the river’s gravel banks. Although the water level at the time in the Howse River was much higher than we anticipate it will be in May 2011, the main channel appeared as though it would be passable in canoes. The landscape will fly by next year riding down the swift current. Based on this exploratory trip we anticipate that crossing the continental divide at this location will be challenging, but manageable. It will involve biking up the Blaeberry logging road with carts, lining or portaging the boats up the gravelly shore of the Blaeberry River, dragging our canoes ~10 km along the poorly maintained trail, and paddling or lining the boats down the Howse River to its confluence with the North Saskatchewan River. We also had the chance to assess some gear on the hiking trip. We confirmed that having topographic data displayed on the GPS is very convenient, but best combined with 1:250,000 scale paper maps for planning routes on a larger scale. The silty water in the Howse River plugged our MSR MiniWaterWorks EX consistently after as a little 1 L, however, we think that we could resolve this issue with a pre-filter such as the MSR SweetWater Silt Stopper. All in all, it was a great hike – have a look at some of the highlights posted to Flickr. <Nathalie>