Passing The Test At Jasper

Where the kids are strong, the father is encouraging and no one mutinies

- Marlene Farrell

The beginning and end of our eight-day family backpack trip in Alberta’s Jasper National Park featured a maintained, if muddy, trail and designated campsites.

Those sites equipped us with picnic tables, bear boxes, fire rings and latrines.

However, for four days, we left those conveniences behind. We were alone in the mountains, camping in meadows, picking our own paths over rocks, heather humps, marshes that made our socks reek and maneuvered through forests of lodgepole pine and fir, often miniaturized due to elevation.

We came across ptarmigan and marmots, but no moose or bear, and not one other human. My husband, Kevin, said, “We did see where large mammals had dug up plants, their bedding spots, tracks, scat and one antler.”

“It was harder than we thought,” he went on. “Because of the mud and the bugs . . . and the rain . . . and the wind.”

The crux occurred on day five. We were low on rations and thus had to hike long miles with mega elevation.

After hiking up and down three passes and a final uphill bushwhack through forest to our lakeside endpoint, the rain started — a bit at first, and then pelting us.

We instantly designated a mediocre tent site as the perfect spot. Up in a flash, the thin tent walls sheltered our soggy, stinky family.

Rain and gale force winds lashed the tent. We couldn’t use our tiny camp stove in this weather, so, instead of a well-deserved hot meal, we ate tortillas and lumpy instant pudding.

Throughout the night we took turns pushing back against the nylon walls to keep the gusts from stoving in our tent.

This trip proved to be a test of toughness. Our children, Quentin, 14, and Alice, 12, have been backpacking with Kevin and me for a decade. They passed the test decisively, and our whole family was rewarded in the process.