Post CDT

September 26th: The finish line

At the border, while Maps drowned herself in champagne and we all stuffed ourselves with our remaining food, (which we knew would disgust us by the time we made it to Waterton) a day hiker named Eric arrived.

Eric was on a few days break from work, hiking in and around Glacier. Eric had previously hiked the Pacific Crest Trail and the Appalachian Trail. Eric was one of us. He was also driving to Calgary today. We needed to go to Calgary too, he said he’d take us.

We’d panned a final zero with our pals tomorrow, and so the timing of the fortuitous lift would not work out. Little did we know how damn impossible Waterton would be to get out of.

After Snakes and I hiked the 4 miles into Waterton, the heavens had opened and we’d found the bar, with Bear (the hiker) in it, treated our self to battered gherkins and beer, Wonder Woman and Oakley arrived. Then Buffy, Wonder Woman’s Ma, then the rest of the troops, with, Eric, who decided were were such good company that he would stay in Glacier two more nights and drive us to Calgary after our zero.

Oh Eric.

This was spectacular news as now we didn’t need to concern ourselves with how to leave,and could spend valuable time eating and drinking ourselves into a hefty coma. Snow was forecast for tomorrow and we’d seen a total of zero cars actually driving around Waterton. But Eric had a mega truck which snow could not slow.

You’ll be relieved to hear I had the best meal on trail here in Waterton. I highly suspect that has something to do with not being in the USA anymore.

After walking in as a group of 7, to a very posh Italian restaurant, where the waitress had practically backed up away from us until she hit the back wall and could retreat no further from the filth that had just walked in; we found another equally posh looking spot where we were hustled in with open arms (the Italian place ‘didn’t have room’, lies). I ate a meal which comprised of multiple colours. It was incredible.

I told them to look seductive. 

We all sat basking in the niceness of now.

19 miles on the day.

September 27th: The first day off trail

Our motel was really nice. And really cheap. We split a room with Maps and Cliff for old times sake. I woke up early as usual and with a muggy head and dragged Snakes out of bed to go to the visitors centre. Now, it wasn’t just to purchase ourselves a ‘Waterton’ pin badge a 8:00am, but we also had to speak to the border patrol and officially exit America and arrive in Canada. Unfortunately we were too early and Mr border man was not in work unil 9am.

We went to the grocery store which had a 50% off sale as it was their penultimate day before closing for winter. Excitingly we bought laundry detergent.

When we did manage to speak to the border, a very nice man congratulated us, checked us into Canada and said he was glad we made it in before the storm. Apparently a ‘historic’ storm was hitting Glacier, today and would rattle through making life dangerous and miserable in the mountains for the next week. I’m so glad I’m not still hiking.

Next stop was our last care package from my mega Mum. It contained Marmite, and soap and scrubs and PANTS and wasabi peas and a clothes and all the good stuff, all packed in a package, one each so we didn’t squabble. Thanks Ma!

A small amount of meggling took place before we all went for family breakfast across the street. Snakes and I popped our filth into the Laundromat.

I only have my tiny gross town shorts to wear and today, it’s certainly the coldest day ever.

We keep thinking it’s the last breakfast  together and then keep finding ourselves at breakfast together.

From here we returned to the motel an prepared for the hot tub which was included with the room. This all sounds rather extravagant, but let me tell you the ‘spa’ was gammy and a little grim. The woman who checked us in, had just popped back in from her ‘smoke break’. She looked like Shrek, and had all the manners of a really grumpy rhino. Maps walked into the changing room and was immediately reprimanded for having her shoes on. We were supposed to ‘guess’ that they had to come off, and guessed wrong. Snakes slipped off her flip flops and darted into the charging rooms to tell Maps that shoes must be left outside, then was reprimanded herself for not having left her shoes in the correct place.

I opened the door to the steam room a it came off its hinges and almost fell on me.

I spoke to my parents while in the hot tub, which was hot and wet so worked well. It was a good while before Shrek came in to tell us all off again. She’d been watching us on the camera and seen that Snakes and Maps had a 300ml tin of beer. This was a level 12 rule break.

We departed soon after and as we left Snakes made sure to let Shrek know the steam room door was broken and that she may want to get it fixed before it hurts someone.

Snakes won’t tolerate being told off.

It transpired that the closest US border crossing, and the one Jandles, Bear, Maps and Cliff were going to use to return to the USA, was closing due to bad weather, in one hour. They’d need to find another way home. Happy hour at Vinnys was a steal. The owner insisted we all have a shot of tequila and everyone ordered battered goods.

It was now that the remaining 4 of our team, Jandles, Maps, Cliff and Bear, yet to have a ride out, began to think about how they might leave tomorrow. And when I say ‘they’ I mean Maps. because she is logistics queen.

They decided the best way might be to just ask everyone in every establishment that remained open (of which there was probably 7) if anyone would drive them to the next border crossing along. We made it as far as the pizza place and of course all ended up eating pizza. Jethro, mid-way through taking our order, offered a ride to the 4 stranded souls. All the problems were now solved until Jethro returned to tell Maps he actually doesn’t have a car to drive them to said border. Damms.

We all continued with our meal, in great confidence that the situation would resolve itself without a great deal of effort from anyone. In walked Giles, who Jethro had convinced to drive them to the border. Phew. We moved from pizza to Family Size an Jandles Motel room where the night was spent doing very little in a very horizontal position.

September 28th

By morning there was a few feet of snow outside. I was grateful for Eric an his mega truck.

Giles had backed out of the promised lift for the desperate 4, due to weather.

We all packed up, checked out and went to breakfast to share our last meal together as a family. It was a while after breakfast before Taz Baz, who was fully informed of the plan to depart promptly after breakfast, decided he would now go and pack his things back at the motel.

Goodbyes were exchanged and Family, Taz, Eric, Snakes and I were on the road.

It was at least 47 minutes before we stopped for coffee.

Then a wee break.

Taz Baz was in the front, keeping Eric company, telling his life story, beginning at the day he was born and only pausing to excitedly point out the Walmart stores we passed as if they were architecturally brilliant buildings.

In no time at all (3 hours) we made it to Calgary. The chaps dropped us at our pre-booked Airbnb. Snakes and I had been dreaming (for at least a month) of three days doing very little, except buying winter appropriate clothes from the thrift store and eating many vegetables.

On arrival, the place looked like a house lots of people had died in, I was quite confident we would be next. The lads, being the charming chaps they are, waited until we were in the accommodation before they departed.

Eric, Taz Baz and Family Size – Cuties

Our stipulation for the Airbnb for the next three days of meggling was: Netflix and a kitchen. We were extremely excited to have a space, for a prolonged period of time where we could be cosy and still. We opened the door and the smell of years of cigarettes hit us like a pong worse than ours. The place was grim. Sticky surfaces and old food all over the floor, fridge, oven and surfaces.

Now, I’ve just lived in my own filth most days for the last 5 months, I’m well aware I’m capable of it. But, this…. This, I’m paying hard earned Loonies for.

We requested a refund which was swiftly accepted. I booked an Uber and we went straight to the accommodation in which Family, Taz, an Eric were staying at the SAIT university. Snakes booked their last room on route. PHEW.

On arrival we were told the room wouldn’t be ready for a half hour so naturally, we went to the bar. It was oddly nice being an anonymous body on a university campus.

The university books out the student rooms while they are not in use as if they are hotels. It’s cheap. The pictures on booking.com, had a TV and a full kitchen in them, these were the only two things we really wanted. It wasn’t going to be the cosy Airbnb experience we wanted but…. At the bar, Taz Baz informed us that his room in the same building had a concrete floor, felt more like prison and didn’t have a TV or any equipment to cook with in the kitchen. Splendid.

We arrived at check in, we asked about the amenities and the nice gal on the front desk agreed the online pictures were misleading, and no, they didn’t have tvs or utensils with which a meal could be created. Mildy sad, and fairly exasperated we made it up to our room, only to find someone was living in it. Cool.

I was now tired and pretty vexed about the scenario we’d drooled over for weeks becoming a stale teenagers bedroom instead.

We returned to the front desk where the nice lady looked puzzled about the whole situation. Without much faff, she quickly upgraded us to the conference suits which were on the very top floor (22nd) overlooking Calgary in the snow, with floor to ceiling windows, and acceptable amount of kitchen utensils, TV and most importantly, a coffee machine. Breakfast at Starbucks on campus was complimentary. This was most satisfactory.

Eric was staying with Taz Baz already so Family came to stay with us.

Once settled, Family and I walked just under a mile to Downtown through the beautiful snow to the supermarket.

All manner of colorful foods were purchased and brought back to the room.

We spent the evening mega meggling, watching films and eating salad. Good times.

September 29th: Calgary Zero

All the normal meggley morning rituals occurred. Snakes wound the huge blinds on the huge windows to reveal a snowstorm covering Calgary.

We went for breakfast with Family Size and met Taz. Like a real family, we discussed our individual plans for the day before departing. Taz Baz was headed to his happy places, the Mall, Walmart and IKEA, please judge him.

Family Size, Snakes and I walked through the snow 2 miles downtown to the outdoor suppliers to buy down wash and waterproof spray. I was far too excited about washing our sleeping bags, puffy jackets and waterproofs.

On the way, hilarious jokes were passed about like possibly needing microspikes for the snow, when we might stop for our morning break and that I need a wee so will just go in the street…. Its funny because we’re not on trail anymore. Get it?

We left Family there and went to the train station where all singles fares, anywhere on the line are $3.60, a reasonable price wouldn’t you say?

We took the train south out of downtown to Chinook and walked a few blocks to Value Village. The. World’s. Greatest. Thrift store. (charity shop).Lordy.

We couldn’t have asked for more of a gem. I filled a giant shopping trolley. We aimed to try and buy clothes we didn’t really like, seeing as in the coming months in Canada, they will probably get ruined, but this was too hard, so we just bought things we liked instead.

Snakes also found some working gloves and I found some tennis balls to dry our sleeping bags with (as well as using a dryer). While I waited for Snakes I went to the book section. My expectations of finding anything interesting were low. Guys. I found EIGHT Agatha Christie books. EIGHT. Eight which I hadn’t read. It was quite likely a happier moment than finishing the trail. Needless to say I bought all of them.

We left the store and fell next door into the brewery. They didn’t have any bread without dairy products in it (North American bread is weird) so I was limited to carrot sticks and hummus (and beer or course) so I was I my happy place.

We enjoyed crossing items off our list. Now, in search of underwear (the thrift store had some but I just wasn’t comfortable with this concept) we went up the road to the Mall.

After a matter of minutes inside the gluttonous, over perfumed human pen, we both felt like punching everyone in there, so overheated and overwhelmed we departed.

We’re both wearing thermal leggings, which after months of use daily are pretty saggy and unflattering, I have my ‘special’ looking fat heeled trainers, we’re both wearing our patched up waterproofs, which have rucksack strap and sweat marks on the shoulders, and of course my faithful fanny pack still comes everywhere.

This once super cool outfit.

Now no loner in the safe towns of the CDT where people understand why we look like shit, this seemed to be making me feel like a total loser.

What a loser

We took the train back to our little suit and walked in to find our new house husband, Family Size, cleaning our stove pots, cutlery and coffee press. This man is just the best.

I ordered and folded our new purchases while Snakes got work laundering our sleeping bags in the basement. We changed into Jeans. And went for dinner at our favorite place, Earls, where there is a vegetarian menu and all the food is brightly coloured.

Taz Baz arrived fashionably late, mincing in with his purchases of the day which were all individually presented to us.

September 30th: Calgary zero 2

An hour of meggling was followed by the (since yesterday) usual breakfast meet up. We exchanged plans once again and all went our separate ways. Taz was returning to IKEA because he’s psycho and Family Size was ‘phoning’ Banff to ask them about weather and downloading maps for his onward journey.

Snakes and I returned downtown.

The first stop was to a book shop to purchased 2020 diaries.

Then to a consignment store as I need another pair of jeans. They were all too expensive at $40. The woman in the store asked how much I wanted to pay. I said $10, (£6) she sold them to me for that.

Our chums stuck at The Canadian / US border (where they’d been since we finished the hike) now resorted to just taking a lift anywhere anyone was going. They were now on their way to Calgary. They aborted their particular plans to get home via the US and headed north to us because we’re better than America.

We stopped by Safeway on the way home for some supplies.

The next job involved the library, we met Family here and spent a couple of hours catching up on Padmin (personal admin). Before long we were done with our chores and found ourselves back in Earls with Cliff, Maps, Bear, Jandles, Taz Baz and Family Size. And we’d thought we’d got rid of them.

We exchanged stories of the last three days apart and ate more colourful food. Cliff had drunk multiple margaritas before we’d even arrived and now had eyes which would only open half way.

A nice young man at the bar sat opposite us, asked the barmaid to buy Snakes a drink on his tab. She accepted it and then spent the next hour squirming around now feeling guiltily and like she might have to talk to him. I was quite pleased to see that this chap had Impeccable taste and thought I might go and shake his hand.

In the end Snakes went over and thanked him like the good gal she is.

Snakes and I cleverly left early enough to obtain an appropriate amount of sleep, unlike Cliff who was now full up to her armpits with Margarita and catching a bus before 8am the following morning.

September 30th: Bear Valley Rescue

After I finished the Pacific Crest Trail in 2013, about 5 days were spent in Vancouver and 3 in San Francisco be for returning home. It wasn’t long before the inevitable and very real ‘post trail blues’ set in. I was aware of this condition but couldn’t imagine it would affect me quite like it did. I was fairly miserable for at least a month. I missed the routine of my life on trail, the daily endorphins of continuous exercise, the people, the community and the sun. It was a certain depression I’d never felt before.

This time around I wanted to avoid that completely.

The only thing I could think of would be a gentler transition to off-trail life, to make the adventure continue, and ease into a kind of normality.

We decided to volunteer. We have three placements booked in Canada, each about a month long and all through WWOOFing (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms). This organisation has been in existence since the 70’s and exchanges labour with education, board and lodging. No money is involved. You sign up to the website and can travel anywhere in the world by messaging the hosts, arranging a placement (based on your interests, be it organic farming, construction, wine making, baking, cheese making, retreats, yoga, animal husbandry, fruit picking , ALL SORTS).

Our first placement was at Bear Valley Ranch which is an animal rescue centre. It’s run by Kathy and Mike, they are a registered charity. They began by rescuing horses when Kathy read a book about horses being bread to be impregnated as a hormone can be extracted from a pregnant horse and used in the pharmaceutical industry. Nice.

They now have 150 horses, and bulls, llamas, goats, rabbits, dogs, cats, chickens, geese, turkeys, ponies, ducks and pigs. I thought an animal rehabilitation farm wold be a great place for me to become rehabilitated.

A picture from the future 

We left SAIT university for our last Breakfast Club meet up, then met Maps where we shared an Uber to the airport. We had arranged to meet Kathy at the Wingate Hotel as this is where another volunteer was due to stay after flying in yesterday.

Kathy was to pick us up between 12pm and 1pm, I like a specific time personally but hey, the hotel had free coffee.

Kathy arrived just after 1pm a was dropping off another volunteer who it transpired was leaving her placement 5 weeks early. Apparently she thought it would be warm, was afraid of birds and didn’t like being dirty.

The volunteer who was joining Snakes and I (Sandra) had not yet arrived due to a delay in her flight, so we were to pick her up directly from the airport. In the truck we met Mike, Kathy’s husband.

It became clear that Mike and Kathy were both extremely laid back and totally exhausted, maybe one was a result of the other. They work 7 days a week and no longer have the help they used to from weekend volunteers. They also had a sense of humour , which was a relief.

On arrival at the airport, Kathy divulged that she didn’t know where the other volunteer, Barbra would be flying from, that she didn’t have any contact details or a flight number and that they had no idea what she looked like. She only knew she should be arriving at 13:30, although that to was in question since she was delayed.

When I mentioned that I thought her name was Sandra, not Barbra, Kathy looked confused and then agreed it was Sandra.

After some time waiting for Sandra (no Barbra) to hopefully identify the smell of ‘farm’ steaming from Kathy and Mike and make her way to us, Snakes and I took control. We asked the help desk to offer suggestions on where a flight from Frankfurt may have connected, which informed us she could her be in international or domestic arrivals having connected in either Amsterdam or Edmonton (great).

We asked for the nice lady to page Sandra over the tannoy, which she did, we think we found her on Facebook and messaged her and then we suggested that we go wait in domestic while Mike and Kathy stay in international to cover all bases. Christ.

Eventually Kathy suggested she could be on the 3:30pm flight from Frankfurt which gave us some time to wait some more.

Kathy suggested Mike takes us to Walmart as Snakes needed underwear. Which we did. This gave us opportunity to buy humus and eat an entire baguette as doing very little makes me extremely hungry. (As does doing a lot, actually).

When we returned to the airport, Sandra was waiting with Kathy and had arrived 5 minutes after we’d left with Mike. Mike and Kathy didn’t have any method of communicating this to each other.

I was beginning to wonder how on earth these two managed to look after so many living things.

With Sanadra now safely in tow, we piled into the truck and drove an hour and a half to Sundre. Its was around 4pm, we’d left our room in Calgary at 11am and had only just left the city. From doing almost nothing all day, I felt more exhausted than most days on trail. I felt I’d been on a flight.

The light was beautiful and the land flat and snowy. We chatted about the farm most of the way, and soon, turned onto a long snowy driveway bordered by autumnal aspen trees flapping their golden leaves.

We were ejected into our accommodation and left to our own devices for an hour. Mike had built this cabin. He said he rushed it so there are quirks. If I could rush something as cool as this I’d be a happy boy.

The cabin was extremely warm, cute and would be extremely cosy after the deep clean it desperately needed. We guessed that perhaps the volunteers are responsible for its cleanliness and the last had not been particularly concerned with such things

.We spent the hour unloading into drawers, something Snakes was particularly excited about and sussing out the space. Sandra was on the same page us and immediately got to work cleaning the bath room. I added bleach to our shopping list and began on the kitchen. The simple act of doing something woke me up nicely.

We were ejected back into the truck at 6pm ish, where Pete and Sam (Mike and Kathy’s children, of 32 and 37) drove us the 25 minutes to Sundre town for supplies. We shopped at the IGA, which has a 10% off everything offer on every 4th Tuesday, which was today. Even considering this, our shopping bill was mildly ridiculous as we panic bought all the vegetables we could find. And I found sourkraut.

We returned home exhausted. Sam and Pete were lovely. A lull in the chat came on the way home, which was only broken by Snakes asking them how long they’d been brother and sister.

Tired but not so tired that dinner was out of the equation I began cooking while Snakes entertained herself with laundry. Sandra is not a big eater which I find impossible to get my head around. We were all pooped and in bed by 10pm with a loose idea that we might be needed tomorrow perhaps around 9am?

I slept with a feeling of safety, anxiety had departed now I had a stack of books by my bedside.