   | Day 7, Grande Cache to Jasper leg. Up before first light. Quick coffee and oatmeal for breakfast, pack up camp, saddle horses and we’re on the trail shortly after first light. By the time the morning sun finally appeared over the mountains, spreading its welcome warmth across the river valley, we already had several kilometres of travel behind us. Ahi had been travelling a bit lopsided on his two remaining shoes for the past couple days, with shoes on the left front and right hind, while his right front and left hind were bare. He was getting sore on the bare right front, so we decided to pull the remaining hind shoe and move it up to protect his sore foot. Now a hind shoe is shaped a little different than a front shoe; but using one river rock as an anvil and another as a hammer Peter was able to pound it into a more appropriate shape to fit the front foot. Then I held Ahi’s leg while Peter nailed the shoe in place. With a bit of luck, it’d hold until we finished this leg of our journey. It was the best we could do. A long day on the trail today, over 12 hours including breaks, travelling 37.1 km up and over Moose Pass where we left Jasper National Park, and entered Mount Robson Provincial Park descending down into the Moose River valley and setting up a random bush camp for the night. Tomorrow would be an interesting day as our planned route took us past The Colonel, into the Miette River valley. The scenery was reported to be spectacular and the trail tough, real tough, with lots of mud, nasty bog and uncleared deadfall. |
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