Get yourself friends who will say yes to hiking 100-ish kilometres and 2,000+ metres of elevation gain over 4 days with you.

In mid-August, Brittany, Sam, Justin & I hiked to Mt. Assiniboine Provincial Park, a world-renowned mountain destination and home to the second tallest peak in the Canadian Rockies. Our journey started at 7am, setting out from the Mt. Shark trailhead. It was a cool summer morning, but we didn’t bother layering up—we knew we’d be warm soon enough. Carrying backpacks more than a third of our body weight (hello, snacks), we began our very long walk into the woods. We aimed to reach our campground within 8 hours, but we mentally prepared ourselves to be walking for 10.

The first few hours of a journey like this are always full of energy and jovial banter. Catching up on events of the weeks past; discussing the state of the world; marvelling at the sights and counting the toads we saw leaping into the undergrowth out of the corners of our eyes. Splashing water on our face, neck and arms, already gritty from sweat and dirt, was a must when passing by a stream or river. The first half of our hike in was mostly in the forest; we saw no-one for 6 hours, and the woods were quiet save for the birds, toads and deer we startled along the way.

It mustn’t have been until around the 10 kilometre mark that our bodies and minds started signalling their first signs of exhaustion, in feet and shoulders that were beginning to ache, and conversation that had devolved into delirium. We pushed on, wanting to get at least another 3 kilometres in before taking our first break. Sam started a few games; asking about our favourite meals, moving onto celebrities we would date (of any gender), and eventually, when it was apparent that we had little mental capacity left for more stimulating conversation, we began a game of yelling out whatever words we could think of from a particular letter in the alphabet. Games such as these are necessary for two reasons: firstly, to keep your mind occupied while your body is pushed to its physical limits, and secondly, to keep us from having an unfortunate bear encounter that would have ended our adventure prematurely (the loud noises help to warn wildlife of our presence). We were proud—broken, but proud—to have reached our campground at Lake Magog, 27 kilometres later, in under 8 hours, and we would do it all again on the way home.

One of my favourite parts about being alone in the mountains with your closest friends is the inability to Google anything, or be distracted by technology in general. There’s no reception out here, and you’re stuck trying to remember who it was that sang that song (we tried—and failed—to remember who sang Tainted Love), or how many days we would be able to survive without food (Justin passionately argued for 3 months; I said 3 weeks). You wonder if your parents are paying close attention to the satellite map you gave them access to, knowing that they would be tracking our whereabouts and therefore, our living status. You collectively inspect and comment on all animal faeces and footprints with fascination, especially the bear scat. You end up sharing stories you may never have known about each other, or laugh hysterically at the most inane things.

And of course, there’s the way in which you learn what you are each really made of, when you’ve hiked 30km with barely any breaks and a backpack almost as big as you are, and you haven’t got much left in you. There’s the way in which you bond, brought together by dehydrated backcountry meals, sharing frustration at the alarmingly healthy population of mosquitoes and flies (made all the more apparent by their enthusiasm to swarm around your face when you are just-trying-to-make-your-dinner-dammit); singing whatever 90s song you can remember when faced with a scramble that was more exposed than we thought. There’s gingerly wading into frigid glacial waters together, an instant, bone-chilling refreshment after a hard day’s hike, and watching as a deer runs to take a drink from the very same lake. There’s something special about knowing that your friends are equally as sweaty, sore and smelly as you are.

I don’t really quite know* how my love for very long walks in the woods with very large backpacks came to be, but with every summer in the Rockies, I find myself wanting to do this over and over again. COVID changed many a plan for us this year, but it also gave us this: more time to spend with friends in nature. I have wanted to visit Assiniboine since I first moved to Canada, and to have finally been able to do this in a time of great uncertainty and suffering in our world is a true privilege and a gift indeed.

*Well, I do: it came about after deciding I wanted to trek in the jungles of Borneo in 2014, and I haven’t stopped hiking since. I love a good, punishing challenge, and spending time in nature.

Brittany wrote about our trip and made it into a very helpful guide. Read about our chosen route, our day hikes and more over at her post: Mount Assiniboine Provincial Park Hiking Resource & Photographer.