Part One

​Introduction
     In 1977, I walked a route along the Continental Divide from Canada to Mexico; a trek that lasted nearly 9 months.  My good friend, Craig Dunn, hiked with me as far as the Red Desert in southern Wyoming where his right knee ended the trip for him. This was long before the advent of cell phones, GPS and an established Continental Divide Trail system.  We used U.S. Geological Survey paper maps and communicated with the people who were following us via mailbox and pay phone whenever we came into a town to resupply.   It should also be noted that I am attempting to recount this story some 40 years after the fact, without the benefit of an exacting memory.  Because of this deficit, the details of my story are filled-in using imaginative memory, meaning, I’ve imagined the details as they probably would have occurred.  This is an account of that adventure.

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May 10, 1977              Waterton Lakes National Park, Canada
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Brian’s Jeep jumped and jolted its way down the muddy track with reckless abandon. The sky was cold and dreary, burdened with moisture-laden clouds spitting a rainy sleet.  There was no talk, only Brian’s incessant smirk, which he didn’t even try to hide as he relished the moment.  The time had finally come to shut-up and put-up and as far as the ‘shut-up’ part was concerned, naked reality had turned Craig and I into a couple of salt stones.  

I hung onto the overhead grab by the window as Brian’s maniacal driving plunged us further into the forest until the muddy ruts had turned to slush, coming to an abrupt end at a locked gate. This was the end of the road for Brian but for Craig and me this was the dumping off point. Mile one.

Brian hopped out of the truck with unnecessary enthusiasm crowing “This is it ladies… chop chop!”  He swung open the back gate of the jeep and hauled out our packs, dropping them in the mud splattered-slush.  I stared out the front windshield, willing myself to move. At least the sleet had stopped. Craig stood by the truck, hands in his pockets, surveying the sea of clouds shrouding what little there was to see of the immediate peaks to the south.

​I stepped out of the vehicle and looked down at my boots, a brand new pair of Galibier Peuterey mountaineering boots designed for “…extreme hiking and climbing”.  I wasn’t worried about the boots, they were top of the line, I was worried about the feet in them. I glanced up at the dismal skies then walked slowly around the truck to where Brian was standing by our packs with that damned Cheshire grin on his face. “Need help with your corset?” he sarcastically asked, pointing at my pack.

Like the idiots we were, Craig and I had spent the past year telling anybody and everybody how we were going to go out and walk the Continental Divide from Canada to Mexico. Just like that.  In fact, as the legend of our prowess grew in our own minds, we went so far as to declare walking “…just not good enough”.  Nope, we were going to adhere to the strictest line of the Continental Divide possible and where technical climbing would be required then, by God, we’d climb!  Now Craig and I milled about listlessly, staring straight into the massive jaws of the trap we’d set for ourselves.  Brian was here to watch us put our foot where our mouth was.

Click on the map for a larger image

The packs were monstrous, maybe 90 pounds, bulging with 16 days’ worth of food, fuel, winter gear, climbing equipment, snowshoes, repair kit, 1st aid supplies, cook gear, tent, sleeping bags, pads and miscellaneous crap. ​It was like trying to throw a dead gorilla on your back. “Let me get a picture here so they’ll have something to identify the bodies with later” Brian quipped.  He took a picture of us looking heroic at the trailhead then walked up and shook our hands saying “Good luck ladies!” And with that he hopped back in the jeep and was gone.  The clouds sagged deeper into the valley reflecting my mood.

Kip Rusk and Craig Dunn start mile one of the Continental Divide route in Waterton National Park, Canada. May 10, 1977

We started off along the trail skirting Cameron Lake where, at first, there were stretches of open trail between drifts of snow but as we wound our way deeper into forest the snow eventually won out and we had to stop to put on snowshoes. The snowshoes we carried were prototypes donated to us by a friend in the business called “Bear Paws”.  The Paws consisted of a small, oval frame of aluminum with neoprene 

webbing and a neoprene strap/binding, an early step away from wooden snowshoes and a precursor to the modern-day shoe.  It never occurred to me that they might fail, but it sure as heck ought to have; they were “prototypes” for chrissake.

We plodded on along the Cameron Lake trail for several hours before breaking out of the forest onto the huge and exposed east slope of Forum Peak.  The open mountainside was steep and an obvious avalanche zone but it was spring and the snowpack had mostly settled and we really didn’t have much choice but to cross it. We picked a line that both traversed the mountain while climbing steeply to attain higher ground out of the trigger zone. However, as we climbed and traversed I could see that we were coming in too low to avoid crossing under a small cirque with a giant cornice hanging overhead.

We stopped to survey the threatening cornice. Avoiding it meant steep climbing straight up, a short traverse and then a treacherous descent to a spot that lay on a line directly in front of us about a thousand yards away.  Crossing the direct line under the cornice was maybe 15 minutes where the over-around-and-down route would take at least an hour or more. Pretending to make an educated assessment of the danger we would face by crossing under the ​

Cameron Lake and Forum Peak in Waterton National Park, Canada. Our trip nearly ended in an avalanche on Forum Peak.

cornice, we quickly agreed that risking our lives was worth saving the 45 minutes and proceed across the slope.

Ten minutes later and only a few yards from safety there was a thundering boom.  I swung around and watched in disbelief as the cornice exploded into the cirque and then burst over the rock wall directly above us in a fantastic and terrifying tsunami of ice and snow.  My instinct was to turn and run faster than a speeding bullet but I had “bear paws” on my feet and a dead gorilla on my back; I was about as mobile as a turtle in concrete.  Still, I lurched forward in the illusion of fleeing as the avalanche crashed into the slope above, roaring down on us with terrifying ferocity.  I fell to my knees and screamed out “NOOOOooo” as the wind blast hit and the avalanche passed no more than 10 or 12 strides behind us. Moments later it crashed with another thunderous explosion into Camron Lake, some 1,600 feet below, creating another tsunami of water and ice that traveled across the half frozen lake to slam into the forest on the far bank. 

Our tracks across the slope had been obliterated. 30 seconds slower and we would have been buried at the bottom of that lake.  30 seconds. 12 strides. It isn’t even worth trying to calculate the number of ways we could have lost 30 seconds and ended up in that avalanche.  I staggered up out of the snow and nearly fell over.  Craig just sat there, staring down at the lake but there was no time to consider the “what ifs”, the weather was deteriorating into a wind-driven, rain/snow mix and we still had three more, difficult miles before making camp.  As we regrouped, all I could think was ‘Really?? Seven hours into the trip and we’re almost dead?’ We weren’t even out of Canada yet, for crying out loud.

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Go to Part 2

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The CDTC was founded in 2012 by volunteers and recreationists hoping to provide a unified voice for the CDT. Working hand-in-hand with the U.S. Forest Service and other federal land management agencies, the CDTC is a non-profit partner supporting stewardship of the CDT. The mission of the CDTC is to complete, promote and protect the Continental Divide National Scenic Trail, a world-class national resource. For more information, please visit continentaldividetrail.org.

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