17. NORTH BOUNDARY—185 km. Elev. gain 1055 m. Max. elev. 2019 m. Trailheads are at Celestine Lake parking lot (limited access). 53 km from Jasper townsite, and at Mount Robson service area, 88 km west on Highway 16. The trail is well marked and all major river crossings are bridged. A variety of side trips are possible. Some horse traffic.—Jasper National Park trail information summary, 1985

North Boundary 179 km. Elevation gain: 2688 m and loss: 3122 m, from Celestine Road to Berg Lake trailhead. Maximum elevation: 2019 m. North Boundary country possesses its own unique brand of beauty – a wilderness of broad valleys and distant views that is inhabited by an array of wildlife. The trail is rugged in places although most major river crossings are bridged. Some horse traffic. Very remote, trail is maintained infrequently.—Jasper National Park backcountry guide, 2012

The North Boundary Trail
159 km one way | 7-10 days | Dogs permitted | Horses permitted | No bikes
The North Boundary trail is a remote wilderness route, recommended for users with significant backcountry skills and experience. Highlights include Snake Indian Pass and the headwaters of two major park rivers; the Snake Indian River and the Smoky River. Some major rivers are not bridged. Fords can be dangerous. Rivers can be impassable during times of high water. This trail is best travelled in later season.—Jasper National Park backcountry trip ideas guide, March 2025

How do trails get worse? Money. Bridges go out, tracks slide away and are never replaced, trees fall that are never cut, brush grows and hides the path away. Jasper’s backcountry trails are getting worse. But what does that mean?

Look at this description of the South Boundary Trail for an example, and my apologies to Brian Patton and Bart Robinson for this lengthy quote from the Canadian Rockies Trail Guide but there’s no better way to make the point.

After crossing Isaac Creek (an ankle to calf-deep ford), the trail contours around the base of Mount Dalhousie, leaving the northerly running waters of the Brazeau to find the Southesk River flowing from the west. [. . .] The trail turns upstream, and hikers will have to rely on blazes and bits of orange flagging to find the Southesk bridge some 300 metres distant.

Once across the Southesk, more flagging leads the hiker up a short incline and then off to the west. Two seismic lines will be encountered and in each case hikers should turn left down the line, where, in a matter of one or two hundred metres, more flagging on the right will pull the traveller back into the forest. Good trail lies just beyond the second seismic line. Needless to say, this section of trail can be confusing (the foot trail does not coincide with that marked on the George Creek [government topographical] map), and some parties have turned back at this point; however, a little intuition and perseverance should see hikers through to the Cairn River campsite at Kilometre 81. (Expect upgrading or route changes which may have taken place since this writing.)

From the Cairn River campsite hikers must make two thigh-deep fords of the Cairn, one at the campsite and one a little under three kilometres distant.

A solitary bridge that’s trouble to find, hard-to-follow lines through the brush, esoteric trail calling for a good deal of horse sense, and some tricky fords. Without a doubt that describes that section of the South Boundary Trail when I did it in 2022. Except, erm, that description is from the second edition of the Canadian Rockies Trail Guide, released in 1979. The more things change, the more things stay the same. (But do not attempt to hike the South Boundary Trail relying on that near-half-century-old quote. Moving on.)

There are other classics with very familiar rings in the old guide. Here’s the Fortress Lake trail, now known as the Chaba Trail:

Although the trail to Fortress Lake is not long and traverses nearly level terrain, two treacherous fords make it all but impassable for the person on foot. As a hike the complete trip should be attempted only very late in the season and then only by experienced, strong backpackers.

Wouldn’t change a word, would you?

Let’s keep our glasses from getting overly rose-coloured. There have always been trails, important trails, which have been pains in the quads to hike thanks to a lack of maintenance from the national parks. Some, like the South Boundary, are still on the maps. Except when the cash is flowing like water, a trail so long and so remote will always want more than a lick of paint.

However, it has gotten worse. Returning to the 1979 Canadian Rockies Trail Guide, and Brian if you’re reading this I promise this is the last big quote from your and Bart’s book, but it is as heartbreaking a paragraph as a trail guide can ever provide:

Visits to the northern wilds of Jasper Park were fairly few and sporadic over the next few decades [after 1910]. Even in the 1960’s the North Boundary country was well known only to a few wardens and a handful of horsemen and adventurous hikers. But today, probably because it is one of the best maintained wilderness trails in western Canada, the North Boundary is visited by hundreds of backpackers every summer.

I have a hike of the North Boundary in the future and its condition has me worried for my life. Reading that old paragraph made me tear up.

In 2010 Jasper kicked off its ominously (and accurately) named “Backcountry Reduction Implementation Strategy.” The park’s inventory at the time recorded ninety-five backcountry bridges, of which they proposed to maintain six. Even that has been cut. Four of those six (Twintree, Chaba, Blue Creek hiker, and Brazeau Lake) have been out of action for several years; only the Brazeau Lake bridge has a replacement scheduled. The loss of the other three make the North Boundary and Fortress Lake trails September undertakings except by horse or helicopter. The degradation of some of the 89 bridges the park didn’t even propose to pretend to maintain already (Rock, Carcajou, Gendarme, and Chown) or will (Southesk) make for extremely dangerous crossings on foot for most of the year. As Parks Canada itself said, “without these 6 bridges the wildland trail system is for all intents and purposes closed (ie inaccessible) to the general public until late summer/fall or by horse only.”¹

If you missed those quotes on the North Boundary at the top of the article, look again (the emphasis is mine). From “one of the best maintained wilderness trails in western Canada,” the North Boundary Trail has become a wildland for the experienced and confident alone. Campgrounds are falling apart, the trail is overgrown, and critical bridges are not being replaced. There will not be hundreds of backpackers on it this summer. There may not be dozens.

In part one of this series I looked at the trails Jasper National Park has abandoned in recent decades. But what does it mean to abandon a trail? You can still go. Trails follow natural features and, give-or-take fire, flood, and landslide, that topography is still there. The park simply removes the trails from official maps and announce that it will no longer be maintained. When a bridge washes out, it will not be replaced. When the trail degrades, it will not be relaid. When trail markers go down, they will not be put back up. Campsites may still exist in one form or another but the trail is designated a random camping area.

People get the idea that an abandoned trail is closed. This is rarely the case in the mountain parks, and never the case in Jasper in the summer. Camping may not be permitted in certain areas, but hiking is allowed more-or-less everywhere with the few exceptions being particularly sensitive zones where it had never been encouraged in the first place. The catch, besides the trail being unmaintained and demanding more-than-usual skill to navigate, is in the random camping rules. Bad enough that you actually need to phone Jasper National Park, as in push buttons on a telephone and speak to a human, to book them², but the quotas are tight. Of Jasper’s 27 random camping zones, 17 allow only one group at a time, and a few of them are in seasonal demand from, for example, Great Divide Trail hikers. Playing by the rules is hard; for Great Divide Trail hikers, nearly impossible. So many don’t.

How abandoned are those trails really? Some are still visited by Jasper National Park staff by helicopter or on horseback, and when they’re out there, they need to move along the trail just like you do. They won’t replace bridges, they probably won’t mark the route since they already know it, but all the same the happiest sight for a backpacker crossing deadfall is a wildlife camera, because that means Parks Canada is making their way to and from that camera about every year and there’ll be some maintenance on one side of it³. An abandoned trail is reliably worse than a non-abandoned one, but it is not reliably a torment. If you can get across the Athabasca and the Chaba, which you probably can’t, by all accounts the abandoned trail up to Fortress Lake is tricky but rather pleasant. When doing the Southesk Lake Loop, the abandoned trail to Southesk Lake is type 2 fun but totally different than the really abandoned route that you can’t even call a trail anymore back to the Rocky River.

Then there are trails that aren’t really abandoned, but sort of are. The North Boundary, the South Boundary, Athabasca Pass. Parks Canada calls these “wildland” trails, the lowest priority on their trail matrix, defined as:

Only maintain if resources allow. Trail may not be maintained for several years. Eg, North and South Boundary, Athabasca Pass after Whirlpool Campground.

In the case of the North Boundary, it is even more nearly-abandoned: you need to call the Parks Canada office to book anything further out than Blue Creek, and the warden who answers will make a point of asking if you know about the bridges that are out. It’s all rather odd, neither fish nor fowl. It is on the official map, it has official guides on the park’s website, but by passive means they try to discourage those who aren’t really set on it.

When it comes to trail clearing, Jasper National Park is usually a bit better than their word here. In 2023, a spring storm dumped unseasonable, heavy, wet snow across leafy trees on most of the South Boundary Trail, causing tremendous deadfall and making that lowest-priority trail all but impassible. That very summer Parks Canada made a massive effort to clear it. They could only squeeze out so much time but all they could, they squeezed, cutting logs until they ran out of chainsaw fuel, and thanks to that and further cleanup since the South Boundary is said to be pretty much hikeable again. I know they also brought the chainsaws up in 2022 because I saw the cuts and read about it in the trail register. On average, you can figure on one warden trip a year on the South Boundary, and they go to work; whatever limited staff and limited time will allow, Jasper will attempt. It’s still brushy as heck, gone or hard to find in spots, missing most of its bridges, and always has some deadfall, but you can do it. When it comes to simple trail clearance, the rule seems to be underpromise and overdeliver, and that’s not a bad one.

The real problems are with the infrastructure. In campsites, bear poles fall down and privies fill. These are, if I may put it this way, bearable if you bring an approved bear-proof food container (as you are required to) and are comfortable pooping in a cathole (nobody’s idea of a good time but the norm in the United States). Fires are permitted only in intact park-provided fire boxes, which is honoured more in the breach than the observance but at least encourages a certain responsibility, and it all sort of works. Apart from the bridges the main risk is dead trees around tent pads. Trees kill more people in the mountain parks than bears do. Every backcountry camper knows not to camp near dead trees or beneath dead branches, lest the wind bring them down on your head, but without wardens actively clearing them, very often that’s just not possible. Jasper has a problem with trees killed by the pine beetle that are both fallible and flammable. Such trees were in the news in the summer of 2024.

That’s without considering the bridges. Rivers and streams in the Canadian Rockies are usually glacial-fed. They run wicked high early in the year, or on any very hot afternoon, or when the weather turns cold and wet, which the Canadian Rockies always can. A North Boundary Trail hiker was once killed crossing Twintree Creek on a bridge, that’s how high the flows can get. Without a bridge, there are a few weeks per year with creeks probably low enough to cross and without reliably freezing temperatures, but that’s all theory; in the event, you get a day of pelting, freezing, classic-Canadian-Rockies rain and have to call the helicopter anyway. Hypothermia is a risk even when a ford goes “right,” as the glacial waters are literally numbing and the air temperature can be low all day.

So why, when Jasper abandons a trail in any sense, do they not invite volunteers to help? In both British Columbia and Alberta, volunteers have maintained vast networks in provincial parks and on crown lands, including bridges that may be rudimentary but are better than nothing.

The mountain national parks discourage volunteers, but Jasper is probably the least bad. The Friends of Jasper National Park can and do get permission to set cross-country ski tracks and work on frontcountry trail, and commercial backcountry horse parties have, as part of their business license, permission to clear official trails and campgrounds by chainsaw⁴. This is not permitted on formally abandoned trail without parks permission, but, how does one say this, it is possible this may have taken place.

Something horses do less well in the mountains than humans is negotiate bad trail. For horse trips to function, somebody needs to keep a trail in reasonable shape, and if it won’t be Parks Canada, some outfitters are willing to do it⁵. Jasper does not advertise that they permit it, but they do. Good on them.

One problem with volunteer labour is that it is less effective than skilled, full-time professional labour. Nobody would dispute this, least of all the volunteers, but it’s better than the usual alternative, nothing. Another problem is that Parks Canada’s trail crews, being federal government employees, are unionized, and unions quite rightly resent efforts to replace employees with volunteers. Of course every warden in the union knows that horse parties are clearing trail for them, but at that scale, it’s not really a problem, and the remaining staff are never short of work.

In most public lands even obscure trails are often relatively near more-or-less driveable forestry roads, but not the national parks. Without helicopter support, volunteers in remote regions would face the options of spending days hiking in as many heavy supplies and tools as they could, or obtaining horses. Difficult, but some would; again, the comparison is to “nothing.” Volunteer-built bridges outside the national parks are sometimes magnificent but usually more like two or three cut-down logs winched over a creek, held together by cargo straps. This would not pass inspection a two-hour walk from the tour bus, but it’s so much better than the alternative that it’s hard to exaggerate. Banff National Park’s justly famous backcountry bridges of two 4x4s and a wooden railing are friendlier and pricier, but scarcely more effective, variations on the same concept.

The national parks absolutely do not permit such bridge building. Permission must be granted for any trail maintenance, and people have been charged for unauthorized trailwork. Even in relatively volunteer-friendly Jasper, officials have very clear ideas of what work they want volunteers to do and what they do not. Of course even in the backcountry people do bring hand saws and cut at deadfall in a manner that is certainly illegal but almost unprosecutable, but it’s one thing to hack away at a tree limb for fifteen minutes and another to do serious work that the park would frown upon very strongly indeed.

The most flagrant case of functional abandonment in Jasper may be the Athabasca Pass trail. Athabasca Pass is a National Historic Site of Canada, honouring its importance as a fur trade route ever since David Thompson, the greatest orienteer of them all, crossed it in 1811. A crappy little tarn named the Committee Punch Bowl served for centuries as the spot where professional guides would turn soberly to their well-paying guests and say that it is customary here for guides and clients to toast the governors of the Hudson’s Bay Company, with liquor of course provided by the clients. There are stories of people enraptured by the history of the Committee Punch Bowl lugging rowboats all the way up Athabasca Pass only to discover that, well, it’s a crappy little tarn. Athabasca Pass figures larger in Canadian history than many modern concepts that receive millions of government dollars to promote them.

In 2016, the bridge over Simon Creek towards Athabasca Pass was destroyed by an ice jam. Since then, Athabasca Pass has been a “mid-late September, if then” hike, and the Committee Punch Bowl has been the private preserve of travelers almost as hardy as the voyageurs.

A National Historic Site is a site, not a tourist destination. There are plenty of them in wild, remote places which a coach bus will never reach. Boat Encampment, British Columbia, another 1811 National Historic Site of David Thompson’s, has been accessible only by submarine since the Mica Dam was built in 1973. Nobody seriously expects the government to make every National Historic Site equally accessible to Canadians, but what makes Athabasca Pass galling is that this is an easy one. The trail is not closed, it and its campsites are still on the map. It is also not especially difficult, apart from the ford. It needs a simple backcountry bridge, and now that there’s new trail on the BC side of Athabasca Pass such a bridge would open up good tourist opportunities. Most appallingly of all, there have been serious, well-funded proposals, with designs by a professional engineer, to donate a long-lasting and backcountry-friendly bridge over Simon Creek which the parks have turned down flat, and with what sure looks like contempt at the would-be philanthropists for daring to try.

This, however, is a story for part three. It is sad that the mountain parks abandon many trails, and passive-aggressively semi-abandon others. The continuing dedication of the park wardens, qualified by nature and connections for cushy government jobs, who regardless choose to spend their careers working harder than the rules say they strictly ought, remains a noble story. But at the higher levels, one sees that the degradation of the backcountry is not just a matter of trade-offs, not a matter of closing five trails to open one hospital or other understandable-even-if-you-disagree-with-it arithmetic, but an institutional desire that Canadians not hike there. We hear today a great deal, not just about encouraging healthy lifestyles, but about Canadian pride, about asserting how unique our country is; Parks Canada is not the only government department which talks a big game and puts its elbows up against actually doing anything.

1. Thanks to the Canadian Backcountry Trails Preservation Society for obtaining these documents by freedom of information requests. In the event this document is inaccessible in the future, the relevant text, with editorial imposition in square brackets, is:

   4.0 Level Of Service Implications

   With these cuts [mentioned above in the document], the backcountry program in Jasper will have eliminated the PM-05 Coordinator position, a GT-03 seasonal position, a GT-04 position, 0.5py from the horse program and 3 of the 4 person backcountry trail crew all within the last two years [in 2010]. For Resource Conservation (RC), this exceeds a 50% reduction in staffing. Reducing the trail office by 0.34py is a 30% cut. The significant program changes required include re-classifying the North Boundary, South Boundary, and Whirlpool areas to wildland designation from primitive. Within wildland facilities are minimal, but allowed for by exception or need. Camping is random and visitors are asked to follow leave no trace standards, to be self reliant and to accept high challenge and risk (Trail and Backcountry Facility Design Guidelines 2008). Jasper NP will retain 2 trail class designations, semi-primitive (which include the ‘signature’ areas of Tonquin, Brazeau Loop, Skyline, and Maligne Lake) and wildland.

   As all of the above areas are currently in reasonable operation condition [very much as of 2010], JNP will have a number of years before some critical infrastructure components begin to erode. These components include some basic signage, current campsite locations and clearings and bridge structures. As these primarily wooden structures degrade, on site demolition and disposal will occur at minimal cost. Critical bridges to consider for future replacement include; [sic] Lower Smokey [intact as of 2025], Twintree [out in 2022], Blue Creek Hiker [out in the 2010s and not replaced], Chaba [out in the 2010s and not replaced], Brazeau Lake [out in 2022 and planned for replacement] and Snake Indian [a steel bridge intact as of 2025]. Without these 6 bridges the wildland trail system is for all intents and purposes closed (ie inaccessible) to the general public until late summer/fall or by horse only, during non winter months.

2. Note for zoomers: your pocket-sized dopamine box has a “phone” button that can start a voice chat with anybody once you know what is, in Canada, a ten-digit number. This is how those guys with Brampton accents keep telling you that you owe money to Revenue Canada and your package is waiting to be picked up.
3. Wildlife cameras in the national parks are exactly what you’re probably picturing, cameras put on a tree with a bike lock or something to record wildlife activity. And, incidentally, human activity: Jasper promises to remove people from wildlife camera data except to prosecute people for committing offenses such as, for example, camping without a permit. I have never heard of this being done but wouldn’t you hate to be the first? More importantly, since no form of wireless transmission has yet been devised that reliably blasts images through thick tree cover with little electricity, they use memory cards which fill up after about a year and that park staff must replace.
4. See section 8.4.9, p38. Thanks to the Canadian Backcountry Trails Preservation Society for obtaining this document.
5. Not that this is a cure-all. For one, the number of commercial horse outfitters is now rather small. Two, while horse parties are a huge net positive to the hiker, horses are also great at bashing through willows and criss-crossing creeks for days on end, whereas humans get rather frustrated and cold doing so. Ain’t no horse outfitter clearing no willows or building no bridges.