Not Worth Dying For : Irricana to Airdrie

Today was another tough one on the 'trail,' but it began with a spectacular sunrise across the field from our campsite.  Despite the distant roar of the highway, which didn't stop at all last night, we were reluctant to get up and leave the peaceful, cool, campsite when the alarm went off at 5:00 am.  However, with temperatures in the mid 30's predicted by noon, we needed to make an early start to avoid the worst of the heat.  With a gorgeous red sun just peaking over the horizon, I took an Advil to help with my still tender ankle and headed out.  As we navigated out of the campground and through Irricana the sky and the grain in the surrounding fields around us was spectacularly pink. 

We followed the lovely crushed stone dust pathway of the Meadowlark Trail from the edge of the campground to its conclusion.  It had been an unexpected joy to find and walk this trail, and we were very sorry to bid it farewell.  We followed a curving, paved range road for the next kilometre and a half or so, surrounded on all sides by fields of grain.

That first stretch of walking was relatively pleasant.  Fields of feathery green grain and bright yellow canola stretched out on both sides of us. Mixed groups of blackbirds and Brown-headed Cowbirds swirled above the fields, and Western Kingbirds perched on the roadside fences.  A highlight was passing a pair of Swainson's Hawks perched on the fence posts that bordered the road.  

We had been hoping to avoid morning rush-hour, but as we walked the Trans Canada Trail stretch it began to pick up.  After about 20 minutes we found ourselves approaching the turn onto highway 567, which the trail follows straight west for the next 27 km.  We gave it our best shot, but we lasted about 10 km on that highway before finding an alternate route. 

Highway 567 is two lanes wide, and there is very little to no shoulder.  Like many of the highways in the region HWY 567 has been re-paved 5-6 times, so there is a steep drop-off at the edge, and in many places the ditch continues down at a steep angle.  This slope was extremely painful to walk on with my swollen ankle, and pretty quickly we had no choice.  At first we had a few stretches of a minute or so with no vehicles passing us, but this quickly built to a non-stop stream of extremely fast-paced traffic which included transports, RVs, and a great many pickup trucks.  Because the road was narrow the oncoming traffic had no place to pull over, passing us within inches.

As we headed straight west, walking towards Airdrie, it looked like we were heading into a bubble of smog.  The sky was streaked with brown, like sun beams in reverse.  We weren't sure if this was smoke from more than 20 forest fires that are currently burning in BC, or from fires in the US, or if it was just air pollution from the city.  Either way, it completely obscured any view of the Rocky Mountains that might have existed from our vantage point.

For better or worse, we walk facing the traffic. Our first real scare came when we heard a transport approaching from behind us, which in itself was no big deal. What we didn't realize was that a old brown pickup truck was passing it, going well over the 100 kph speed limit.  We were hemmed in beside a crash barrier at the time, and we could feel the vehicle brush our elbows as it and the transport shot by within inches of each other and us.  Strike one. 

We continued on, shaken to the core.  A few minutes later a pickup truck passed us at high speed, an untethered wheel barrow bouncing its way to the open back end, minutes away from falling out to join the ladder already in the ditch, lying among a worrying number of empty beer cans. Within the next 10 minutes, the driver of another pickup truck shot past us, laughing as he tossed a glass beer bottle out his side window.  It exploded on the pavement, spraying the front of our carts with glass shards. Strike two.  

A few minutes later an RCMP vehicle shot past at extremely high speed, likely responding to an urgent call.  The officer was slumped low in his seat talking on his phone raced straight at us and only stopped when his vehicle went several feet into the ditch behind us.  By his reaction he clearly didn’t  realize how close he was to an accident until he had left the roadway.  In truth the officer never seemed to even blink an eye, and still on his phone talking he fixed his aviator glasses checked his bad red mustache in the mirror, pulled out of the ditch and drove off.  I don't think he ever saw us or realized we would have been killed if we hadn't jumped into the ditch.  Strike three, and we were out.

We rarely leave the Great Trail as it is our goal and choice to hike it’s route but this highway was a clear death sentence to stay on.  And so at the next opportunity we headed north, walking 5k north to the first gravel range road we could find that continued all the way to Airdrie.  I know there are people who cycle and run across Canada on the Trans Canada Highway and other busy roads, and they seem to enjoy it.  One of my heroes is Andy, known as @millionbottlepledge, who plogs back and forth across Canada, jogging along highways while picking up roadside litter. His goal is to clean up 1 million bottles, cans, and cups, and he has made the Trans Canada trip many times.  We clearly lack the courage to face that much high speed traffic without a shoulder.  This morning we felt like we were playing Russian roulette with our lives. It felt like each moment we spent on the edge of that high speed road brought us one step closer to an accident that we wouldn't survive. 

This is of course not the first time we have been in these sorts of situations on the TCT.  Since setting foot onto the national trail in 2019 we have had to walk the roadway ‘connectors’ of Nova Scotia, ventured down the enormously busy highway between Mont Laurier and Grand-Remous in Quebec, walked long terrifying stretches of the Trans Canada Highway in Northern Ontario, hiked the 3500+ km of roads and concessions in Manitoba and Saskatchewan and since entering Alberta we have been led down busy ring roads, HWY 2, HWY 2a, cross the QEII highway and will soon be put onto HWY 1 on the western edge of Calgary.  For more than 480 days we have followed the route of the Trans Canada Trail and we have done our best through it all but after 3 close calls within minutes of each other it was either take another route or call a taxi and leave the trail.  The simple fact is that we don't owe the trail our lives, and so we changed our route. 

Our detour added 7 km and an hour and a half to our hike, which later became a real problem, but ultimately I think it was the right decision for us.  It also meant that for 20 km we would parallel (1 concession north) rather than walk on the Trans Canada Trail.  Instead of a busy highway we put ourselves on a straight gravel range road that climbed steadily throughout the day.  We passed a ranch with a black stallion and a small black and white mottled pony who came up to whinny at us along the fence. A magnificent and extremely haughty Swainson's Hawk perched on a fence post while a juvenile wobbled about at the top of a nearby tree. 

Shortly after this we came to a small pond that was surrounded by cattails. About a dozen Killdeer were foraging in the mud along its shores, and an equal number of Solitary Sandpipers joined them. A lone Spotted Sandpiper bobbed its tail up and down along the water's edge among the group, and a single Willet stood watch nearby.  A pair of Blue-winged Teals came in for a landing on the still waters of the pond.  The usual group of Red-winged Blackbirds made themselves known by their loud protests. It was wonderful to pause and connect with nature for a moment after the stress of the highway. 

 

As the morning progressed we trekked through open country, where fields stretched out under the clear blue sky as far as we could see. In many stretches there wasn't a single tree visible from one horizon to the other, creating a clean, minimalist landscape reminiscent of those we walked through in southern Manitoba.  

A couple hours into our westward hike the road undulated, dipping into a river valley filled with cows from a nearby ranch.  Then it climbed up and up and up, offering expansive views out over the surrounding landscape.  The variation and stunning views gave us a much needed sense of progress. 

As the morning wore on the temperatures continued to rise, quickly becoming uncomfortably hot.  Heat shimmered on the road ahead, and the surrounding fields became blurred by heat waves.  An adult Mule Deer crossed the road ahead, followed by two babies. Quickly they vanished into a field of grain, seemingly without trace. 

On and on we climbed, passing a farm with hundreds of black cows penned into small, muddy paddocks that didn't have a stick of shade.  They must have been broiling in the hot sun. A little farther down the road we walked past a sheep farm, the guard dog very protectively herding the ewes and lambs away from the road and out of harm's way.  I couldn't imagine being covered in that much warm wool with no trees to shelter under. 

Many hay fields have now been harvested, the light brown circular bales dotting the green fields.  Today was the first day we've seen grain harvesting underway this season, and the scale and speed of the operation we passed reminded us of the scenes we witnessed in Saskatchewan.  At one huge farm, a steady stream of trucks sped across the grain field, lining up to be filled by a combine.  As soon as one truck was full it was replaced by an empty one.  The new one kept pace with the combine while the full one sped off to deposit its load in the nearby grain storage facility.  Huge clouds of bone dry topsoil were blown into the air by the trucks racing across the field, and the ones on the road kicked up huge, chocking clouds of dust.  We drank through several litres of water trying to keep cool and fight the dust.

Thankfully, shortly after the harvesting operation we came to a section of road that was lined with huge, old trees.  By this point the heat was making us feel slightly dizzy and nauseous. We took a break in the shade, lowering our body temperatures to a more reasonable level, and enjoying a very slight breeze blowing gently from behind us. It felt like a few moments of sheer of heaven, and it was almost tempting to stay there until the temperatures dropped around 7 pm or so tonight. A steady stream of pickup trucks with drivers who passed with suspicious stares convinced us we should move on and get the remaining kilometers done. 

At this point Google suggested we had another 40 minutes to continue west, and then we needed to head back south to the highway in Airdrie. We limped that last section, taking breaks under every shade tree we could find...there were only two.  The road Google directed us to follow south was half a concession before the QE II highway.  We could see the nonstop stream of traffic ahead of us.  To our horror, when we came to our turnoff we also found a 'No Exit' sign.  Not what we needed in the baking heat. 

We looked at the satellite image and decided that rather than backtracking up the hill, we'd see if the route was passable on foot.  We walked by a couple homes and then a mowed hay field. Sure enough, the road dead ended, but luckily a rough ATV track continued off the end, following the utility wires and connecting to the next road through a low, grassy area.  Walking the uneven ruts and navigating the gopher holes in the waist deep grass was extremely painful on the ankle, but overall the rough track felt like a gift.  It was cooler and less blindingly bright than the road, it wasn't a wet muddy marsh as we'd first expected, and it meant we didn't have to backtrack and add more kilometres in the heat, which I'm not entirely sure we could have managed without any shade. 

I have never been an overly religious person – even while hiking along multiple Camino routes in Europe and trekking to places of pilgrimage in Canada, but I think the more closely connected you are to the land, and the more you experience living in the natural world, as opposed to just visiting it from a climate controlled haven, the more you can feel the presence of something much larger and more powerful than yourself.  Whatever name you give it, I think something was looking out for us today, and we choose to say 'Thank you, Saint Roch!' 

We joined with the other portion of the paved road, which led us past a row of homes, the headquarters for the Canadian Professional Rodeo Association, and into the back of a large distribution center.  It was full of trucks transporting goods for Amazon, Costco, and others, but we found a lovely paved cycling trail, complete with a few small shade trees and benches.  The pathway linked two subdivisions on the edge of Airdrie.  We had made it. 

Airdrie is a city of over 74,000 people, making it the fifth largest city in Alberta, and it is part of the Calgary metropolitan area.  It was first established as a railway siding on the Calgary and Edmonton line in 1889, and was named after Airdrie, Scotland.  Steam trains stopped to refuel at Nose Creek.  In 1901 the first farms and homesteads were established, and in 1909 Airdrie became established as a village.  Today it seems to have all the services and characteristics of a modern Canadian suburb outside a large city. 

From the edge of Airdrie it was a short walk to the Days Inn, where the extremely helpful and friendly staff checked us into an air conditioned room.  Even after cold showers it felt like our bodies were still radiating heat like two furnaces on full blast.  We took the afternoon to do laundry, work on the blogs, and hide inside in the darkened and fully air conditioned room. It felt like heaven, but we couldn’t help but acknowledge that the world we’ve created through the removal of trees, the draining of rivers, the miles of paved highways, spending so much time in metal vehicles, and the unrelenting production of greenhouses gases is one that we can only survive by seeking shelter in air conditioned buildings now. Birds, wildlife, insects, and the plants and trees they depend on don’t have this luxury.

Around 6 pm a huge storm rolled in, bringing high winds, impressive lightening and thunder storms, and a wave of cooler air for the evening.  Today was an incredibly mentally and physically draining day, and we ended it early, counting our blessings that we had survived and were once inside during the bad weather.

See you on the trail! 

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