Pathfinder Newsletter

Below is the current issue of Pathfinder Newsletter. Enjoy!

Pathfinder Spring 2024

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Past Editions

Pathfinder Spring 2024 Pathfinder Newsletter – Winter 2023

2022 GDTA Annual Report

Presented by Doug Borthwick, President, and Kate Hamilton, Executive Director. ============================================================== by Doug Borthwick, President Wow! What a year. It started pretty rough for a lot of us on the Board. The changing pandemic situation was opening up travel, there were key life changes, and burnout experienced, and as a…

2022 GDTA Trail Building and Maintenance Trips

by Tasha Shakotko and Kate Hamilton The trail building and maintenance committee, chaired by Dave Hockey, had a very busy and productive summer. Several trail crews answered the needs, both planned and unplanned, of Sections B, D, E, F and G. All told, it amounted to: Trail crews kicked off…

Conifer Cornucopia

By Jenny L. Feick, PhD All pictures taken by the author unless otherwise noted. Anyone hiking on Canada’s Great Divide Trail in the summer of 2022 could not help but notice the prolific cone crop on the spruce and fir trees along the GDT. In fact, anyone hiking in the…

Draft Update on the GDTA Trail Users Code

By Jenny Feick, PhD The original Great Divide Trail Association (from the mid-1970s to late 1980s) developed a trail user’s code that first appeared in 1975 and 1976 in the two editions of their policy paper. On pages 9-10 of the Great Divide Trail: Banff to Waterton, Its Concept and Future,…

Our New GDTA Corporate Supporters

by Kate Hamilton The GDTA is pleased to announce several new corporate supporters that were engaged this year. These are industrious, small businesses whose products and services are all about hikers – gear, lodging, food, resupply, information sources, and memorabilia. Like us, they are outdoors enthusiasts and believe in taking care…

Shrubs Along the GDT: Not all Alders or Willows!

By Jenny L. Feick, PhD If you have ever attended one of the GDTA’s trail work trips you have likely helped to clear shrubby vegetation from the Great Divide Trail and its immediate vicinity. Shrubs are the woody perennial plants that are smaller than a tree with multiple permanent stems…

GDTA Membership Drive

The Great Divide Trail Association has set several ambitious goals for 2022. This year we will be holding 7 trail building trips on the High Rock Trail (HRT) as we prepare for the official opening ceremony of the HRT on July 22! We are excited to announce the return of…

GDTA Winter 2022 Webinars

This winter the Outreach Committee presented four GDT trip planning Webinars: Webinar 1: Planning and Preparing for Your GDT Hike Webinar 2: Gear Webinar 3: Resupplying and Food Preparation Webinar 4: Training and Injury Prevention These webinars were well attended. For those not able to attend, videos were posted on…

Musings on the GDT Past to Present to Future

by Bethany Hughes Six months ago we were turning past a forest fire burning just off highway 16 on our way up to Kakwa trailhead, where we hiked into a hailstorm to begin the Great Divide Trail. Making a bid on a south bound, autumn thru-hike, we were grateful for…

What Goes Around (But Didn’t Go Anywhere) Has Come Around Again

By Jenny Feick, PhD Read in The Globe and Mail: https://apple.news/ARKD6TecwThGWflUpiS9nHg Brianna Sharpe’s Globe & Mail article in April 2022 entitled “Hikers push for Alberta’s Great Divide Trail to be given official recognition” brought to mind one of the many opinion pieces expressed during the story telling sessions that formed the backbone of the book…