The Great Divide Trail

Great Divide Trail Association

The website is (mostly) the same - but the ownership is new!  Effective March 2013, the GREAT DIVIDE TRAIL ASSOCIATION is once again active!

In the fall of 2012, a group met to discuss how best to continue trail maintenance and to begin approaching government for formal protection of the Trail.  Although maintenance has been quite successful, the informal nature of the volunteer group has made obtaining the necessary permits increasingly difficult.  And, although the Government of Alberta will respond to inquiries from concerned citizens, lobbying requires a more formal entity.  A decision was made to charter a new organization dedicated to the Trail.  In the course of investigating a new charter, the group learned that the Great Divide Trail Association has been dormant but not extinguished.

As a result, the Great Divide Trail Association has been formally revived and will be fully active by March of 2013.

2012 Maintenance - Etherington Creek

The major trail maintenance project for the 2012 season is now complete.  This work was postponed in 2011, but the wait ensured that the goals we set could be met.

 

Tools of the Trail Trade
Fifteen volunteers spent four days camped on the north fork of Etherington Creek.  A bridge over the main fork of Etherington Creek was built and the trail was reconstructed (resurrected?) through the difficult cut-block section leading toward Baril Creek.  Look for more information and photos in the Trail Maintenance area.

 

Thank you to Mountain Equipment Co-op and Stihl for providing funding and support for the work.

 

URL Change

Please note the change in our URL from greatdividetrail.ca to greatdividetrail.com

About the Trail

The 1200 km-long Great Divide Trail is an informal route of hiking trails, cut lines, exploration roads and sometimes no trail at all, snaking a line along the continental watershed which forms the border between the provinces of Alberta and British Columbia, Canada.

Beginning in Waterton Lakes National Park, on the Canada/US border, and ending at Kakwa Lake Provincial Park in BC, some sections, particularly those passing through provincial or national parks, are maintained as part of other trail systems. However, no single official organization is responsible for the entire route.

 

On Rye Ridge, looking south
Rye Ridge, looking southwest to the Divide

 

This site describes the original 100km-long section of the Trail running through unprotected Alberta Crown Forest Reserve lands, from North Fork Pass to Fording River Pass, that was constructed in the 1970s and 1980s, and is undergoing renewed attention in this decade.