North Circle 24-28 Aug '17

[Goat]

Great trip this year, there were eight of us. Route was Swiftcurrent to ELF, ELF to MOJ, MOJ to FIF, FIF to GRN, and GRN back to Swiftcurrent Inn. The front passed through quickly on the 24th, with some minor rain and clouds, but from then on it was warm & dry. The smoke wasn't bad at all, just a bit of haze most of the time and sometimes it cleared up entirely. The long day from MOJ to FIF was a bit of a grinder because of the southern exposure to the sun on a hot climb. But once up & over, the high country just before FIF was beautiful - we got to camp just at golden hour, and all was good. The front of our group saw a Grizzly on our way to GRN, and another startled a black bear. Saw some goats and sheep, some grouse. Ridiculously crowded trail from Swiftcurrent up to the Ptarmigan tunnel, but it thinned out after that (thankfully).

We originally had GLH instead of MOJ, but were able to change it at permit pickup time - didn't even have to get up early. Glad we did, the 14 mile day was long enough in the heat.

The volunteer rangers at GRN (Rita and Ken) were great. I think all backcountry campsites ought to be manned that way, to ensure bear protocol is followed and to prevent renegade camping. Horse packers at MOJ were rude but that's not terribly unusual for horse packers, in my experience. They kept all their stuff in camp until the last minute late in the afternoon, then took off. Would have been nice to know they were leaving when we were looking for campsites. But, whatever.

For those wanting to score these incredible permits next year, my advice is simply to have the forms all preloaded and credit card info loaded, and hit "send" immediately when it opens in March. I found that some computer connections are slower than others, so recommend multiple attempts from multiple computers if you want the best chances. Of course, you'll have to pay for each attempt, but better to have too many permits than none.

Goat

[Jimmy]

Nice! I'm considering a similar itinerary for 2018, which of those campsites was your favorite? Which was the least?