Adventure for Wilderness – Grass Pass and the Boundary Pine – June 13, 2026

June 17, 2026

• •
• •
• •

• Adventures for Wilderness
• Rocky Mountain and Foothills Forests

Text and photos by Lindsey Wallis

Historian and author David Finch has roamed the hills around Grass Pass for decades. The area and people inspired him so much that he wrote a book about one of the early settlers, R.M. Patterson. On a bright, sunny Saturday a group of us joined him to hike up to the pass and then out to the Boundary Pine, a proud old limber pine that has stood a sentinel on the ridgetop for generations. The flowers were abundant, with Canada violet through the lower forest and oodles of alpine forget-me-nots and Townsendias on the upper slopes. On the hike up we also talked about the legacy of logging in the south Kananaskis and the cumulative effects of recreation, grazing, mining, and logging on the landscape. In fact as we splashed up sections of the braided trail, we were able to see first hand evidence of how roads and trails can change stream flows, channeling runoff along them and eventually dropping sediment into waterways.

A brief repose underneath the enormous matriarch of the Boundary Pine allowed us to enjoy lunch and stories from David. We heard, not only of the experience of Patterson coming up to this point and a description of a place that could have described our contemporary surroundings, but also of David’s own adventures up here, camping under this tree and watching the world go by. We did note the increase in aspen and other young trees growing up around the gnarled pine, a consequence of fire suppression in Canada’s forests over the last 100 years, which was also good discussion fodder.