Wowza, this one has been on the list for a while! I grew up in Cardston AB and really fell in love with the mountains on these very trails so this one was special for me.
I started the run at 7:30am, after driving myself to the Akamina Pass trailhead. Akamina Ridge went very smooth, I mainly wanted to make sure I didn't go too fast and ensure I was fueling well to set myself up for success. It was such a beautiful day on the ridge! About 10 degrees C with no wind. There were lots of low-hanging clouds that filled up the surrounding valleys almost like a bubble-filled bathtub. Was surprised not to see many people on the trail. I finished Akamina Ridge in 2:16 which felt manageable. I then ran the mile up the Akamina Parkway to connect to the Carthew-Alderson trailhead, quickly stopping at a public restroom on the way.
My legs were feeling a little beat up climbing to the summit, but luckily not too bad and I was able to run most of the climb. I saw a couple people I knew on the way up (unplanned), but didn't receive any aid from them or have them pace me. The downhill went pretty smooth too, and again was surprised to not see many people on the way down. By now the weather was a little warmer (about 20 degrees C) but still very nice conditions. I finished Carthew-Alderson and reached Cameron Falls in 4:32 elapsed. After another quick stop at a public restroom, I started the trek to the Crypt Lake trailhead. I ran from Cameron Falls and along Evergreen Ave to reach Emerald Bay. There I quickly traversed the beach to reach "the narrows" (or Bosporus) were the Upper and Lower Waterton Lakes connect. The narrows was pretty low, so I was able to walk most of it and only had to swim maybe 25m. Once I got to the other shore, I traversed along the north shoreline a little ways before bushwacking to the top of the peninsula/knoll. I then navigated along the top of the knoll until reaching the Wishbone trail. This trail was very overgrown and basically a bushwack as well but I was able to follow it another couple miles to the Crypt Lake trailhead.
By the time I got to the Crypt trailhead, it was 5:37 elapsed and my legs were getting pretty tired. Also, I somehow did my math wrong and ended up bringing an hour less of gels/salt pills (and I took an hour longer than planned to complete the route so I ended up 2hrs of nutrition in debt unfortunately), so that was poor planning on my part. I ran most of the first couple miles up Crypt and was planning on running another mile or so where it flattens out, but that's when I ran into everyone headed down to catch the 3:30 ferry. So that was a little annoying because I ended up having to walk a lot of a very runnable section (I wanted to do this attempt not on a Saturday for this very reason but unfortunately that didn't work out this time), and by the time I got past most of the people, it was the last mile and a half that's quite steep and my legs were VERY gassed at this point. So I ended up walking most of that last stretch to the lake. Thankfully my legs were in good enough shape to run back down the whole way to the finish (Crypt Lake trailhead) and still snag a new unsupported and overall FKT (for now) of 8:06! While the route ends at the trailhead, I still needed to wait a bit to catch the ferry back to the townsite where my parents drove me back up to my car.
To make this a by-the-book, truly unsupported effort, I made sure to be entirely self-sufficient. I packed all of my nutrition/gear from start to finish (other than throwing out some gel wrappers before swimming the narrows), and didn't receive any aid either from myself (pre-arranged stashes) or any other individual. I grabbed all of my water from the backcountry using a couple filter-lid flasks. Also, I didn't have anyone pace me at any time, or have any pre-arranged encounters with friends/family during the effort. And most importantly (at least for this route), I didn't use a kayak/canoe!
What an amazing experience, I hope this record gets broken again soon. People who think 8hrs is fast ain't seen nothing yet!
*DISCLAIMER: The attached photos are NOT from the attempt, but rather scouting runs of the same trails up to a month before*