The Great Divide Trail (GDT) is a wilderness hiking trail in the Canadian Rockies. It closely follows the Great Divide between Alberta and British Columbia, crossing the divide more than 30 times. Its southern terminus is in Waterton Lakes National Park at the Canada–US border (where it connects with the Continental Divide Trail), and its northern terminus is at Kakwa Lake in Kakwa Provincial Park, north of Jasper National Park. The trail is 1,095 km (680 mi) long and ranges in elevation from 1,055 m (3,461 ft) at Old Fort Point trailhead near Jasper to 2,590 m (8,500 ft) at an unnamed pass above Michele Lakes, just south of the White Goat Wilderness Area.

The first record of the Great Divide Trail appears in 1966, when the Girl Guides of Canada proposed the idea of a trail running the length of the BC–Alberta border through the Rocky Mountains. In 1970, Jim Thorsell published the Provisional Trail Guide and Map for the Proposed Great Divide Trail. Thorsell's route comprised roughly the middle 50% of the modern trail, from Banff's southern boundary at Palliser Pass to Berg Lake. Parks Canada approved the project, with the objective of completing the GDT in five years.

Outside of the national parks, the route south of Palliser Pass was originally mapped in 1974 by six University of Calgary students with support from the Alberta Wilderness Association and the Federal Opportunities for Youth Program. Mary Jane Cox, Jenny Feick, Chris Hart, Dave Higgins, Cliff White, and Dave Zevick surveyed an estimated 4,800 km (3,000 mi) along the proposed GDT route through public lands. Despite initially low enthusiasm from the Alberta and BC governments, whose representatives cited a lack of interest in the trail and a priority on resource development, the group founded the Great Divide Trail Association (GDTA) and began trail construction in the summer of 1976. By the mid-1980s, with funding from the Alberta government, crews had built 90 km of trail from North Fork Pass to Fording River Pass. When support from the province of Alberta ended,and logging and off-road vehicle use destroyed trails, work ceased, and the GDTA became inactive.

In 2000, Dustin Lynx revived the GDT by releasing his guidebook Hiking Canada's Great Divide Trail. By 2004, a group known as the Friends of the Great Divide Trail began to work on the GDT once again, particularly in the unprotected Alberta Crown Forest Reserve lands between Crowsnest Pass and Banff National Park. In 2013, the Friends of the Great Divide Trail re-activated the GDTA as a nonprofit corporation headquartered in Calgary. Since then, the association has conducted maintenance and trail-building throughout the length of the GDT.

While the Great Divide Trail is a recognized hiking trail, only portions of it are officially acknowledged by Parks Canada, and the rest is often not signed and occasionally not even an actual trail—merely a wilderness route.

The GDT passes through five national parks: Waterton Lakes, Banff, Kootenay, Yoho, and Jasper; nine provincial parks: Akamina-Kishinena, Castle, Castle Wildland, Elk Lakes, Peter Lougheed, Height of the Rockies, Mount Assiniboine, Mount Robson, and Kakwa; four wilderness areas: Beehive Natural Area, Kananaskis Country, White Goat Wilderness Area, and Willmore Wilderness Area; and four forest districts: Bow/Crow, Cranbrook, Golden, and Robson Valley.

• GDTA website

51°41′12″N 116°40′31″W / 51.6867°N 116.67526°W / 51.6867; -116.67526