I wake up to the thought, “crap, I can’t sleep this afternoon”. Solo is over. Today I rejoin my hiking mates and we will continue on in our quest for awesome adventure in the mountains of BC, or something like that.

I have a problem, I don’t know, or I can’t remember, what time solo is officially over. Matt said he’d come back and pick us up, but when? 10am? Noon? After supper? As a preemptive strike to Matt’s arrival I dismember my beautiful Muirish home and scattered the many pine bows of my very none Muirish bed. It was probably an Outward Bound faux pas to “collect’ so many pine bows and to use them to sleep on, but with no one around to ask I figured it would be easier to ask for forgiveness. I pack up everything as sat around waiting.

Whilst waiting my butt became very sore. Apparently Mother Nature didn’t take into account the fact that humans needed comfortable spots for their butts in this part of creation. So I took it upon myself to create the ultimate wilderness luxury seat. I managed to wedge my hiking poles between two closely fallen trees so that they leaned back a nice 50-60 degree angle. I then took my ice axe and propped it between the same trees and between my hiking poles. This added a nice support for the poles as the axe is much sturdier, and it provided nice support up the middle of the “chair’. I then took my sleeping pad and placed it over the whole contraption. Blammo! Lazy Boy ala MacGyver. I peed to celebrate my great accomplishment.

After sitting in my wonderful chair for a good long time I decided to take a stroll out to the meadow to see if I would be any less bored out there than in my chair. While standing in the meadow I notice Jacquie just down the hill from me. She had all of her gear packed and had the same “when the heck are they coming” look on her face as I did. I yelled hello and she came up for a visit. We both had no clue when we’d see Matt. We also didn’t know if Solo was still on or not. Oh well. We weren’t going to waste a day sitting around by ourselves wondering if we were going to be picked up or not. I told her to get her ice axe, poles, and sleeping pad. She looked at me like I was crazy, then realized I was and went back to her gear. We made her a chair too.

Matt arrived 10 minutes later to find Jacquie and I playing cards on a log between our two chairs. He did not look impressed (I think it was that fake look of disgust parents put on their faces when their kid has just done something totally wrong but hilarious, like wiping poo on the neighbors cat). Matt told us that we had to complete the “walk of silence” back to the camp. We were not to speak and to sit in silence at base camp until they told us to speak. Matt continued up the hill to tell others the plan. WALK OF SILENCE!?!?!!? It sounds like a Dirge performed at WWE (formerly the WWF) funerals.

Jackie packs up her chair and walks back to her gear. I grab my gear and head back to base camp. I am the first to arrive and find Jasmin cooking us up a load or friendlies. She quietly welcomes me back to camp and tells me to sit down in a large circle around the stoves. How does one person sit in a circle? I think, but cannot say. I sit for a few minutes and watch Jasmine make 911 soup (it was the same kind of soup we had in our first aid gear for emergency meals). People start to stagger in. We all have the “I can’t believe we have to be quiet, we’re frigging adults” look about us. Virge finally arrived and couldn’t look at me because I was making her laugh with funny faces. Finally we were all back, sitting in an oval around the stoves (it was hard to tell them about the circle when I can’t talk).

Jasmin and Matt sat at the focal point. They asked us all how our solo was and Jasmin read us some wilderness poetry or motivational thing. It obviously wasn’t that memorable .

Finally we ate: A nice bowl of soup and a scrumptious breakfast. The first real food we’ve had in our bellies for three days. While we ate Matt and Jasmin told us the day’s plan. We were going to make a peak attempt at Mount Merlot, possibly do some rappelling and rock climbing right off the summit, maybe go for another French peak beside it if time permitted then back to camp. We geared up and were ready to go within minutes.

The hike up was long and tiring. A very long steep grass slope brought us to the base of the mountain where we began the rocky part of the climb. We were able to follow goat paths up a lot of the ridge but they disappeared after the terrain became more granite than soil. We stopped for lunch in wind proof alcove just below the summit. Fog and mist had moved in and visibility was down to a few hundred feet at best. While eating lunch I decided to wipe cream cheese off of my knife with my thumb. Slice. My knife was faced the opposite way I had thought and also much sharper than I had ever though. I sliced a nice straight line diagonally into the pad of my left thumb. Blood flowed freely. I asked for the first aid bag (not in the dramatic Hollywood style where a war wounded soldier cries for a medic). I bandaged up my thumb and finished my pita for lunch. As I was eating the last bites I noticed the blood running down my thumb and further down my wrist. Crap. More bandages, then my mitt.

We climbed to the summit and set up shop for a session on map and compass use. I removed my mitt to grab my compass. The blood was still seeping down my wrist. I also noticed I could not feel my thumb past where I was cut. Extra crap. The bleeding wasn’ stopping because of the higher altitude and the cold, and my thumb was starting to freeze. I missed my tarp and my meadow. Luckily for me Catherine and Petite Vero noticed and came to my rescue. Petite Vero grabbed my thumb in her hand to put pressure on the wound and warm the thumb up while Catherine prepared more dressings. After my thumb was good and warm a nice much tighter bandage was put on and I was good to go. I just didn’t know where as I had missed the map and compass lesson.

We decided to forego the rock climbing as it was freezing cold, rainy, foggy, and I had cut my thumb. We also decided to give up on the other peak attempt for the same reasons. With that decision made Matt and Jasmin decided that we needed to be on our own. They told us to figure out a way back to camp and they would stay far back out of site and meet us back there.
We wandered down the opposite side of the mountain and back around through an absolutely gorgeous valley carved into the rock by glaciers. We followed the water down, great wisdom passed onto me by Super Vero, to our campsite. One the way we saw up Marmots. The Alpine Beaver if you would. Ugly creatures. Some thought they were cute. But in all honesty they looked like large rats.

Back at camp we made supper and headed to bed. I was in a Kiva with Ernie and Peter – please note they did not bring the luxury item of a deo stick as I had. The smell from our three bodies was nauseating. To survive, I slept on one side of the tent with my mouth out the bottom trying to suck in enough oxygen to keep my vital organs intact. I fell asleep wondering how people hundreds of years ago in animal skin tents around the world coped with their foul odour.

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