Wake, stretch, yawn – I’m finally feeling a bit better. My nose buccaneers have subsided which I thought would be a good thing, but now I am constantly aware of my putrid body odor. Yuck. I’m going to have to do something about that today.

From the three inch diameter hole I see and breather through in my sleeping bag, it looks like it’s a nice day. I crawl out of my bag keeping my arms pressed against the sides of my body. I can’t air those suckers out till after I get outside, not very fair to the other still sleeping tent mates.

It is sunny, finally. I was starting to look and feel like a prune. I survey my surroundings: some fluffy white clouds, the sun trying to climb over the mountain, a missing tent….hunh….. I then remember the Noahific rains we had the night before. The girls in the other evil no floored Kiva had to move their tent. After scanning the area I finally find them, they are setting up about 100 feet straight above their last site. That’s not going to make for a pretty walk to and from the latrine.

Oh crap, I’m on breakfast with Catherine and I forgot – I’m 25 minutes late.

Catherine is the French girl who understands the least amount of English. She makes up for this lack of communication by being super nice and easy going. By the time I get to the kitchen she’s already got the water boiling and I just have to pour in the rice for the rice pudding. She seems more concerned with how I’m feeling than the tardiness of my helping. The troops start to arrive. It’s like hearing stories from the front line. People slept in mud, had water running around their heads in small trenches they dug with their bare hands, and then along came Matt.

To understand how shocked we were you first need to understand who and what Matt is. Matt never runs out of energy. He can run up a mountain and smile while doing so. He is the most positive person you’ll ever meet and has the energy and will power to back it up. He’s been nothing but supportive and upbeat the entire trip……until now.

Matt appears over the top of the ledge….his whole body is dripping. He’s walking in the liners of his boots and he is holding the shells in his hands. The water is pouring out of the shells in little spurts with the swing of his arms. He has either fallen in one of the alpine tarns on the way to breakfast or he and Jasmin had the worst tent spot ever. It turns out it was the latter. I ask Matt how he’s doing. He points to his throat and squeaks out that he can’t talk……he’s the next victim of our mini SARs. When Jasmin joins us a bit later she tells us that their tent spot turned out to be a place where water pools, totally drenching everything. They had to move their tent in the middle of the night. With that news we were the only tent out of the four to stay dry.

We ate our rice pudding (yuck) and packed a summit bag. We’re climbing a shorter peak just behind Matt Lake. We start out. We have to climb down to Matt Lake and around it to approach the mountain. As we get closer we can see the slope is quite steep. It’s going to be a long morning. We climb and climb and climb. We eventually get to a beautiful plateau for lunch. Sardines, honey, crackers and peanut butter. Even though I am starving I do not touch the little fish. They are gross. Just after we finish eating Jasmin tells to sit facing her as she taught us about glaciers with a Mars bar. We learned about glacier behavior, glacier terms, moraines, etc..etc..etc.. Talk about a stunning class room too. Behind Jasmin, and she often referenced them, were huge glaciers sitting high on the opposing mountains. This is what it is all about. This is why I came.

As we packed up lunch and prepared to move on Matt let us know that he was going to be going back down to camp. He was too sick to move on. He needed to rest up. As I was still feeling less than 100% I figured I would fair better to go back and rest up than climb a peak. I also would get a chance to wash up. It was sunny and I didn’t want to miss that opportunity to wash my body as well as my clothes. The only other person who decided to come along was Petite Vero. She wanted to sleep, read, and have some alone time as we’ve all been together for a straight week non-stop.

So our group was split. Nine going up, three going down. I’m so glad I went down.
We got back to our site an hour or so after we left the lunch place. Going down is way faster than up – add on the fact that we’re all decent hikers and that increases the speed.
Matt headed straight for bed. Petite Vero climbed up to her tent (she was in the high tent) and I went about cleaning. Man, what a feeling. Just below my tent was an alpine tarn. I put on a clean t-shirt (not cotton, cotton is the devil) and shorts and rinsed everything that stank in the water. I’d then set all of my wet clothes on huge boulders to dry in the sun. This is the life. I washed my beard (which is long enough to pull), face, pitts, etc. I felt like a million dollars.

As the group got back later that evening we had supper and got ready to go to bed and get ready for an early morning. The plans have changed. Due to the crappy unpredictable terrain and bad weather we are pulling out a day early. We are going to make an attempt to get back to our pickup/drop-off spot tomorrow and be picked up the next morning for re-supply and transport back to the mainland. The backcountry travel ban has been lifted on the mainland and Outward Bound is moving back to their base in Pemberton. All of us are excited to get out.

As we’re getting ready for bed and the sky darkens the most amazing stars start to show. There is not a single cloud in the sky. The moon hasn’t yet risen. The sky looks like a kabillion white Christmas lights. It’s breath taking. I lie back on a boulder outside the tent and stare at them for a half an hour. I’m finally starting to feel my body loosen up. Stress seems to be lifting. Being in awe of something seems natural. I gently hum myself a song and make a mental note to do this more often at home. I slide off the boulder and slide into the tent and sleeping bag. It’s going to be a long day tomorrow. Time to get some sleep.

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