I woke up and remember the pint-sized indy 500 last night in the tent. I giggled as I wrestled out of my mummy bag.
To say the day was crisp would be an understatement. The sky was a deep blue and high level clouds sat off to the south-west. The ridge was as beautiful at sunrise as it had been at sunset. I could see a couple of people starting to stretch themselves out of their tents. Super Vero & Jacquie had decided to sleep outside under the stars last night. Brave souls. Oh well, more room in the tents.
We have a quick tasteless breakfast; pack up, and head on for our next day of hiking. Today we are going to be crossing over a long ridge to the base of Chipmunk Peak and down to a lake to camp.
We start out. Today will be completely above the tree line. Totally exposed to the elements, luckily it appears the weather will comply. We start up the ridge. The hiking is slow and tiresome. We have to climb steep hills covered (or made up of) small ankle sized rocks. Our leg muscles ache under the weight of our packs. Luckily we are coming to the last few days of our food supply. This means lighter packs.
We continued to climb up and up until we were on a crescent shaped ridge that swung around to our left to the base of Chipmunk Peak. If we were to go straight to the peak, as the crow flies, we’d either have to fly like a crow or descend and re-climb an almost vertical bowl that fell and rose thousands of feet. The ridge seemed like the easier way.
We stopped for a drink of water and a rest at the final ascent to the main ridge. The top of the ridge was a few hundred feet above us. I looked over across the ridge and saw 10-12 animals high-tailing it across a small glacier to the base of Chipmunk Peak. I pointed it out to everyone and we all strained our eyes to see the animals. We finally concluded that they must be mountain goats. We got excited. Aside from Marmots these were the only animals worth mentioning that we have seen in over two weeks. We geared back up and continued up the ridge.
As we came to the top of the ridge a wind stronger than any wind I have ever felt came rushing towards us. We quickly put on our wind/rain gear and continued on. The wind was so strong you could literally lean into it. I could hold out my ski/hiking poles and they would be blown almost perpendicular to my arm as the wrist strap held on for dear life.
We could see Matt and Jasmin farther along the ridge. They had hiked out earlier than us to set themselves up at a technical part of the ridge where it may have been too dangerous for us to cross ourselves.
We had lunch on the ridge. I think it could go down as the windiest lunch ever eaten by human beings. Maybe even the funniest when some of the girls went to the other side of the ribbed ridge to pee (maybe 30 feet away – upwind). A few minutes later someone asked it if was raining. It wasn’t.
We finished lunch and met with Matt and Jasmin. They guided us across the technical part and to the base of Chipmunk. We had a group meeting. Did we want to drop our packs and have a quick scramble to the top of Chipmunk? Some did, some weren’t sure. I didn’t want to. Today was an 80% day. For some reason I just felt a little bummed and wasn’t enjoying things to the fullest. My vote remained solitary and we dropped our packs and headed up the mountain. We reached the summit, and I have to admit, it was worth the slight detour and delay. Matt and I rallied up game of summit mafia. So here we were, twelve people. Ten students, and two instructors atop a mountain in the coastal mountains. Surrounded by the most beautiful scenery in North America playing a game where your eyes are closed more than they are open. Weird.
We made our way back down. Jacquie was leading. I was two people behind her. I noticed her ankles were shaking a little. As we got to the bottom of the peak and had to go back up a small saddle her ankles shook her off balance enough to cause her to fall… Those of us who saw held our breaths as we watched a new friend free fall 6-10 feet to a ledge below the path she was intending to take. She landed hard on her stomach & arm. I was the only person in the first few people who hadn’t committed to the path she had led us on. I was able to take a lower path and end up beside her on the small ledge. She was ok. Shook up a little, but ok. She dropped a pole that I retrieved and we were on our way. Jasmin did a full follow up with her as soon as she had heard (she was at the back of the group).
We donned our packs and headed down the incredibly steep grass slopes to the lake below. We arrived at camp and did our best to set up.
Catherine and I were on tarp setup duty. The wind was howling and we were tired. I was stressed. As we got one tarp setup done using one of my poles a large gust of wind whipped the tarp with a force so hard that it snapped my aluminum hiking pole in half. ARGH! On top of this, Catherine was tired and her English was on the decline with her lack of energy. My French was dying the same death. After we erected a crappy tarp that was never used I wrote a piece in my journal. I was in a bad mood as you can tell:
“I’ve figured out that I am not an adventure seeking person. I like the outdoors, I don’t love the outdoors.”
We ate a meal and headed to our tents. I had a problem. I had been working on the tarp so long that I hadn’t been involved in the erecting of the tent with Ernie and Peter. Peter and Ernie had already gone to bed. I asked one of the girls if they knew where my tent was. They said “I think it is over there somewhere” and pointed off into the night. I started walking….. Our tent turned out to be really far away from the kitchen. So far that I almost turned around until I saw a little light behind some trees. I followed the light and set up my bed. I knew sleep would come fast tonight.