In the crisp morning, as the sun was pouring its wealth of energy towards us in anticipation of the heated day ahead, we drove into the woods to find our trailhead among the lush forest. Found, overgrown and ominous, we packed up and began the unmistakably mosquito riddled hike. Once above the deciduous/coniferous boundary the flying critters abated, the sky opened up and we left the biological wonder of the forest and entered geological wonder of the craggy mountain ridgeline.
We climbed up and up and up, until and a ragged, soggy cliff face barked at us to stop. Our better judgement ended our hike shy of the peak, but regardless it was a hard, wonderful hike.
The next morning, waking up to our sore muscles and fond reminiscent images of yesterday's hike, we pointed ourselves toward the next target - Kristi Glacier. We soon found out, after an hours hike, that we were not going to be able to reach the glacier. So, we changed plans and decided to hike up an old(ish) landslide scar, through the eroding stream to a rocky mountain side.
Then there were the bears.....
Early on in the Eagle Creek hike we came upon an old hunting cabin - now a truncated storage place (more realistically and out of commission truncated storage place). Inside were messages from other hikers, old stores and equipment. Nothing was new or usable, but the historical merit of the place and the content were quite dramatic.
Taking a lunch break less than halfway up the mountain. After an hour of hiking along the river basin, hugging the turbid flow of the snowmelt, we came to the beginning of the arduous uphill section. Here we took our first opportunity to stop and regain our muscular composure and feed ourselves. We knew nothing of the hike above us - that which we were about to take on - but knew only of the need to go higher...
Im lichen this tree......
Further up the mountain we ambled onto a spurious outcrop for some pictures. A glorious view was granted for our labour, and we still had higher to go. But, and there always is a 'but', our travel to higher altitudes was halted by a rocky cliff that was impassable. We tried to scurry our way across the first section, learning the frightful way that cliffs and nerves don't make for fluid movements. We got across a spurious section rife with saturated scree and a rotten (geologically rotten) cliff face, only to face defeat upon eyeing the next stage. So, satisfy with our accomplishment to get this far, and filled with grief of having to re-climb across the scree-cliff, we turned back. Seven hours after leaving our car, we returned sore and hot. Exuberant....but sore and hot.
Marmot. The Whistler. The marmot is the whistler, apparently, not satan. Although....
A top-down view of one of the lower ridge lines.
Crystal posing by the side of the landslide debris. Pictured here is only half of the actual amount that covered the trail and solidified our decision to leave the glacier dream and to take on the new dream of climbing the landslide scar. Quite a good decision it was!
Me and her, the last picture before our camera died. After this were the bears....and the forest of death....and the attacking grouse.....and more forest of death...then the triffids.....then the other bear.....then the raging river of doom.....then home.
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