Chuck's News: Friday, September 22, 2023 - What a Day! - 9.71 miles - 1684 total vertical up - 1542 down - 7hr 15 minutes

Didn’t sleep real well last night. We forgot to check the thermostat on the baseboard heater before we slept. It was set at 22°C. I fidgeted and slept poorly until 2:00am. I crawled down the ladder from my bunk and checked the temp. Too hot. I cranked it down to 15°. It took about 30 minutes for the room to cool. After that I slept well. Also, at 2:00am I dropped my iPhone and had to crawl down and retrieve it. While down I watered the ground outside the front porch. The door was incredibly squeaky as I opened and closed it. I am sure it woke Malcolm.

We got up about 6:30am. I had a bowl of Morning Sunrise for breakfast seated inside our cabin, then packed up and waited. The bus was set to pick us up at 8:45am. Malcolm grabbed a breakfast sandwich from the restaurant across the street where Bones and Malcolm Junior had a “logger breakfast”.

We walked down to the bus pickup spot, the same place where we were dropped off yesterday and waited for the bus. Malcolm tried to get more money from the cash machines in the area but none would comply.

The bus was a few minutes late and we were beginning to panic. At 8:50am I could here it rattling in the distance and announced its arrival. A quick 10 minute ride and we were back at the registration office. We secured our permit and Parks Canada Pass, then sat around another half hour waiting for our orientation to begin. The park employee guided us into a room and went through the same information we got from the required video. At 10:20am we were out and at 10:30am she lead us to the boat dock.

As we walked we strategized on the best way to be first off the boat. We reasoned if we boarded last we could get off first. There were about 14 of us vying for spots. When we reached the gangway they let the first ten on and told us to wait until he dropped them off and then he would come back for us. Not good. We explained we were heading to the second campsite, Camper Bay, not the first, Thrasher. The captain of the boat told us we could ride back by his wheel house. We scampered down the gangway and boarded. They dropped us off on the other side of the river, but we were at the back of the boat and were to be the last to disembark. Bones walked right between the 10 seated to the front before the landing craft ramp was lowered. Everyone else stood, blocking both Malcolms and me. Young Malcolm jumped up on the wide gunwales and walked past everyone. Old Malcolm asked if anyone else was going to Campers. Only a young girl said she was and volunteered to join us. Everyone else got the idea to let us climb the ladder off the beach first. Bones and Malcolm were already at the base of the ladder and climbing. We cued up at the bottom and waited our turn, happy to be at the front of the line. Once each of us finished the climb we started hiking, not waiting for the next person to top out. We had discussed the idea that if we waited at the top then all walked to the next ladder we would all be waiting at the bottom of it while we each climbed. We just walked apart so as to maximize our speed. We had a long way to go. As someone we met yesterday said, “If you can make it to Camper the first day, you’ll be legendary!!

The girl who said she would like to hike with us was Hailey, a 22 year old from New Zealand traveling by herself. She fit right in with us older men and talked with each of us as we traversed the trail, sometimes at the back with Bones and Malcolm, sometimes with me near the front. She was cracking me up. She was absolutely comfortable with the four of us and appeared to delight in talking to each of us for the whole day as we walked the trail. We gave her the trail name “Kiwi Comet”

The going was varied. The trail might be like any other trail for a few hundred feet, then an absolute tangle of roots and logs to climb over, then a series of ladders. It climbed and descended constantly making forward progress a challenge.

We made it to the Thrasher turnoff in about 2 hrs 20 minutes, well below the 3-5 hour estimate. We continued on toward Camper Beach. At the first beach access we dropped our packs at the trail junction and climbed down the ladders to the beach. It was solid bedrock and the tide was high enough to block our passage. We snapped a few photos and returned to the forest trail, about 4Km left to go.

All of us were getting a little tired. This is more obstacle course than trail. Thank goodness it hasn’t rained all summer. I would not say the trail was dry. It was quite muddy in places. With the rain in the forecast we could see what a quagmire this will be in the days ahead.

Finally we descended into Camper Creek via four ladders, then rode a cable car across the stream to the other side. We really didn’t need to ride the cable car. The river was very low and we could have rock hopped across. But this was the first cable car of the trip and we wanted to ride it. We camped just off the beach, Malcolm and I squeezing our tents into a level area just off the beach. Malcolm Jr. decided to sleep out on the beach nearer the surf Bones slept on the beach just down from us 50 feet. Kiwi Comet pitched her tent just below Malcolm and me on the beach. We put up a tarp to use to pack our packs under in the morning if it was raining. We stowed all our food items in the provided bear boxes, used the composting outhouses and were in bed by 8:15pm. I wrote until nine. We plan to get up and be moving by light if it is not raining in the morning, hoping to get a few miles in before the rain starts. We will see what tomorrow brings.