A Hike in the Mountains Part II

Well, fancy meeting you here. The suspense is just eating at you, I know. You want to see more pictures and hear the story of how the two of us, in not so fine physical condition, met and conquered the challenge. Well, then, dear reader, here goes...

A bear cache at Campground #1 and a pretty walk.

Campground #1, about 4 km in from the trailhead

Look at that snow! Pretty hike, and nice trail.

Sonja said that all pictures look better with people in them. So, I got in the shot. It is the same as the one above. Not thinking I am agreeing with Sonja's thought.

Whenever I am in the mountains with my mom, I hear her sing or hum the hymn, "How Great Thou Art." Guess what song I had in my head this day?!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7g1aaUeBn8

I told Sonja I was getting tired of being in all the pictures. So this is her at the first river (stream/creek) crossing.

I really thought I could take a picture of both of us and the mountain above Sonja's back. Obviously, not.

We found some snow. We found deeper snow, too. It was thigh deep. Super fun to walk through. Or not.

Here is the trail, looks not too deep, but... looks can be deceiving!

Here is River Crossing #2. Totally do-able. Wet legs and feet. Not from the rivers.

Still lots of snow. River Crossing #2

Our feet were wet. I wore shoes. Not a great idea. Got soaked through very quickly. We were also walking on sharp rocks sometimes and the sole of the shoes weren't quite thick enough.

The trail. Pretty easy to follow, especially here!

Another trail picture. To the left (on the snowy trail) is the Campgound #2. About 6.5 km from trail head.

Frozen water falls, but not the destination. Pretty, nonetheless, though.

This picture was taken on the way down again. We stopped for a few minutes near the lower falls.

Again, a picture with two subjects. It is oh-so-better than the one above. Sure.

Close up of the Bear cache, at Campground #1. 4 km away from trail head.

Bear cache, and wet legs and feet.

Look what I found in the middle of nowhere! Classy place!

Okay, so remember how I said that we were to drive through it-- well, maybe if the red car was a red truck. It is hard to see, but this is ice. And there is a crack that is no less than 15 cm deep. Sonja's car has about 16 cm clearance. We decided we'd walk through the tunnel. It added about 1 km in total to the length of the hike. But we thought it was better to be safe than sorry-- and high centred or something equally not-so-fun.

Here are some websites I like for information:

http://www.albertaparks.ca/pubsandmedia/Whitehorse_Wildland_web.pdf

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/log.aspx?LUID=c0d80416-6a8d-432d-bbec-5f63072ad477&IID=407e0e11-f920-4ad2-9149-b71f7d2dd759

http://www.clubtread.com/sforum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=32449

So, in summary, I did not get to the falls. We hiked just over 9 km in. We left at 1300 and we said we'd hike until 1630. So we did. I am sad we didn't get to the falls officially, but as you saw, we did not pack overnight packs. Again, we decided on the safe rather than sorry route.

We survived. And we survived well. I was worried how my sliced heel-covered-with-moleskin-which-may-have-latex-in-it would hold up. And it was fine. No blood, and no nasty rash. Only itchiness. But that is easy to deal with. You don't. And I was able to put on shoes for the hike. Prayer works. We were protected and watched over. We were surrounded by God's beautiful mountains, water, and trees. It was quiet and serene. It was a good, albeit long, day.