In the morning, we discovered that our lighter wasn’t working to start our Jetboil as it got wet the day before. That meant no hot tea or coffee to start our day on a cold morning. We packed up and were on the trail by 8am with a long ~24.5km day ahead of us. We grabbed water just above the dry creek bed outside of the campground and followed the trail toward Wolverine Pass.
It was a switchback climb with us on alert for mama grizzly and her cubs. Oliver admitted that he did want to see bears on the trip, but at a distance so he knew where they were. He didn’t like knowing they were sighted the day before and not know if they were still nearby.
The area around Wolverine Pass was open meadows with another short climb in the direction of where we were to camp the day before. We had made the right choice to stay at Tumbling Creek because I would have been too exhausted to have made that final climb.
We enjoyed the spectacular views of the Rockwall with the cliffs towering over our left side along the path. There were blue glaciers clinging to the base and a cool breeze was blowing but we weren’t chilly as long as we were moving. We still kept our eyes open for bears and saw nothing.
There were some interesting paths where the trail looked like it had been washed away and we needed to dip into a dry creek bed and back out again. Helmet Falls was beautiful and we had to push through more branches to reach the campground where we ate a late lunch. We were starting to feel that we were falling behind but only because we had an arrival time in mind. I tried to just focus on “getting there”.
We grabbed water at the campground and began to climb up to Goodsir Pass. As we climbed, I was definitely running out of steam. It was getting increasingly difficult to remain positive on push up the hill. I was determined to keep picking away, even with sore feet, ankles, knees, and shoulders.
We encountered our first horseflies on Goodsir Pass and batted them away. There was one for each of us. Luckily, that was all. There wasn’t much to this pass compared to the others. We did find a lovely spot, with views to have a snack before beginning the climb down.
The descent was where I struggled. My body was tired and sore and we counted 30+ fallen trees we had to climb over before we stopped counting. There were also alder bushes we had to push through. My fatigued ankles struggled to keep me balanced on the uneven trail and they bent in many uncomfortable positions. The view of Mt. Goodsir was at least a good payoff for all the hard work.
We reached McArthur Creek Campground at around 8:30pm and searched the blowdown covered campground for the cooking area to eat and hang our food. It was a late dinner and a late tent set up (by headlamp light), but we were happy to get to bed on our last night on trail. The long day resulted in the worst leg spasms I had experienced on the trail, so it was also a long night.
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