We set our alarm for 5:30am so we could get to parking lot (just five minutes away) and have tea/coffee/breakfast there. It was, literally, freezing when we woke up: 0 Celsius ⛄ yet beautiful!
We caught the 6 45 bus to the ferry….. still cold!!
We caught the 7:45 ferry to the trailhead …. still cold!
We started hiking at 8:30….it was expected to be very steep....
...and it started that way immediately....
There were nice views of lakes and glaciers....
Along the way there were signs like these...letting people know to turn back if they hadn't made it "this far" in a specific number of hours..... We were here after one hour of hiking, so all was good.
It was super rocky underfoot the entire time.....
....with plenty of lovely views to enjoy....
Hello!😀
We were still way "ahead of time" in terms of the warning signs, so all good.
....still steep....
Just a cool pic....
We kept going......
...and we thought, "Great, this is a nice hike." Then the MAJOR rock scrambles where we had to climb using hands and feet started. As soon as we would crest one giant pile of rocks on hands and feet.....
....there would be another one....
...then another one....
....they kept coming.......
...and the view never really changed.....
We finally reached the top at 2pm, and saw this...
...and thought, "Ah, this is the 'gentle descent' we read about. It will be nice to not be walking on jagged rocks for the last few miles."
But we were wrong....totally rock covered....ugh!ðŸ˜
Hi Brad!
The "gentle descent" had chains we need to hold onto..... 😵
At this point, we saw this sign.....
TWO more kilometers! You've have got to be kidding! We were mentally done, but trudged on......it was 4pm by now.....
We finally were done at 5pm - nine miles and took us 8.5 hours. It was very tough and not as enjoyable as we would have liked - a lot of work for the benefit - and will forever be known as "The Hike from Hell." 😈😂
As we took out last step off the trail, the shuttle bus to the parking area was there with its door open and about to leave - we purchased tickets and hopped on. (Yesterday when we purchased our shuttle tickets, we only bought one way thinking we would enjoy the 2km walk to the parking area Рhell no!) We then drove back to the ferry area and had a good dinner at their caf̩.
We were desperate for showers, so we went to a
campground to see if we could pay for use of their showers - nope - only for campers.
So we ended up paying to stay the night there and we still had to pay for
showers. We also needed to do laundry, but they didn’t have a working dryer –
grrrr!!!!!!
Today's route.....
No comments:
Post a Comment