Donjek - Day 7

Duke River crossing and ascent to Cache Lake

August 8, 2015

I woke up early to a beautiful but cold morning. I fixed myself a cup of coffee and read for an hour until the rest of the hearty souls stirred. Today we had a major goal; ford the Duke River. We traversed along a game trail for a couple of kilometers and then were forced up slope by a massive set of beaver dams which had flooded a huge tract of land. Finally we found a place to descend to the Duke, and shortly after we decided to make the ford attempt. The river had split into four braids here, the first two being below the knee, however the swift current still threatened to knock you off of your feet. The main channel was a rushing torrent but looked not too bad so we decided to give it a go. Glenn and Krista went first. Glenn's large build let him break the current for Krista as she held onto his backpack as they crossed in the mid-thigh deep water. They made it safely to the far side with the exception of one of Krista's shoes which was pulled off of her foot in the deepest part of the crossing. Glenn took off running down the bank and managed to recover the shoe after completing the Duke 200 meter sprint in record time. Deb, Ivan, Marc, and I decided to cross using a pole that we scavenged from the riverbed. We all linked arms around the pole, and Ivan led us all together into the flow. The water was freezing and it was very difficult to keep your footing. The pole kept us all linked together though, so if one person stumbled, the others could bear their weight. After what seemed like an eternity, but in reality was probably about thirty seconds, we made the far side safely. After a few minutes spent warming up we crossed the last channel easily as it was only ankle deep. The remaining travel along the Duke was easy when we could walk along the riverbed, and difficult when the flow pushed us up the hill into the bushes. We got to a point where we had to leave the Duke, and after traversing too far on a game trail trying to find a non-existent streambed which was in the route description, finally consulted with the map and realized that we had gone too far. We set a bearing and bushwhacked straight up to Halfbreed Pass. This started steep and dense, but levelled off as we got higher, while the plants also got smaller. Finally we gained the pass and spied Cache Lake about a kilometer further. An old roadbed traversed the edge of the mountain opposite us, so once we had gained that, travel went very quickly. We set up on a nice gravel beach on the lake shore. After a swim in the cold water we had supper on the far side. We found two sets of huge moose antlers which had Glenn, our wildlife guide, very excited. A bit of relaxing on the beach until the sun went behind the mountain. This caused the bugs to come out so we quickly dropped off to bed.

Upon seeing the hands of doom in the beaverpond, we decided we had better bushwhack around rather than attempt the crossing.