Lake of the Wind

August 6, 2018

Slept in until 10:00. We had a slow breakfast as we tried to figure out what to do today. We thought about just resting here, but with four guides that had arrived last night buzzing around camp, setting up for a group of seven clients that were expected to arrive this afternoon, caused us to re-think this. We decided to move on to somewhere a little more private. Dominic, the only ACMG certified rock climbing guide in eastern Canada, gave us some good advice on places to camp up valley. We decided to move on to a lake about five kilometers away. After packing, we hiked along some lovely tundra, which after yesterday's boulder pounding, felt glorious on the feet. After a couple hours and only about three kilometers, we found a pretty lake with a nice meadow to camp at, so we decided to stay and relax/rest for the remainder of the day. Some excitement was to be had as we finished up our supper. We got hit by a sudden gust of wind which blew the cooking pot away and Debbie right over into my lap. Paul shouted that my tent was down, and I looked up to see it tumbling head over heels down the valley! The bear fence had been ripped apart, likely from a fully loaded tent tearing through it. Deb's tent was half down and Paul's survived. After fetching my tent, we set to work about putting camp back together again. Though my tent is in a somewhat sorry state with a broken guy point, torn fly in several places, and a hole in the floor, it should still be serviceable. I set it up again with a lot of rocks this time to firmly anchor it. I will deal with the holes and other issues tomorrow. The contents were a bit of a scrambled mess of sleeping items, clothing, etc. Worst off was the map which I had spread out for study. Fortunately as I uncrumpled it from the ball it was now in, there was only one tear in a place that we should not be visiting this trip. I also lost two tent pegs, and the bear fence lost two of the wire clips, which Paul managed to improvise a replacement with safety pins and duct tape. Maybe some of the lost parts will show up tomorrow when we break camp.

Hiking further up Base Camp valley.

Our campsite, prior to the big wind.

Relaxing by the lakeshore.

Supper time... just before the blow.

The inside of my tent after a zorbis roll.

[Home] [Main] [Prev] [Next]