Thursday 13 September 2018

Mystic Lake to Granite Creek

We are allowed the luxury of sleeping in a bit this morning. O and I are up early anyway so that we have time to pack up before kitchen duty this morning. After cowboy coffee, shredded potatoes with peppers, and scrambled eggs with cheese we begin striking camp. I take some time to check Shelley’s feet. She’s got blisters on top of blisters. It’s hard to imagine how she keeps walking. I patch them up as best I can with antibiotic ointment, adaptic and “second skin” bandages. Thankfully, today’s is a much shorter hike with less elevation gain and a gentler trail grade.

From Mystic Lake Camp we descend through green green woods to the Winthrop River near its origin at the Winthrop Glacier. We cross this tumbling river by rock-hopping. Now we begin our ascent up through more woods to Granite Creek Camp. The day’s weather follows its usual pattern – the rain relents and we get brief intervals of sunshine in the morning, followed by clouds and rain in the afternoon. So far we have been lucky. We have been able to set up and take down camp rain-free on all but Monday morning. This afternoon is no different. We arrive at Granite Creek Camp early enough to relax a bit. We set up only the large tarp today – over the kitchen area. The rest of the site is cluttered with tents.

O and I have a rather sloping site – the last available as we take time to set up the tarp on arrival while the rest of the group chooses tent spots. We figure we can handle crawling back up our sleeping pads for one night.

Despite the bad weather, the group maintains good humor. We all seem to enjoy laughing. It is cold and wet enough this afternoon that I don my teal wool hat from MEC, Canada’s counterpart to REI. Heather, who is from Toronto points out that it is a French brand and therefore a toque, not a hat. She pronounces this “took,” with a long double O sound as in “soon.” I tell her I always thought it was pronounced “toke,” for which I get lots of laughs. Aaron says toque pronounced that way is an entirely different thing – and one might wonder what kind of hiking we are doing if we mention bringing along our (long O) toques.

We all retire early tonight. Tomorrow is our last day of hiking and our leaders would like to be back at Sunrise Visitor Center by noon. Morning coffee will be served at 6 am.