An easy day around the hoodoos

Storyline: Hiking in Nunavut August 1-12, 1998

---

This morning dawned sunny and the tent heated up nicely. I shrugged out of my sweatshirt at about 5 a.m. having slept clothed for the first time on the trip.I finally struggled out of the tent at about 9 o’clock, to be greeted by the smell of bacon frying as Jim, Marian and Lindsay were preparing their breakfasts. I joined them. Then as Jim and Marian headed off to scout upstream, Lindsay and I settled back into the tents for further rest. It was overcast so I didn’t sit outside to write, but now I feel the sun once again warming the tent, drawing me out to the beauty of the day…

Back in my sleeping bag after a warm cup of soup and hot chocolate. I walked upstream earlier, following Marian & Jim’s trail and watching Lindsay disappear over the next hill. I took a few, well several, ok many pictures of the hoodoos as the sun and clouds played across them. Then I walked over to look at the main channel of the stream, carrying thousands of litres a second of recently released glacier water down to Eclipse Sound. No sign of the mayor’s dog, weasels or polar bears.

Tim appeared, as usual as if by magic. He had hiked along the ridge above us, bounded down a steep slope to meet Marian, Jim and Lindsay ahead of me and bounced back downstream to meet me coming the other way. He convinced me to go up towards the ridge with him, then taught me the “jump and scramble” across a stream bed and up an almost vertical soft sandbank on the other side. Then we skied and bounded down the slope to meet Marian & Lindsay below. Jim had taken the ridge route.

At the camp, we woke Michael, who had been trying to keep quiet so as not to wake the rest of us—well things were very quiet at the campsite because we’d all been out and about. We cooked up “Big Bill’s beans & rice” (tasted like chili) and headed off to scout the shore and check out the ridge. We want to cross the creek tomorrow, and head towards the Sermilik glacier. From there we hope to climb to about 1,500 metres to what Dave Reid says is a great campsite by the glacier. Michael has the first bear watch tonight, with Tim & Jim to follow. Not sure when it’ll be my turn but I’m in no hurry.