I woke up to a brilliant sunrise, which I could see through my tent door. The water was ablaze with colour. StormHaven is situated in a way that summer sunrises and sunsets can both be viewed over water; it truly is a beautiful place.
After saying goodbye to my neighbours, I left camp at 8:45 a.m. 500 metres on, I realized I'd forgotten my hiking stick back at camp, so had to make a quick trip back to retrieve it. The real time of departure turned out to be more like 9 a.m.
The trail between StormHaven and High Dump (named for an area where forested logs were dumped for water transportation in years past) is touted as being the most difficult on the entire Trail. These nine km. took me five hours to traverse. The terrain was extremely rocky, boulders strewn every which way by an angry glacier in another time. At one point, I heard the unmistakable sound of a snake rattle again, this time coming from under a low bush that encroached upon one side of the trail. There was nowhere to go to avoid this one, as the brush was extremely dense on the non-cliff side, so I waited it out. About ten minutes later he finally stopped rattling and seemed to disappear, and I very cautiously moved forward.
I stopped often, enjoying the views from the overlooks. It's amazing how some of these cliffs with their overhangs of rock don't break right off and fall down into the water.
About four hours in, I began to pass a few hikers with packs: late risers from the High Dump camp. I came upon one such group with huge backpacks, and a young fellow with a very large bear barrel strapped onto his back. The hikers were sprawled out on the rock, not looking happy. "Does the path get any better?" the barrel guy said to me plaintively, as I picked my way over him. "Umm, no," I replied, wryly. Then I changed my tone to one of encouragement, and added, "But you're much younger than me, so you'll probably just dance over the difficult parts!"
The next eight km. or so was on an old logging road heading inland. Plenty of frogs hopped off the path along the way, and I passed a couple of inland lakes blanketed in water lilies. Part of the old trail is lined with corduroy road, made with small logs nailed together. It was a beautiful hike, with only the occasional black fly to bother me. Loons called from nearby lakes. At one point I passed a spring bubbling up from the ground. I should have filled my water bottle there, but I didn't want to take the pack off - there was no rock to set it on, and it takes a lot out of me to put it on from the ground. This was a decision I'd later regret.
I passed a huge pile of bear poop, plopped right in the middle of the path. It was still really fresh - very moist, with some kind of green berries in it. I comforted myself with the thought that this particular bear was obviously a vegetarian!
I also noted owl pellets on the ground in many places along this trail: the regurgitated fur of the owl's victims.
The last eight km. were on rather remote but concrete-topped roads. I passed Crane Lake, where my friend Shannon and I watched Sandhill Cranes during a short hike last year; there were none in sight now. The sun was beating down, and this section seemed like a long, long trek, with two vehicles in total passing me, and bush on either side of the road. I ran out of water with five km. still to go, and no water sources in sight. Yet another rattler was laying on the road, watching me closely but not rattling; the road was wide enough to give me plenty of berth around him.
About a kilometre away from camp I felt something happen to the nail on the little toe of my left foot. Didn't hurt much, just felt weird, as though something had broken off. I hobbled into camp and the wonderful folks at the office golfcarted me to my campsite.
Upon inspection, it seemed like the nail bed had become detached and was poking through the skin on my toe. Very strange. I taped it up and put moleskin on the blisters on my heels (who knew you could get blisters on the bottom of your heels?)
Then I was faced with a dilemma. I had no vehicle to put my food bag in, like the other campers did. There was no tree around that was substantial enough to hang it from. I had noticed earlier that the little girl a few campsites away was handfeeding peanuts to chipmunks, so I figured I might have a problem overnight. Didn't feel like hobbling back up to the office to leave my food bag there (bad decision!) so I tucked it next to my tent under the fly, thinking I'd hear the little buggers if they tried anything.
I woke up two hours later to a chewing sound. I scared the offender away, and then investigated. Something had torn a huge hole in my food bag and some of the packets had been opened. Granola and nuts had spilled all over the ground. I rose and did what I could to clean up the mess. The wind was picking up, and blowing every which way. I placed the torn foodbag into my sleeping bag sack, thinking I'd use the bottom section of my pack for the sleeping bag from now on. Then I tied the bag tight and brought it inside the tent with me and went back to sleep.
An hour later I heard more chewing, amidst the howling of the wind. It seems that the creature was picking errant pieces of granola from the cedar-barked ground right near my tent. I kept flashing my light, trying to scare it away, and at one point came face to face with a raccoon, with only the flimsy screen of the tent between us. Over the next hour this fellow became increasingly aggressive. I thought about moving the tent away from the spilled granola, but it had been very difficult to peg into the gravel beneath the cedar, and the wind was getting even stronger.
The raccoon began circling the tent, snarling and growling. Its noises actually sounded like a catfight. I became alarmed, thinking it might slash through the featherweight material of the tent to get at the foodbag beside me. I grabbed the bearspray, unzipped the tent door, and sprayed two short sprays down either side of the tent, hoping the wind wouldn't shift it back at me. The raccoon took off and I received only minimal exposure to the capsicum, with just a throat tickle. I settled back down, to sleep.
Half an hour later, it was back circling the tent, snarling again. I repeated the spray, but this time was not so lucky with the wind. A slight whiff of the spray and I spent five minutes choking and coughing, tears streaming from my eyes.
The raccoon returned, and once again circled the tent. At this point I became totally pissed and got out of the tent, armed with what was left of the bearspray. Sat in the dark at the nearby picnic table and waited. Ten minutes later it scooted out from behind me, and I blasted it good from behind, with one spray.
Back to bed and finally to sleep for a couple of hours before dawn, listening to the drumming of light rain on the tent.
Let the adventures begin Cathy. Very interesting story. Be safe and keep the updates coming. Good luck!!
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