GDT kms: 0

Daily kms: ~7

We woke up a bit before 5am to the sound of rain falling on the tent and we quickly closed the vestibule doors and tucked our packs and shoes under cover. We kept dozing for a bit more until 5:30am or so when we deflated the sleeping pad and started packing up. Unfortunately for us, it decided to start raining quite hard right at this moment – I don’t think either of us were particularly pleased to encounter rain on our second day on the trail.

We were quite happy to be on an actual trail today, but less pleased that the rain turned it into a car wash as it was relatively brushy along the sides. Thankfully the rain only lasted an hour or so before letting up.

We reached the falls at the start of Yarrow Creek around 9am and then started the climb up to Avion Ridge. This is when the scary portion of the day started. It was pretty windy at the falls, but we were expecting it as a couple of horse riders yesterday said it would be a windy day. What we weren’t expecting was just how much windier it would get as we climbed. Kyle and I both got blown over by the wind multiple times on our way up and when we reached the top, the wind was so strong that we couldn’t really stand up. It seemed unlikely that we would be able to safely walk along the ridge in these conditions, but neither of us were quite ready to call it. We took a break by a rock that provided some shelter and looked at the map and talked over our options – we could either (1) go forward and hope the wind subsided on the ridge, (2) wait at the top and hope the wind subsides, or (3) turn around and go all the way back down to the falls and try again tomorrow when it would hopefully be less windy.

We decided to try to continue forward. We made it about two steps forward past our shelter rock before we both got blown over. There was no way we could continue without getting blown off the ridge, we had to turn around and make our back down in the wind.

When we reached the bottom, we were both shaking from the adrenaline wearing off, but thankful we got down safe.

We checked the forecast on our inreach and there is a lot less wind forecasted for tomorrow, so hopefully we’ll be able to get over the ridge.