GDT kms: 28.4

It was another dark morning, we actually needed our headlamps to get dressed and for most of the time while we were packing up. Kyle left me to finish taking down the tent and went to the washroom – when we here returned, he claimed to have woken up and seen a wolverine.

Soon enough we were on our way towards another potentially tricky ford – there is a bridge over it the first time you cross and the notes say to just stay on the west side if it looks rough. When we crossed the bridge though, it looked like it would be manageable to ford, so we crossed and made our way to the floodplain.

Soon enough the trail faded to nothing, but walking on the floodplain was nice and easy. Until we reached the point where we needed to cross the river that is. The ford was not challenging, but I have never experienced water that cold in my life. And it wasn’t just one ford, the river was braided and had multiple channels, so we crossed into the freezing cold water multiple times on our way across. I didn’t know feet could hurt that much from the cold and still be numb with no feeling – my feet were so cold and painful, I couldn’t focus on figuring out where to cross next, thankfully Kyle was about to focus more than me and I followed behind from channel to channel hoping he was finding us a good route.

Eventually we made it across and then we continued to follow the floodplain for a little while before the trail reappeared in the forest and we finally had feeling in our feet again. The trail continued up to Bess Pass which was disappointing and viewless.

Finally we reached Jackpine Pass and ascended up to the high route. It was initially relatively smoky and we could barely make out the surrounding mountains, but we were very happy it cleared as we made our way along the ridge. The alpine was absolutely stunning and the surrounding mountains had huge glaciers – this is a true highlight of the trail and people who stop at Robson and are definitely missing out.

We got to Blueberry Lake and setup camp – if we were there swimming types, it would have been lovely to swim in.

Tomorrow we make our way down from the beautiful high route and start on making our way down the river – it’s supposed to be the hardest part of this section, so hopefully we’ve gotten enough ahead of schedule to have enough buffer if it takes us longer than expected.