Mileage: 16.2 km

James Lake to Aldridge Creek

Natasha already used up all of the up/ down puns so I’m left with no title.

The wind last night was terrible.

Natasha had the tent pitched on the slanty road last night. Turns out the slant wasn’t the issue. The sandy, rocky road makes it hard to install tent pegs. But makes it easy for them to come up. The wind loosened a peg causing the door on Toothless’s side to unclip and flap in the wind. Natasha fixed the door at 10pm or so. Then at 2am the tent collapsed. Like a ninja I woke up and immediately grabbed the trekking pole before it fell and fully collapsed. Then fixed it. Cause: another peg came out.

Fun start.

Happy to leave a busy camp we broke camp at a reasonable time and got on trail.

The hike up Fording River Pass was straight forward and the pass was beautiful but windy. Toothless slept the whole time snuggled in his blanket.

The hike down is slow and simple.

Eventually you reach a hut (which, along with its outhouse, is all locked up) and the trail gets interesting. Better than 2018. The tread was good and recently maintained. The route wasn’t well marked but still easy to find other than after crossing water. Most of the washed out parts of the trail were replaced with new trail. There were a few washed out bits but those only required a short walk in the water.

We got to Aldridge Creek campsite and had mixed feelings. It was a pretty great site with a outhouse and bear hang, and a large grassy space to set up at. However the site has some shotgun shells laying around so there was some debris to keep Toothless from eating or playing with.

We were bagged and it took us a bit to set up camp. Dinner was about as quick as we could make it. We had phone service so we did a few chores (including sorting out gear repair or replacement) and went to bed.