Day 141

Mile 2253 to 2270, 17 miles

Cost: Camped, free

It rained all through the night and I could hear the wind through the trees but we were luckily protected from it. I opened my vestibule at 6am to look outside… we were enveloped in a thick mist, I couldn’t see 3 metres past my tent. 

I went back to sleep and woke again at 7, then 8am. The weather wasn’t getting any better, in fact it looked like it was getting worse. We decided to wait another hour and see if anything improved once the sun was well and truly up… But no. Ladiesman and DLux walked past at about 9am, head to toe in wet weather gear and not expecting the day to get any better. Their plan was to camp at the base of knife’s edge and cross it tomorrow morning in hopefully better weather. It didn’t sound like a bad plan. 

  
We got up and I packed away my things, leaving the soaking wet tent for last. I hate nothing more than packing up a wet tent not knowing if there’ll be a chance to dry it out. 

I left about 10 minutes behind KC and walked the first 3 hours by myself in the misty, wet morning through the forest. It was still a very beautiful trail even without any views. 

   
    
   
I passed Ladiesman and eventually caught up with KC and DLux, they were sat down about to have lunch. I had to keep walking another mile to the next water source as I wanted to cook lunch (to try and get warm) but I was out of water. I told them I’d be at the creek and would wait for them there. 

There was a terrific flow of water (thanks to all the rain the last few days) and I filled up 2 litres and went about cooking a mountain house chilli mac with cheese that I found in the hiker box in Trout Lake. I turned it into a burrito with hot sauce and cheese and it really hit the spot. 

The others caught up and we kept moving. Up and over Cirrus Pass in whiteout conditions and strong wind, so much for the forecast saying this afternoon would be clear! DLux went ahead and found a campsite protected from the wind and big enough for 4 tents so we joined him and Ladiesman and set up camp at the incredibly early time of 5:30pm – the earliest KC and I have set up camp since hiking together! 

   
    

    
    
    
 We all ate dinner in our vestibules and tried to warm up, it took me at least an hour to feel warm enough in my still wet tent. I’m really hoping that we’ll wake up to sunshine and blue skies tomorrow because we’ve heard quite a few horror stories these last few days of people trying to cross knife’s edge in gale force winds and white out conditions – reducing them to a crawl on all 4s 😦