After breakfast, we started the morning with a water taxi ride to the Grace Ridge Trailhead. Along the way we saw two puffins in the distance. We also went by Gull Island that was of course full of gulls and murres . Two bald eagles stood watch. When one of the eagles
started to fly, all the other birds went into defensive motion. The Merrs skimmed just along the water and the gulls flew high. It was quite a spectacle. We were dropped off at Sadie Cove Landing. When we hiked, the weather was rain off and on all day. Under the thicker tree canopy we stayed relatively dry, but in other places the trail was wet and slick. Just after I took off my raincoat, I fell sliding “up” an incline on the trail. I got full of mud. With zero traction for me to move myself up, Drew, our guide, pulled me up with my pole. I then commented, “I wonder how I’ll manage that going downhill on the way back.” We hiked through the forest and then above the tree line. I wasn’t sure I would’ve finished hiking the whole 4.5 miles with a 3200 elevation gain and the back down in the 8 hours allocated. So when Alan and I reached 2400 feet of elevation gain and about 4 miles, we opted to stop there and start to head down on our own as the other hikers went for the top ridge line. We felt plenty safe on our own to start back down because Alan had a gps emergency beacon should we run into trouble until the other hikers caught back up to us. Alan also had his trusty bear bell, his best horn , and two tour supplied cans of bear spray. We went slowly down, so they did catch up to us. However, not before I reached that downhill muddy spot. It didn’t go well. I was halfway through that section and I slipped again, but this time I went backwards with my foot caught underneath me in the wrong direction, injuring my ankle. We had cell signal on the mountain, so Alan texted our guide. Because they had already closed the gap so much, they were with us in just a few minutes. Our guide, did an outstanding job wrapping my ankle and stabilizing my foot so I could walk out of the woods. What took everyone else about an hour to finish the hike took me about 3 hrs and twenty minutes. Without Alan’s help and encouragement, I don’t think I could have made it. We missed the scheduled water taxi back to our cabins, but Drew arranged for the cabin owners to pick us up. Unbeknownst to Alan and I, Drew had packed two cans of our beers in his pack so we could celebrate the longest hike of our trip. Those celebratory beers had a whole new meaning!! It was a long day; I iced my foot and took a few tylenol with plans to go to a clinic the next day.
The view from outside our cabin.
The bald eagle sitting amongst the gulls and murres.
Jellyfish on the beach where we disembarked for our hike.
Along the trail.
We made it to the snow line!
