Recovery

Day 8 - August 23rd, 1997

It was an ugly day.   Grant and I decided to head back down to Glacier Lake.  We had left some extra food down there and Grant wanted to pick up his tripod.  We decided that we wouldn't be doing any more climbing in the cirque, so we could ferry all the climbing gear (ropes, harnesses, rack, etc.) down on this trip.  That would lighten our final load considerably.  The hike was uncomfortable,  my knee began to bother me again, and I was still tired from the climb.  Grant and I had decided that since we had completed the climb, we had earned the right to blubb as much as we liked.  I seized the opportunity.

Down at the lake, we met the three climbers from the US.  They were waiting for the plane.  They were completely out of food, and they had been at the lake for over 24 hours.  Needless to say, they were feeling a little hungry and bored.  They were really nice guys, and we sat with them on the beach for a good 2 hours.  We shared our extra food with them, and they brewed some coffee for us.  We also exchanged stories about the Tower climb.  It was so much fun to sit there and share stories.  We threw Grants disc (firsbee) around a bit, I got nailed in the head.  We told them to pass the message on to the pilot that we were to be picked up on the 26th after lunch.

It took us three hours to hike back up to our camp that afternoon. 

Day 9 to 12 - August 24th, 25th, 26th and 27th, 1997

The 24th and 25th were spent exploring other areas of the cirque, hiking up mountains, photographing the sights, reading, eating, sleeping and recovering.  We met another group of American climbers, they ended up finishing the climb in one day on the 25th I think.  It was a long day for them, 21 hours from bottom to top and down again.  They were a strong team.  We have some photos of them on the wall, I'll have to make sure that they get them. They too felt that the climb had pushed their limits.  I filled my spare time reading a Tom Robbins Book, "Skinny legs and all", good book.

The next day the weather was glum again but we got the energy together to do a load run back to the lake. We scuttled off down the tallus, no mean feat after the previous days exertions. The tallus was just as we remembered it and Mark did a saulto down near the bottom when a boulder moved on him and then threatened to squash him where he landed. Disaster was averted but I think the tallus field was probably the most dangerous part of the whole trip. We got to the lake and found the Americans still there and completely out of food. We gave them some of our spare food in return for tricks. Sit boy sit.

 Well not really but we did trade them for some great brews of coffee and then sat around chewing the fat again. The hike back up to the cirque took a bit over half as long as it did when we did the big haul on the first day. We were only carrying a bit of food and some camera gear. We also took a different line through the tallus and came across a great patch of ripe raspberries - there goes an hour.

We spent the next couple of days drifting around in the cirque taking photos and generally relaxing and enjoying this beautiful little meadow.

Early on the 26th, Grant and I packed up our camp and headed back down the valley towards Glacier Lake.  We arrived at the lake at noon and found to our surprise, four beers waiting for us in the shack courtesy of the pilot.  We expected the plane to arrive mid-afternoon. 

The sun set at about 9:30 PM that night and still no plane.  We unpacked our sleeping bags and our stove and our food, and had dinner.  We were wondering what had happened to our plane?  I slept a full 13 hours that night.  At 11 am on the 27th, I got out of my sleeping bag, and began building  a dam to divert the river that flowed outside the shack we had slept in.  It was so quiet, and so boring.  There was a fishing rod in the shack and that entertained me until I lost the lure.

But the plane did come that day.  At 2:00 PM on the 27th, about 24 hours late, we heard the buzz of the beavers engine.  They couldn't pick us up yesterday because they had engine trouble.  We loaded onto the plane.  Our pilot this time was Warren.  He is one of the joint owners of the hunting lodge we stopped at on the way in to Glacier Lake.  He had a friend with him called Sam.  We took off, the ground dropped away, and we had a new perspective on the area that had been our universe over the last week.  We flew out over glaciers, we took a bit of a detour  because Warren was giving his pal Sam a tour of the area.  I think Warren is a bit of a showoff, he did some pretty hair raising moves with his plane. We swooped over heather clad hills, and through steep valleys, we flew by a Caribou standing on the top of a hill, it had a huge rack of antlers on its head.  There were a couple of times that my stomach felt like it had moved up to my mouth.

Warren took us to Inconnu Lodge. We spend the rest of the day there, and a good portion of the next day.  It got a bit boring, but we weren't going to complain.  We ate excellent food, played pool, read some books, sat in the hot tub, took long showers, and generally lived it up a little.

Day 13 - 17 - August 28th to Sept. 1st, 1997

We were dropped off at Finlayson lake at about 3 PM, we loaded our gear into the car, and noticed that we had a flat tire!  but that was OK because we had a spare, one of those little shit tires that are hardly good enough for paved roads, let alone 250 km of dirt highway.  Well, it was another epic driving back to Watson Lake but we made it. 

We took our time going back to Vancouver.  We actually took a bit of a detour, and drove through Jasper and Lake Louise.  We even did another climb at castle Junction, it was a 10 pitch affair, but nowhere nearly as intense as the Lotus Flower Tower.  We arrived back in Vancouver on the 1st of September.

We packed up our stuff and headed off down to the lake two days ahead of schedule. It may have been nice to do some more climbing, but when we tried some bouldering we found we were exhausted in minutes. The LFT had taken more out of us than expected. We headed down the tallus for the last time past a mountain goat and her kid. We got down to the lake and expected the plane to roll up that afternoon, but the skies remained quiet until the next afternoon. There was however beer waiting for us at the lake and this made up for a lot. The flight out was a fun one with the pilot flying low over and around the local hills. The vegetation had really changed colour and it was all beautiful yellows and reds and browns. We had had the first frost just two nights ago up in Fairy meadows. We then over-nighted at the lodge and got cleaned up before we flew back to the car parked at the edge of the lake near the gravel road in the middle of nowhere. Fiasco 97 was coming to a successful conclusion, but I will carry the memory with me for the rest of my days. Thanks to a great partner - Mark - and the smiling Gods.

Now what shall I do for Fiasco 98??