8/2/03 - Hike
Rain in the morning so we sleep late. we choose pancake breakfast to use up some of our copious leisure time. The pancakes are served with blue berries and cottage cheese (both rehydrated) and plenty of maple syrup.
The weather clears and we decide to hike up a near by hill. This has not been an easy decision. Everything is further and taller than it looks and much of the ground less pleasant hiking than one would expect. But we have camped here explicitly because the river bends near the hills. In another day or two of paddling we will be out of the upper river and easy hiking.
Sean changes into his sneakers and as he sits down to put on gaiters he explains that he figures that with some care he he can keep his feet mostly dry. I have doubts about the practicability of this on the tundra but know for certain that he'll never make it across the river. I point this out and it destroys his plan. He changes back to his large rubber boots. The tundra turns out to be very wet - he would not have made it with dry feet even if there was no river. Part way up he turns to me and explains that he thought the time of rubber boots was past but now he knows they still have a place in the world.
We hike up a ridge which gives us a view of the valley, cross a small hump, and descend to a valley behind then take that back down to camp. We are gone about 5:45 and climb about 2,500 ft.
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Returning to our gravel bar Sean wades a creek that looks shallow enough but the bottom turns out to be soft. His boots sink in and the water flow over the top.