Day 4 – return to Grizzly Lake
When I had looked at the forecast ahead of starting the trek, I saw that rain was to be expected on this day. The forecast had been very accurate so far, so I definitely prepared myself for a wet day, hiking back over the Divide pass. At breakfast we chatted with a couple who had crossed from Grizzly that morning, hiking the pass before the rain started. They were going all the way to Talus, and taking a snack break at Divide Lake.
It only took us about 4 hours to hike from Grizzly to Divide on day 2, so we really didn’t have to rush out first thing, and decided to take our time in the morning (although we missed the window of no rain, but that would have been quite an early wake up, which we’re admittedly not the best at). Packing up a tent in the rain is a bit of a process, but we took our time and put the tent in a waterproof bag so it wouldn’t get the rest of our stuff wet in the backpack. At breakfast I made sure to eat enough to avoid feeling low energy like the previous day. We had also planned a few energy bars for the way. I knew having a Naakbar just before starting the climb would help a lot.
Once everything was packed up, we headed out in the rain. We covered the first 4km around the mountain pretty quickly, and had our snack at the bottom of the climb as planned. Brice had told me the day before that if I recorded videos with my phone, he could use them, along with his to make short movie about the trek. So I spent a good portion of the climb making little video clips. It ended up being somewhat entertaining and possibly made the way up a bit easier.
Although to be honest I didn’t find it as challenging as I thought it might be, probably thanks to proper fueling + mental prep. We didn’t hang out too much at the top as it was pretty windy, but turns out the rain had pretty much stopped while we were climbing. I think it only picked up after we started going down.
I was slightly more anxious about the way down, as you walk down muddy trail across a grassy area – all made very slippery with rain (hence the name “Glissade” I guess, which more or less means slip-and-slide in French)
I was pretty cautious going down and was hoping that even without poles it wouldn’t be too slip-slidy, and in the end it wasn’t so bad. Once we were down it was less than 1km to get to the campground. In the end it only took is about 3 hours to hike the 6km this way (vs 4 hours on the way in).
It was still raining when we set up, which also made it a process, but eventually our tent was up, pretty much dry on the inside, and we headed to the cooking tents for the “goûter” (afternoon snack). Then another rest time in the tent before going back out for dinner. I would say the trek was definitely worth it even with mixed weather, the main drawback being that we spent our “rest time” tucked away in the tent to stay warm and dry, while with better weather we might have hung out by the lakes more, or explored the area near the campgrounds – unless, on the flip side warmer weather would have meant hordes of mosquitoes which could be equally as deterring from being outside. At dinner we shared a table with a group of hikers from Whitehorse, who were doing the trek for the first time after a couple of unsuccessful attempts in the past due to weather.
As a side note, I was pretty delighted with our dehydrated meals. We had a selection of Backcountry Pantry, AlpineAire and Happy Yak, and all were very tasty (all around 600 or 700 calories per serving). Outside of meals and energy bars, we had also bought some treats like mini Toblerone and almond/cashew nuts. I wish I’d brought tea and a few more treat choices, always welcome especially when fighting the cold, but ultimately a we did fine.
One more night before heading out. I finished the book I had started on the first night: “Split Tooth”, by Inuit author Tanya Tagaq, a mix of auto-biographical, poetic, mystical- filled novel about a young girl in Nunavut. It was a pretty good match for the dramatic, cold setting we were in, and a captivating read, actually hard to put down. Although a book is added weight, I wasn’t sorry I brought it along, especially given the time we spent in the tent, hiding from the rain.
Day 5 – Hike out
It got pretty cold that night, and we woke up to a dusting of snow on the peaks around us.
We made sure once again to have a good breakfast, including a tasty couscous dehydrated meal (1 portion shared), to get us ready for the 12km hike out.
The tent was wet and our pants were pretty muddy but I still had dry pants, socks and gloves so the day started well. We packed everything and set off for the hike out. When leaving Grizzly lake, there’s a creek crossing that isn’t insignificant. Not deep but rocks are spread out enough that it can be a bit tricky to hop from one to the next. We had gone through it 3 times already without a hitch, but this time, I slipped on a rock and ended up with a leg in the water up to my knee – not ideal in near freezing weather.
Thankfully, my goretex shoes kept most of my foot dry, and somehow, my pants repelled most of the water and my long-johns underneath were quick to dry. I still took a moment to change sock and threw a toe warmer in my shoe to avoid any toes going numb. Sadly my gloves were soaked and I didn’t have another dry pair (I did bring 2 pairs. but the first one was a already wet from the previous day’s hike in the rain. Note to self: next time, bring three pairs). So I resorted to hiking sans gloves, which ended up being fine as the temperature warmed up slightly throughout the day.
We had 12 km to hike back to the parking lot, with the first 7 or 8 a slow incline towards the ridge – We didn’t have much views on the way in on day 1, but the sky was much clearer on the hike out, and we were able to appreciate the views from the ridge, including looking back at Grizzly Lake, which could be seen quite clearly from most of the ridge.
We caught up with Kendra & her mom somewhere along the climb. They were still in good spirit as we said goodbye to them.
The portion on the ridge was quite windy, but warmer than down below so it was a bit tricky to know what layers to keep or remove.
We made couple of stops for snacks and eventually started descending back into the trees. The downhill wasn’t bad, but the last section, relatively flat in the forest, seemed to go on forever, I didn’t remember it being so long but again that was at the very start, on fresh legs.
Finally we made it to the car, all muddy and sweaty from the last section, but pretty pleased to be done. We changed to less muddy clothes and shoes and drove to the visitor center to return the bear cans, then we had to drive the 1.5 hours back to Dawson city.
I was hoping we could find a motel room to spend a night in and have a warm shower. But as we soon found out when we got into town, it was Saturday night and everything was booked. I got a bit annoyed as we’d almost booked a room for that night when we registered for the backcountry trip, but decided against it for some reason I couldn’t remember now.
We drove to a couple of RV parks and landed at the Bonanza Gold Motel and RV park, just outside of town.
Although it wasn’t very glamorous (the tenting area was on gravel near the road), it had showers and laundry. I was still intent on having a night in a bed, and I managed to book a room in the motel for the following night.
Our towels were soaked from drying our gear while in Tombstone, but we were able to rent a couple of towels from the motel office. They were surprisingly nice towels, all warm and fluffy, probably just out of the dryer, and that instantly made me feel way better.
Showers were $1 for 2 minutes. I put in $4 dollars, but 8 min ended up being quite a bit more than I needed. Still it was soooo nice to have a hot shower after 5 days of rain, cold, faint sunshine and more rain.
Once we were all cleaned up we headed to town for dinner. Weirdly, despite all the hotels being full, most restaurants were closed. We came to realize that opening hours in Dawson City were to be taken with a grain of salt, as, in the days and a half that we were there, we came across a few “Sorry we’re closed today” hand-written notes on doors. That night we ended up at the Sourdough lounge, adjacent to the Downtown Hotel, and had post-trek celebratory burgers and fries.
We’d been told that Dawson City had quite the nightlife, but for a Saturday night it seemed pretty tame (although we didn’t venture to the local casino, Diamond Tooth Gertie’s, famous for it’s nightly French Can Can Show). It’s possible the town was still recovering from it’s annual 3-day Discovery Days festival the week before, which apparently is pretty rowdy according to the two of Quebecois guys we’d met while in Tombstone. After dinner we went back to the campground and Brice took advantage of the late daylight to tidy up and reset all the hiking gear, food, etc. while I sat in the tent and finished writing up the tale of our five days of trekking.