Not quite sunny, but not quite rainy- and while we didn’t even come close to getting flooded out (phew!) the water had come up another foot. We both slept terribly as we kept waking up to logs and large ice chunks grinding on the rocks along the river bank ten yards from the tent. Time to go!
We packed the gear, donned the dry suits, and began the arduous slog along yesterday’s path. Between the sun yesterday and the rain last night, it was a hideous mix of slush, water over ice, and half-rotten snow. This wasn’t what dry suits were designed for (or rocks paddles) but every time I took a step and cracked through into icy water of unknown depth while carrying 50+ pounds of gear, I was pretty damned glad to have one on.
The first trip was our portage packs, and the second was the food and loose odds and ends; this was a “smaller” load but just as heavy and more wobbly. This was AWESOME on snow that continued to deteriorate as the day went on. It’s a real bitch to crawl through a nest of scrubby trees, see a big open patch, think “oh yay, I can take five easy strides” and punch through up to your waist on the second step because the sun melted the path.
Right before the next rapids is a sharp bend in the river with a big eddy, and over the last few days it’d been a series of thick ice shelves suspended among the trees with a few feet of space underneath. It’d been creepy/beautiful then, but now that the water rose the space between ground and ice shelf is full of river and the ice had turned to slush on top of what solid parts remained. Debris from the river was grinding against the edge. We gave it as wide a berth as we could, but even that meant skirting the inland edge.
New camp is on a bluff of evergreens over the bend in the river. We’re well out of flood range (which is good, since the water has now come up about five feet since we pulled out) and close to a stream for easy water. It’s more open here, we have a good tarp/tent setup, and we should be able to bear bag well and hang out comfortably for a few days while the water recedes.
All told we’ve still only done MAYBE four miles of paddling. The water continues to rise and is going WAY too fast to safely shove off, and there’s a good chance we’ll be here for several days waiting for things to settle down. It’s frustrating watching the days tick by and knowing that with each one our chances of making Halifax are that much slimmer; we both wanted to make it there SO badly, but with this particular set of conditions we can’t risk it. We’d be putting our lives (and the canoe) in danger for no reason other than pride and stubbornness.
It sucks, but we can’t paddle if we’re dead.
