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Jen Higgins Fund - 2000
CASCADE INLET:
A month in the mountains with my dinghy.
A group of four men peered down from the wharf overhead. They had congregated to scrutinize our 16 foot vessel. Unfortunately, our outfit inspired little confidence at the time. The mountain of food, mountaineering equipment, and clothing we had spread on the float outsized our vessel considerably.
“So you girls heading to Cascade Inlet, are you?”
The fisherman had heard about our plans. News travels like the wind around Bella Coola’s harbour, and two pig-tailed sailors loading a dingy with a month’s worth of supplies does not go unnoticed.
“Yup, that’s the plan.”
“Where’s your motor?”
“No motor, we’ve got oars.”
“Oars!” They exchanged a chuckle amongst themselves.
Elisa and I were starting to become accustomed to this line of questioning. At least these men were amused by our proposed endeavor. That morning we had been drilled like soldiers by a very concerned fellow about charts, tides, and anchoring. We got the feeling that few were convinced that we were seaworthy but thankfully, a smaller few were willing to dampen our enthusiasm with severe criticism. As we explained that we were off to do a 3 week hiking and mountaineering traverse around an inlet most would just shake their head with a smile on their face and mutter something to the effect of “crazy kids”. We often neglected to mention that in order to complete the traverse, we planned to cross the mouth of the inlet by swimming our packs in a tiny inflatable. We had quickly found out that if you mention the word “inlet” and “swim” in the same sentence to a fisherman, you lose all respect.
Nevertheless, we received lots of helpful advice
about winds, anchorages, and tidal rips. One warning that was continually
repeated was to find shelter before the strong afternoon thermal winds
kicked up daily. Perhaps we should have taken this advice more seriously
when we set off on our first day.
After a morning of rowing hard to get past a section of featureless and
cliffy shoreline, we decided to take advantage of the light breeze that
was filling in and set our sails. While navigating through the maze of
gill-netters that were taking advantage of the open salmon fishery, the
sky down Burke Channel turned nasty. A sick feeling washed through me
as I realized that the water below the growing cloud-bank was frothing
with big breakers. “Quick, lets reef the main.” No time. We
were about to be hit by a squall. We managed to drop the main sail just
as the angry wind hit. Steering an overloaded cabin-less sailboat, with
less than a foot of free-board, in a big swell instills a sense of true
helplessness. Elisa battled with the foresail as I stood straddling the
mess of sails in the cockpit and tried to peer over the next crest as
we surfed into each trough. The waves were much taller than I was, making
looking out for boats and their nets near impossible. Things got hairier
as waves broke over our stern and we took on water. Then, the wind picked
up and the tops of the waves were being blown off, turning the air above
the water white with mist. At last we decided that it was better to get
marooned on some bluffs than to risk sinking out in the middle channel.
But, thanks to the miraculous appearance of a D.F.O. officer named Hank
and a short tow from his zodiak, vessel and crew made it safely into a
nearby cove. Once on shore, Elisa and I exchanged hugs of relief and watched
with apprehension as several waterspouts danced across the channel. We
wondered if our big dream of sailing my tiny boat to the mountains was
going to be feasible. Thinking that we had gotten our butts kicked by
the run-of-the-mill afternoon weather that everyone had warned us so ardently
about, I was pretty ashamed that fishermen had seen our struggle. Unbeknownst
to us, this was actually the worst storm all year. The local newspaper
said it was the worst storm in 25 years! Fifty-two knot winds were recorded
before the measurements were halted by a storm-induced power outage. Even
a couple gillnetters had required rescuing.
We needed to collect our thoughts and reevaluate our plan. A week’s worth of food and the seal on our buoyancy tank had fallen casualty to the storm. We decided we were going to play it safer. Even if this meant that we had to hall our lazy butts out of bed at 3:30 am to get a day’s worth of rowing in before the winds hit. Help wouldn’t be so readily available further out.... or so we thought. It appears that a closer watch was kept on us than we were aware of. We had become quite well known amongst many local fishermen. An eye was kept out for any sightings of “the girls”, and updates of our whereabouts were informally reported over the VHF almost daily. After a crisis-free, sunny, and sometimes downright leisurely 4 days of sailing (we didtched the “row all morning” idea after the first day) we brought the boat up on shore.
While our vessel rested quietly above the tides, half a dozen concerned boaters called the RCMP about its presence. Rumours around the harbour included that we had washed up on the rocks in Cascade Inlet. Someone else thought that our boat had been stolen and hidden. Concerned, the RCMP traced my license plate and phoned my parents in Vancouver. Twice my father had to assure them that nothing was out of order. I was a experienced sailor having instructed for many years and I had spent many summers navigating in the bush doing geological mapping and playing in the mountains. The coast guard was contacted after a report said that a body was hanging in a bag from a tree by our boat! Hank from the D.F.O. was sent to poke the infamous bag. He had a good chuckle when he found our bear-hang of jiffy-pop and other goodies. Elisa and I were totally oblivious to the small commotion that was centered around our welfare because we were busy facing the challenges that the “terrestrial” section of our trip presented.
We cancelled our plans to hike up a food cache at the head of the inlet and decided to swim the mouth of the inlet first. The swim was absolutely exhausting, not because of the distance, but because we were laughing the entire time over how ridiculous we would seem if anyone came across us. Once on the opposite side, climbing the slopes from the water was no easy task either. Granite bluffs often tricked us into heading up gullies only to be cliffed out. After wasting time lugging our heavy packs up several fruitless gullies, we learned to route find first, then double back to our packs. Old growth forest gave way to bluffy scrub bush after the first day. I wish I could recount that the brush then gave way to alpine rock, but vegetation grows thick on just about everything not under snow in the hypermaritime region. We spent the next six days battling bushy seams between steep featureless granite slabs. Hours were spent navigating airy climbs and traverses solely on the branches of pacific yew trees whose gnarled and stubborn branch system often resists fitting a pack through. A couple times I wedged my pack in so firmly that I could have hung quite confidently by it.
Honeysuckle also grew thick over the ridge
system. Countless times we found ourselves hanging by fist-fulls of the
well-rooted plant after our feet had slipped out from underneath us. Once
on top of the rounded summits we would have to wade through chest deep
thickets of yew between rare outcrops of granite. Our progress was slow
and each day I hoped we’d be able to cover more ground. This wasn’t
the open alpine I was anticipating. What I had thought was heather in
the airphotos of the area, obviously wasn’t.
Nonetheless, we were in excellent humour. There is a certain satisfaction
in putting your maximum effort in to reaching a goal. Summers of fieldwork
may have perverted my mind, but I often enjoy a good bushwhack. Also,
we decided that the blackflies were good to keep you moving all day (but
I wish that they had had the decency to let up at night in camp). Besides,
the weather had been immaculate since the storm, the scenery was breathtaking,
and every night we found campsites with awe inspiring views over the inlet
and adjacent mountains.
After 6 days our predicament came to a head,
or rather a head-wall. Across a col the wall we were to climb looked like
it would require sketchy leads without proper rock gear and difficult
hauls of our backpacks. Faced with the knowledge that our progress was
a third of what it had to be to complete the route back to our boat on
the other side of the inlet, I knew this spot was going to be our turn-around
point. However, not wanting to admit defeat just yet, we spent a day trying
to route find up it. Sure enough, the bluff system was too scary to even
climb it without our packs in order to have a look-around. The realization
that we had to back-track through all the bush we had clambered through
was a real blow even though I had known for the past couple days that
this decision was imminent.
Our spirits brightened when we figured out that if we hurried back, we
still had time and food to climb a snowy peak on the other side of the
inlet. We were back at the water’s edge facing the prospect of swimming
across the inlet again within a few days, and spent another 4 days doing
a return trip to the first summit along the ridge system.
While sailing home I mourned the fact that
we didn’t complete the traverse. I had been planning this trip for
so long, and had been enthralled with the aesthetics of linking the traverse
to sailing my dinghy.
Returning to Bella Coola was like a homecoming of sorts. For several days
before we arrived, several fishing boats came over to say hello and ask
about our little adventure. One kind man came over and gave us two big
Dungeness crabs. He suspected that we would appreciate fresh meat. The
salmon fishery was open again the day we came into the harbour, and we
had to navigate the gill nets once more. Fishermen on boats we didn’t
recognize came out on deck to wave hello. There was a significant contrast
between this greeting and the cordial nods we received a month ago as
we were embarking on our trip. On the docks we were probed about our adventure
and made fun of for being caught in “Windy Monday’s”
storm. That evening we were invited to watch the day’s catch unload
on a packer, and then generously offered dinner and a cabin complete with
a television and private shower on a cruise boat. As local concern and
curiosity about our where-abouts became apparent, a warm sense of pride
bubbled up inside both Elisa and I. We had gotten the taste of an unvisited
area, and discovered the rewards and challenges that this entails. Also,
sailing my little dinghy to the mountains had been a success! During the
drive back home to Vancouver my mind was full of places I could visit
next with my little sailboat. Hmmm,….I hear the Alaskan coast has
beautiful peaks,…. The Sea of cortez has great sea-side climbing,
and …… I wonder how much it cost to ship my boat to Patagonia!
This trip would not have been possible without a grant from the Jen Higgins Fund of the Alpine Club of Canada, and the heart-warming encouragement of the Higgins family.
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