Day 12 - August 29: The Gate

We woke up in the morning, and it was foggy.  But by the time we got on the water, the fog had lifted, and it was STILL SUNNY.

The river was now faster and more exciting, so opportunities to take pictures were fewer.  However, we still managed, and on our trek through Third Canyon, we continued to not see any wildlife bigger than a goose (and there were definitely no sheep).

Third Canyon is pretty awesome, by the way.

Our site at The Gate that night was Heather's favourite site on the trip.  She found a cool rock full of fossils right behind her tent!

And... Pulpit Rock gets the awesome opportunity to spend its life hanging out in the middle of the Nahanni River.

Gord, Jim, Luke, and Heather's mom ventured up to the top of The Gate to see Pulpit Rock from the top.  But, since I didn't go, I can't possibly be in a picture, and I have already exceeded today's quota of pictures not featuring me.  But Gord threw a rock off the top, and it took a good couple seconds to hit the river, which was pretty incredible.

The day ended with a sunset (have I mentioned that it was sunny for the second day in a row?) that we couldn't really see since there were some mountains and a canyon in the way.

Day 11 - August 28: Clearwater Creek

The next morning we woke up, Sundblood Mountain had disappeared.  Seriously.

Before:

After:

We wanted to get a fairly early start to the day so we could finish portaging all our gear and still have some time to enjoy the waterfall (and be warned, what follows are a LOT of pictures of a waterfall).

The fog was obscuring essentially everything at first, but you could still see a large mass of water falling over a rather high shelf (it's around 90 m, in case you were wondering.  Virginia Falls is almost always referred to as "Virginia Falls, twice as high as Niagara" in books, but that's not quite true, since Niagara Falls is 52 m high.  Virginia Falls is twice as high if you count the Sluice Box, though).

But then... THE SUN CAME OUT!  And... it stayed out for the REST OF THE DAY.

Also, there was a rainbow over the waterfall and it was very pretty.

After lunch at the bottom of the falls, we headed out into the first big white water of the trip.  We paddled through Fourth Canyon (about 5 km) in about 5 minutes, making a brief stop to look at the canyon walls.

At some point, Heather's mom stopped paying attention, and they nearly ended up going for a long, cold, and unpleasant swim.  Luckily, that was not the case, since Heather saved them.  It was a very close call, though; Dan thought for sure they would end up rather more wet than they wanted to (apparently human beings are not huge fans of cold water, what's the deal with that?).

This is not where Heather and her mom almost tipped.  It's just a pretty picture.  

The rapids weren't too intense, since the Nahanni seems to contain a serious lack of rocks.  They were pretty fun to shoot though; since you didn't need to worry about hitting anything, you could go through some very big waves.

Our site that night was Clearwater Creek, where we all took advantage of the sun to dry out some of our very soggy clothing.

There was also a nice little pond hiding out in the back of the gravel bar.  Sleeping on a gravel bar was actually proving to be surprisingly comfortable.

A nice little rock nest that someone collected rounded things off quite nicely.  It was very colourful, and almost exactly the right size for me!

Day 10 - August 27: Virginia Falls

Clearing off turned out to be an illusion, so we started our hike up Sunblood Mountain with overcast and gloomy looming in the air.

As we climbed the mountain, it started raining.  It also wasn't particularly warm, and it was generally unpleasant. But the view was really nice!

The higher up we got, the worse the weather got.  When we stopped for lunch, there was a pretty consistent drizzle.

And then we saw a ptarmigan!  At around that point, it started sleeting.

At the top of the mountain, it was snowing.  If you squint really hard, you can see the snowflakes.  It would have been extremely awesome to have been at the top of that mountain in the sunshine, but instead it was snowing.  Unfortunately, the snow wasn't staying on the ground, so we couldn't even throw snowballs. (You can see the snow if you squint really hard)

For some mysterious reason, there are benches made of rocks at the top of Sunblood Mountain.  Once again, you can see the snow if you squint.

Also, when the park wardens had climbed the mountain the day before, they said they saw sheep.  But we did not, so our sheep count remained at zero (Gord REALLY wanted to see a sheep, and every time we stopped on the river he'd pull out his binoculars and look at another white rock in the hopes that one would move).

In the afternoon, we took a load of food and boats over the portage to make our life easier the next day, and we got our first view of Virginia Falls from the bottom.  Everyone was too tired to really appreciate it much, since a six hour hike followed by a 1.5 km portage is not really great.  Also, Heather didn't take any pictures, so you'll all have to wait until day 11 rolls around to get nice waterfall pictures.  But about 75% of the portage trail is boardwalk, so it wasn't terribly challenging until the last 25% or so, when it got very steep and slippery and wet.

In the evening, we had a campfire with the park wardens, and Mike (one of the wardens who's Dene and lived off the land with his parents for 25 years) told lots of cool stories.  Also, he told us how he built a raft using only sticks (and no rope), and Heather really wants to try it now.

Day 9 - August 26: Virginia Falls

When we woke up, it was still cloudy.  It was actually starting to look like we would be paddling the entire river without seeing the sun.  It was another fairly long and uneventful day.  We took a (very) brief side trip to an oxbow lake for a snack; that was very marshy.

The river was really slow, but the views were really awesome.  There were some very excellent alluvial fans (and for you non-rock nerds, those are the big triangles in the mountains).

We got to the Virginia Falls campground eventually.  That campground is a VERY impressive piece of infrastructure.  All of the paths are boardwalks; I feel for the dudes who built those boardwalks.  Apparently it cost 2.5 million dollars to build, and repairs need to happen every year because they forgot about permafrost.

Before supper, we went on a journey to the top of the falls.  Right before the waterfall, there's a class 5 crazy rapid known as the Sluice Box.  Dan told us a story about a guide from another outfitter who nearly went down that rapid while trying to rescue a canoe.  If you were to go down that rapid, you would also be going down Virginia Falls, and then you would probably not be alive anymore.

Between the top of the Sluice Box and the bottom of the waterfall, there is a 117 m drop in elevation.  Also, there is a rock in the middle of the waterfall that they call Mason's Rock, since there is a picture of Bill Mason sitting on top of it.  How he got there is beyond me (Heather's mom speculated that it was likely in a helicopter).

We were having a layover day at Virginia Falls, and the sun decided to come out, giving us hope that maybe the next day would be nice.

There was going to be an optional hike up Sunblood Mountain during the layover day, and before we went to bed it LOOKED like it might even be a nice hike with good weather and stuff.  Here is Sunblood Mountain: