bcborder
Member
Hampshire said:
We had hoped to camp at Turtle Hill which is maybe an hours hike from the river, then cross early in the morning. It was tough going through the tundra though: the "trail" from McGonagall pass was hard to follow in places, there were many wet (water to the calf) and brushy sections, the mosquitos were brutal and we were still mostly all pulling sleds through the dirt, rocks and brush.
From our last camp on Cache Creek, we got to the river about 5:00 in the afternoon. This is not usually the best time to ford a glacier fed river; however, it was a mostly cloudy day with temps in the 50's and there hadn't been much rain or snow in the past couple days. The river level appears to fluctuate substantially over relatively short periods of time. When we got there it was maybe mid-level but the mud and vegetation indicated that very recently it had been a lot higher and probably uncrossable.
The water is ice cold and very silty. Anything it touches is instantly dirty. I spent three weeks on the mountain without changing my clothes and I didn't really feel dirty until I crossed the river.
It took us about two hours to cross. We spent a fair amount of time scouting the various channels from sandbars. We also needed several breaks to warm our feet. I'd say we probably crossed 15 different channels on the way across the river, the majority of them had fast current but only knee deep water. 5 or 6 channels were waist deep water with strong current and perhaps 50 feet across. For these, we all linked arms, faced upstream, and inched across together. These channels would have been very hard to cross alone and one guy fell just as we were finishing crossing one of these and was swept 20 feet downstream. Fortunately he was washed on to the destination sandbar and didn't lose his pack.
The guides have crossed the river in nipple deep water and also seen it uncrossable. It wasn't the crux of the descent for us but it was definitely a big hurdle.
