Log Three: The Wild Side
The Witch’s Tit
I woke to Julie singing my name, “Lily. Lily. Lily, can I borrow your charger? My phone is about to die.” I opened my eyes to complete darkness, my hat still pulled over them, my muscles tense from being cold all night. It felt good to relax them as I pushed myself up and out of my sleeping bag, in a sad attempt to get warm I had burrowed far into my bag as if it were a den. I sat up and freed my eyes from my beanie, and croaked, “Good Morning” as I dug around for my battery pack.
Alissa in her bivy
note how flat the chilkat inlet is
After a terrible night’s sleep, morning was a relief and despite the lack of sleep I felt very awake. I crawled out of my tent and stood in the sun until I felt warmed all the way through. It didn’t take long, the sun was already very warm and I wondered what time it was. The sun’s heat suggested mid-morning, yet the summer sun rises early and we were perfectly opposite its position in the sky. I stood facing the sun, eyes closed, pondering the time though it didn’t matter. All the ladies were slowly moving from their various sleeping systems to our kitchen area for coffee, a bite to eat and the view of the Rainbow Glacier.
That morning was much cloudier than the previous day, though most of the clouds gathered in a layer far below our campsite. Several times, as we sat around enjoying our slow morning and several cups of coffee each, a higher cloud drifting slowly and silently north, contouring to the mountain side, enveloped us. For for those few moments, surrounded by white fog with a chilly and dam touch, time stood still and I was in awe of being in the Alaskan wilderness, drinking coffee inside a cloud, a dream.
The Way Up
We left God’s Camp and headed further up the mountain with no objective, I think at this point we all knew that we wouldn’t make it up the Witch’s Tit, maybe due to time, maybe due to the technicality of the climb, maybe due to a lack of gear or the composition of the group, maybe based on the previous day’s hike. Whatever the reason it didn’t matter, we were all here for a good time and thats what we were going to have.
We criss crossed large patches of snow separated by fields of rocks, taking our Kahtoolas on and off, but it wasn’t long before we reached the bowl. A half circle of rock peaks rose up all around us, free of snow and looking very mighty. Looking up at the Witch’s Tit I laughed to myself, there was no way we were going up there.
Instead, Julie and Alissa proposed a different route to a part of the ridge that was to the left of where they are standing in the photograph below. What we all wanted more than to bag a summit was a view over the Rainbow Glacier.
Unfortunately, I didn’t get a great photo of what happened when we started up this massive bank of snow to reach the ridge above, but it was so epic I will try and do the scene justice:
As we were hiking up, kicking our feet into the snow with each step, slowly making our way up, someone yelled out and we all looked up. At the top of the ridge stood a massive mountain goat, backlight by the sun. His stance was mighty, giving off king of the mountain vibes and most epic of all was the clouds of breath surrounding his head as he stood his ground. It was a Planet Earth worthy scene and one of those animal encounters that is so magical it must be a totem, a message, a synchronicity, a sign.
The Ridge
Climbing up the snow was fun, it was perfectly inclined to make it challenging but very safe. Falling would have meant a long slide down the snow back into the bowl below. One by one we reached the ridge, where the mighty mountain goat had stood looking down as us.
The snowy side we climbed up felt even more safe when compared to the other side of this ridge, a sheer drop with the Rainbow Glacier far below. In the photograph above Julie heads up to our summit, the peak in the far right corner of the image. Along the way white tufts of mountain goat fur and depressions in the ground suggested this was where the mountain goat and his family bedded down.
Our Summit
The view from our day’s summit was incredible. We could see the expansion of the Rainbow Glacier reaching far back into these mountains, meeting a field of ice that probably continues all the way to Glacier Bay.
This spot was so inspiring we spent a good while joking about continuing up the ridge line, across the glacier and a few weeks later arriving at Glacier Bay National Park, which we would have all to ourselves since the usual stampede of tourism was on hold this year.
The Witch’s Tit is the highest peak on the right
In the photograph above, the crew is hanging out on this flat section that is a campsite. A ring of rocks with evidence of campfire suggests some people had camped up there this summer.
The Way Down
It was hard to leave behind the views from this ridge, but at some point one of the ladies made the call to head down. We made it back to God’s Camp where we had a little lunch before packing up and heading down the mountain. If you remember, we lost the trail in the first few minutes of our hike the day before, so I was looking forward to see where we had gone wrong.
After a few hours of clambering down the steep trail, we ran into a family of mountain goats, two mammas each with a kid, all starkly white in the lush green forest. They were heading up the trail, maybe back to their home on the ridge, I felt a slight tinge of envy of their beautiful home, maybe in my next life I will be a mountain goat. Running into them explained the mysterious maintenance of this trail, it is a game trail. I wonder if the mountain goats travel up and down the mountain every day, and what do they come down for?
After the mountain goats we came to the part of the trail that explained where we had gone wrong the day before. At the very beginning of the trail, maybe 20 feet from the beach there are three different paths leading up this steep bit of typography, a step or shelf, it is hard to describe. We took the middle option and then ended up bushwhacking for the next 45 minutes. However, taking the first option, it barely looks like a path and you don’t want it to be the way because it doesn’t look fun, will connect you to the mountain goat trail and take you all the way up the mountain…in case you ever find yourself here, on the wild side.