Nicoli Creek to the Nizina River

It was literally freezing out when we woke up, Caitlin's shoes were so frozen she couldn't even get them on. As we were packing up I decided that we needed to have a fire. It was awesome, we defrosted some key items and stayed warm while we ate breakfast. Then it was back to bushwhacking.

Awesome Tree Burl

 

The next 4 hours were pretty brutal. It took us 2 hours to go one mile. The conditions alongside the creek deteriorated into an unrelenting alder pit. We climbed under, over, and through so many trees, crisscrossed the stream multiple time because it always looked better everywhere else than where we were. Finally we hit the ridge and started to gain some elevation, unfortunately trees in this particular valley grow up to about 4,200ft. When both our patience levels were maxed out we finally escaped tree line, and the views made it entirely worth it.

Caitlin on the Ridge

 

The way we thought we were going to descend to the river looked better on the map than in reality, and so we decided to try a less bushy, shorter, and potentially steeper route, but we both thought it was worth the risk, we in reality we didn't know if the other way would let us out either. Steep cliffs line the Nizina for a quite a ways, and one local told us it was impassable...but he hadn't tried.

Our Shadows

 

So with a little trepidation we started to descend. There was an awesome bear trail that took us about 2,500+ feet down, then the natural features ie cliffs steered us the rest of the way. We popped out of the trees right on the river, luckily there was a small gravel bar around the corner and we stayed the night...

Just a Little More Bushwhacking

 

Awesome day out, full of challenges and anticipation of the unknown, but we made it through and we were both ecstatic to not still be bushwhacking in the fading light.



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