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Aug 26th Erin’s Cafe

Erin had a brief break between classes (shes headed for her CPA in September, so send some good vibes), so we decided to take a long weekend off of work and head into the mountains, along with our dog, Jasper.

One of my favorite restaurants is Erin’s Cafe. It’s a bit hard to get to and its always moving around, but the food and the atmosphere are hard to beat. The Chef is cute too. This time, I was informed the Cafe would be popping up in Willmore Wilderness Park. We drove there and started hiking in, our first meal was lunch, a light snack, if you will, of dried fruits, nuts, and a hint of chocolate (regular trail mix with the addition of almonds and dried apricots), our lunch dessert was chocolate drizzled over nougat and peanuts in bar form (snickers) it was delicious. The hike in was fraught with rain and river crossings, the deepest being somewhere just below knee height which did require me to carry my dear companion, Jasper. He was less than impressed with the idea. I, on the other hand, was really enjoying myself, I had never really hiked in a heavy rain before and found that it was not the hindrance I thought it would be. Turns out having a good raincoat and rain cover for your pack works as well as advertised. We also got very lucky and didn’t have to set up our tent in the rain as it died down just before we got to our campsite.

At the end of our 20km hike in, we set up our hotel room (tent) and I watched the expert chef prepare the first supper of the trip, a single course meal of Rotini with fettuccine sauce and summer sausage. Literally just boiled noodles, with a pack of knorr soup mix and some cubed summer sausage, it was good but made me… flatulent. After supper entertainment was conversation around a campfire. The sky was overcast and threatening to start raining again, we laid our gear out to try and dry it a bit, but shortly after supper, it started to rain. We retreated to our tent, read our books and went to sleep. Jasper curled up in Erin’s sleeping bag with her.

 

Day two, breakfast was a medley of fruit, granola, milk, and some hints of chocolate. It was granola cereal with dried fruit, chocolate chips, and dehydrated milk (it works great, just add water and go). We then proceeded to hike up a mountain on the south side of the pass. On top of the mountain, we found some sheep sign (poop) but no sheep. We were fortunate enough to spot a ptarmigan, it was the first time I had seen one. Once on top of the mountain, I glassed around and we decided to go down and back up the next one to have a look around. Besides the view, it seems all there was to see was a curious marmot. We stopped for a repeat of lunch, complete with another snickers bar, and then headed back to our base camp. On the route back we spotted 7 marmots in a group, two of whom were wrestling each other, must have been brothers. Once back at camp I looked at the menu and ordered the garlic mashed potatoes with summer sausage with an extra dash of olive oil. It was powdered garlic mashed potatoes that Erin made, she then added a bit of olive oil for calories, some Parmesan cheese and again some summer sausage, it is one the best meals I have ever eaten… it is very likely my hunger made me bias.  The day concluded with us sitting around a campfire. I took an occasional break to look at the mountains with my binoculars in a vain attempt to see wildlife. That night I decided to try and let Jasper cuddle up with me. It turns out we are both too fat to share a sleeping bag. I ended up stuck on my left side all night, I barely slept and awoke with a sore shoulder.

 

Day 3, we looked for a trail up a mountain on the north side of the pass but were unsuccessful. We instead did a lengthy walk through the valley. It was a nice and gentle walk on a nice wide trail. Which was just too simple for Erin and I so we attempted to blaze a trail through the bush… It didn’t go well, but Erin did find a huge morel mushroom. We gave up on blazing the trail and headed back to our base camp, the way we came in. We made it back to camp and for supper enjoyed conchiglie pasta noodles with an amazing cheddar sauce and just a hint of summer sausage… We just packed in some macaroni and cheese and added the remainder of our cubed summer sausage. For dessert, in honor of Erin’s late grandfathers birthday, we had a lavacake and shot of whiskey. The lava cake was just a dehydrated one from the camping store and we packed in my flask. It was all quite good. We then had another campfire and sat around a chatted. I filled up our water bottles from the stream and then we went to bed.

Day 4, the last day, we got up a little bit earlier than usual and packed up our camp. We more or less retraced our trail in, this time the weather was amazing and the barefoot river crossings were more refreshing than torturous. That said, I found that the blisters I had started to develop at the end of day 3 were starting to really ripen during the walk out. We stopped along the trail around 9 am for some breakfast as I prefer not to eat immediately after waking up, I find it upsets my stomach. On the last, and widest river crossing, I decided to just let my boots soak, they were already quite soggy as I had to cross the rivers barefoot and my feet didn’t dry completely before putting my boots back on, so over time they got wet. This decision was likely a mistake as my now sopping wet boots really made my blisters come to life. Blisters are a rarity for me, typically my feet are very forgiving. On one of our stops, Erin was kind enough to bandage my foot for me… Hey, this cafe has a nurse too!… wait, I hope she washes her hands before preparing food. We finally limped our way to the trail-head, Jasper immediately ran under the car to get in the shade. Erin and I changed out of our sweaty clothes and I began working the water pump in the parking lot, after a few minutes I started to think maybe it’s just decorative, as nothing was happening. A stroke before my surrender, I heard that unmistakable sound of water coming up the well. It was ice cold, I pumped it while Erin splashed some on her face, then we switched.. it may be the most refreshing experience of my life, that ice cold well water helped peel the layers of sunscreen and bug spray off my sweaty face. Glad I didn’t give up on pumping.

We loaded our gear and our dog into the hot car, rolled the windows down and headed out. Erin had to drive because I was too burnt out and my feet hurt. We stopped for pizza on the way home and it was everything I thought it would be. Erin calculated all our walking, we did 72km total those four days… no wonder Jasper was so tired out, what a trooper.

 

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