Day 7: Saturday, August 19th
We woke the next morning feeling way better than any of the previous days. Dad had taken some ibuprofen the night before and woke up feeling great. Just a few bruises, but no worse for the wear. When we got out of the tent in the morning, we were both surprised by the incredibly thick fog/low clouds. We decided to try our luck fishing again down at the lake and walked down to the shore. It was a pretty cool sight with the waterfall literally coming out of the clouds. I wish my photos would have turned out a little better. Please excuse all of my photos from today. After yesterdays dunk in the lake, my camera started acting up today and had some trouble focusing properly. It would only get worse throughout the day.
It was still pretty cold, but we had some quick luck and immediately hooked a couple more trout. Unfortunately, one of the ones I caught took the hook pretty deep. I actually got it out fairly easily, but he was bleeding bad and just floated in the water for a while. I was hoping he'd recover, but I decided if not, I'd clean it and have some trout with my morning eggs. But luckily, after 10 minutes or so, he seemed to liven up and swam away.
After packing up, we had some breakfast and hit the trail again. The trail was really overgrown along Olson creek, so there wasn't a lot of scenery. However, we were noticing a ridiculous amount of berries. Some of which I recognized, but others I had no idea about. Eventually, I started taking some pictures of the different types as we hiked. Perhaps a few of you can help identify?
Berry 1: (Mountain Ash)
Berry 2: (Mountain Ash)
Berry 4: (Blue Bead Lily)
Berry 5:
Berry 6: (Red Baneberry)
Berry 7: (Thimbleberry)
Berry 8:
Berry 9: (Service Berry/Saskatoon Berry/June Berry)
Eventually we made it to Lake Janet. We took a quick break to try some fishing on the eastern side of the lake where it looked a little deeper, but didn't have any luck. While hanging around, we did get startled by a pretty large deer that came walking down the trail. We both came eye to eye before it panicked and bolted - being that close, it was a surprise when he took off. While we didn't get any fish, at least the clouds had cleared and we had some good views back up the valley.
Heading on, the terrain begins to change more and more. Somewhere in this area we ran into one of the first groves of birch trees we had seen. It really seemed out of place in the forest. I love birch trees, so of course I snapped a quick picture.
Almost immediately after we got our first view of Waterton Lake and Goat Haunt, we ran into a hiker coming up the trail. We said hello as we walked towards each other and I though he looked pretty familiar? I yelled out, "Paul, is that you?" And yes, we finally found Paul! We had talked a few weeks ago, and even messaged just before we started our hikes, in case either of us had permit trouble and wanted to join up on our trips. But fortunately we both got our permits and we ended up crossing paths half way in. We chatted for a bit and got some good information on where to find the best water at the lake before heading on.
When we got to Goat Haunt, we checked in with the customs agents, quickly stashed our packs in the bear box by the customs station and then headed over to enjoy actual plumbing. After cleaning up, we headed back over to the customs station just as two boats were arriving. We grabbed our food and set up for some lunch in the large covered picnic area. I believe it was here that I found my new favorite backcountry lunch. I had packed in a package of flour tortillas, some tuna packets, some small miracle whip packets, some hot sauce, and red pepper flakes. It made for a great spicy tuna wrap! And since we had an opportunity to drop our trash before leaving, we snacked on some extra granola bars, beef jerky, and gatorade. As I was carrying all of the trash for the previous 5 days, I think I lost about 2 pounds from my pack!
While we were eating, we watched the boats take turns dropping people off and the flood of tourists making their way around the lake sure. Pretty soon, people started venturing out on the pier and getting into the customs boat. The agents working there started yelling like crazy to get off the boat, but either the people on the dock couldn't hear, or didn't speak english. So group after group kept climbing on board to get their picture taken while these armed men were getting pissed. Eventually one ran down there and yelled at them to get out and people finally figured out it's probably not a great idea to just climb aboard a government vessel.
When the boats were pulling out, another was coming in. I wanted to get some photos of all of the boats at once, but when I tried my camera, I found that it had completely stopped working. The focus had been getting worse and worse, and now I just got a "Focus Error" and the camera would shut down. Unfortunate, but it was a really old camera (thus the crappy photos, sorry guys). In truth, I'm a bit of an amateur photographer and had brought along a 5Dii with a 14mm f/2.8 lens and tripod to do some milky way photography. I was really looking forward to getting a shot from Hole in the Wall. However, I was having some trouble fitting it all into my path and it was going to add an extra 8 pounds of gear - so I decided to leave it in the car and just drag along the point and shoot.
So no more pictures from me.
But we ended up making good time getting to KOO. When we arrived, there were already a few solo hikers that had arrived a few minutes earlier. One of which told us we had just missed a large moose that walked right through camp (coming out of the woods) and startled her at close range. We set up our chairs and talked with everyone for a bit and found that most of them were on crazy itineraries. The one young woman with the moose tale had just hiked in from Slide Lake and, if I remember right, was headed to Flattop! Someone else had come from Mokiwanis Junction (which I think was his first night in from Chief Mountain) and was headed to Waterton River before heading back to Fifty Mountain the next day.
As it was a beautiful day, we tried some more fishing and managed to catch about 8 small brook trout around the mouth of the river. Most were in the 7-8" range, so nothing special, but fun nonetheless. Dinner was good that night - lots of good conversation. And in the middle of it, some more moose showed up in the lake. About this time, I remembered I had a cell phone, so I decided to try taking a photo with it.
I found out that I think my cell phone takes better pictures than my camera! Anyways, we watched the moose for a while before calling it a night and hitting the tent. The last time I had stayed at Kootenai, I heard wolves all night long. I was hoping we'd hear them again, but I never heard anything... other than owls! I don't know how many owls there were out there, but there were a lot. And they kept getting closer. For those of you that know me, it was even scarier than hearing bears walking around our camp! But actually, it was kind of cool hearing their hoots on and off throughout the night.