Chopper Trav!!

Finally! Today was my first day out on chopper traverse. We were a bit late setting out because one of the other groups lost their sat phone yesterday, so they had to backtrack. We huddled down in the field with our bags, and the chopper set down beside us. The downwash was pretty spectacular, I was caught off guard a bit and nearly fell over even though I was crouched on the ground. We loaded up, and then took off. When we cleared the trees on the property, we saw some looming clouds off to the east. Our pilot, Roben, said that while we were expecting thunderstorms today, that sometimes it just hangs there, and to call him if the weather took a turn for the worse so he could pick us up in time. Larry got off first, in a bit of a swampy area, but not too bad, and then we were dropped off in a nice grassy meadow a bit further north. After the chopper took off, I went to put on my fleece (it's quite cold in the morning still, but it gets better after that first hill climb), and found out why my backpack was so light and empty: My lunch was still back in the shed, and not in my backpack.

Yeah. Worst news all day. Thankfully I had my secret stash of goodies in my pack:
-one gingersnap
-one chocolate chunk cookie
-two granola bars
-one chocolate coated Rice Krispie Square
-one litre of crystal light
-one litre of water.

My trav partner (and my boss) offered me some canned fish and fruit at lunch, but I'm pretty stubborn, and thought it would be a good incentive to not forget my lunch again. Yeah, definitely never forgetting my lunch again. Ever.

We hiked up a ridge today, and followed that most of the day, hopping from knob to knob. Lots of limestone, and some metabasalt (some Fubar-ite, and some with pillows still visible), and some serpentinite. We crossed a thrust fault just after lunch, which was neat. Lots of up and down between little ridges and things though. I think most of it was from the Cache Creek terrane. It would have been a lot more fun if the weather was a bit better. It started sprinkling at about 9:30, and then was actually raining by about 11. I busted out all my rain gear I had with me, and that kept me from getting much wetter than I was already. The problem with the rain is that even if it's just lightly raining, all the brush gets wet, and as I'm clambering (not-so-gracefully) through the brush, I get soaking wet. My pants were soaked, but my feet were dry. Even just putting on rain gear over my wet pants made it more tolerable. We ended up getting out of the brush by about 4:30, and it opened up into this lovely meadow, just east of our intended pick up spot. East and below. We hiked up about 200m to get to our pick up spot, over this crazy talus slope (well, boulders the size of small cars all piled up on top of each other). I didn't think we'd make it up there on time, but somehow we climbed up with plenty of time to spare, and made our rendez-vous with Larry and everything. It was bit unnerving, because we heard thunder as we were climbing up, and getting stuck out there in the weather would have sucked. Especially after not having lunch. We sat up there, watched the other trav team get picked up, and then watched Roben circle back for us after dropping them off.

After we got home, I basically scarfed down my lunch (sandwich and a half and beef jerky, so delicious), cracked a beer (one of my last microwbrews), and then ate a fully dinner afterwards. I haven't been that hungry in ages.

I am so looking forward to my day off tomorrow. It's going to be great. Catie and I are going into town, do some laundry, hang out at the store while that's going on, and then maybe head up to Rabid Grizzly Rest Area just because it's a ridiculous name for a rest stop. I'll keep my eyes peeled for rabid grizzlies while we're there.

Tomorrow I'll figure out how to do this Google Earth thing and post a link to some of the more interesting places I've ended up on traverses. It's a good laundry-time project for my day off!