Mary's Journal : february 11, 2009
Gilles’ birthday was today, but I don’t think he enjoyed it much. It’s been a long day.
We’re at the cabin, though, and That Bloody Hill is behind us! It put up quite a fight.
My fingers are sore. The rest of my aches are fairly normal, but the fingers, since they warmed up, are hard to ignore. There’s no way to pack up the snow trench with heavy mitts on (the sleeping bags have to be put into their stuff-sacks, and the thermarests have to be rolled up, and it’s hard enough to do that with thin gloves on, let alone mittens) but everything’s covered in frost, and the tips of my gloves have fallen apart, and so my fingers are numb and frost-nipped by the time I finish.
There are deep cracks in the skin around my nails that hurt like mad whenever I touch anything. The fingers themselves are swollen and puffy and dirty. They don’t look like they belong to my hands at all.
The really funny thing is that I didn’t even notice them yesterday, although they must have been in a bad shape. Now that I’m warm and safe, my body’s noticing all it’s discomfort. The weather today was gorgeous. Absolutely gorgeous. The place we camped was right out in the open, so when we got up (it was still night, of course, although we weren’t awake till about five-thirty) we got to watch the full moon setting, and then, after about twenty minutes of dark, there was this slight lightening of the sky, and then it got brighter and turned the tops of the mountains pink and red. Dawn creeps up quietly in this part of the country.
It was fairly cold out – around -38 °C. The stove had gone into Gilles’ sleeping bag an hour before, so it started alright, but it died before there was really enough water for the thermos.
Last night was long. I don’t remember being really freezing at all, but I was never really exactly warm. I don’t think Gilles slept much either.
So it was almost a relief to get up, except that it was still so damned cold.
We left camp sometime before nine, and the going was not too bad for either of us at first. The sun was so beautiful and the sky was a hundred surprisingly different shades of blue, and the shadows on the mountainsides sloped down into the valleys, and the world was huge around us.
I was very, very happy.
Gilles’ snowshoes broke again, though, and things got rather bad for a while.
I won’t write too much about our struggles – I don’t think either of us will want to remember the details. One of his snowshoes was unusable, and so he took it off, but every step took him down past his knees. That kind of thing is exhausting if you’re just walking, let alone pulling a sled and a backpack. He made it all the way over the pass that way, and I don’t remember ever seeing anyone look so grim. I wouldn’t have blamed him if he’d just sat down and refused to move, but thank God he didn’t. When I got to the bottom of the hill (still about half an hour from the cabin) I looked through the binoculars and realized he was still at the top, hardly moving at all. So I dumped my sled and went back up for his (it was a little horrifying to go back up. I don’t want to think too much about it). While I did that he cut across to the cabin and had bannock on the stove when I came in, bless him.
I’d meant to make something for his birthday – cookies or brownies or something sugary – but we were both so exhausted that we ate bannock and collapsed in our bunks.
Maybe I’ll do something for tomorrow.
Sleep now. Time to rest my fingers and say goodbye to a long day.
It’s 9:15 at night and nineteen-year-old Gilles is snoring very happily. I hope he’s dreaming good dreams.
We’re at the cabin, though, and That Bloody Hill is behind us! It put up quite a fight.
My fingers are sore. The rest of my aches are fairly normal, but the fingers, since they warmed up, are hard to ignore. There’s no way to pack up the snow trench with heavy mitts on (the sleeping bags have to be put into their stuff-sacks, and the thermarests have to be rolled up, and it’s hard enough to do that with thin gloves on, let alone mittens) but everything’s covered in frost, and the tips of my gloves have fallen apart, and so my fingers are numb and frost-nipped by the time I finish.
There are deep cracks in the skin around my nails that hurt like mad whenever I touch anything. The fingers themselves are swollen and puffy and dirty. They don’t look like they belong to my hands at all.
The really funny thing is that I didn’t even notice them yesterday, although they must have been in a bad shape. Now that I’m warm and safe, my body’s noticing all it’s discomfort. The weather today was gorgeous. Absolutely gorgeous. The place we camped was right out in the open, so when we got up (it was still night, of course, although we weren’t awake till about five-thirty) we got to watch the full moon setting, and then, after about twenty minutes of dark, there was this slight lightening of the sky, and then it got brighter and turned the tops of the mountains pink and red. Dawn creeps up quietly in this part of the country.
It was fairly cold out – around -38 °C. The stove had gone into Gilles’ sleeping bag an hour before, so it started alright, but it died before there was really enough water for the thermos.
Last night was long. I don’t remember being really freezing at all, but I was never really exactly warm. I don’t think Gilles slept much either.
So it was almost a relief to get up, except that it was still so damned cold.
We left camp sometime before nine, and the going was not too bad for either of us at first. The sun was so beautiful and the sky was a hundred surprisingly different shades of blue, and the shadows on the mountainsides sloped down into the valleys, and the world was huge around us.
I was very, very happy.
Gilles’ snowshoes broke again, though, and things got rather bad for a while.
I won’t write too much about our struggles – I don’t think either of us will want to remember the details. One of his snowshoes was unusable, and so he took it off, but every step took him down past his knees. That kind of thing is exhausting if you’re just walking, let alone pulling a sled and a backpack. He made it all the way over the pass that way, and I don’t remember ever seeing anyone look so grim. I wouldn’t have blamed him if he’d just sat down and refused to move, but thank God he didn’t. When I got to the bottom of the hill (still about half an hour from the cabin) I looked through the binoculars and realized he was still at the top, hardly moving at all. So I dumped my sled and went back up for his (it was a little horrifying to go back up. I don’t want to think too much about it). While I did that he cut across to the cabin and had bannock on the stove when I came in, bless him.
I’d meant to make something for his birthday – cookies or brownies or something sugary – but we were both so exhausted that we ate bannock and collapsed in our bunks.
Maybe I’ll do something for tomorrow.
Sleep now. Time to rest my fingers and say goodbye to a long day.
It’s 9:15 at night and nineteen-year-old Gilles is snoring very happily. I hope he’s dreaming good dreams.