Day 10

We set the alarm for 7am this morning. By the time we had breakfast (oatmeal), and packed everything up and hit the road, Sean had already left. We set out, hoping to cover a lot of ground today. We were told that the first part of the trek was easier and although it's a 75km route, the 53km mark is halfway time-wise. Therefore, we wanted to cover as much ground during the easy segment as possible. Unfortunately that didn't quite happen. In total today, we only covered 11km. Most of the trail today was along the beach and it was SO slow going! We had to walk over a rock shelf for parts, which wasn't too bad, but when we had to walk on the sand or gravel it was as if with every two steps forward, we were taking one back. It was SO slow going, we were so happy when we finally were able to take the bush path! It was still a nice day, but overcast at times. By the time we got to our camp it was beautiful again!
We camped out at Tsusiat Falls. There was a massive ladder system going down to the beach. In order to get to the camp, we had to cross a stream (created by the runoff from the falls). There was some wicked camping on our side of the stream already, so although we wanted to scope out the other side, we left our packs behind. The water was REALLY cold, so at first (partly for comfort and partly for a challeng) we started making a bridge. There was a lot of driftwood, but the stream was moving too fast, and it proved quite difficult to do. How many ppl does it take to build a make-shift bridge? Apparently more than 2 engineers and 1 carpenter. We gave up not long after starting and rolled up our pants and crossed the FREEZING water. Michael found some random skull. We tried guessing, but don't have a clue what animal it could have come from!
Although the other side did have the washrooms and bear lockers, Our original side had a cave we could camp in, and some wicked large rock formations that blocked some of the wind for our campfire. We set up our tent in a cave, and then started making the fire. We cooked over the fire instead of using the stove. After dinner, we had smores and more skittle vodka and tried to make the fire bigger than yesterday's. Unfortunately with the wind, although the fire was very large, it was too smoky to sit by comfortably. Therefore, after Michael and Travis hung our food, we put the fire out early and had an early night's rest to hopefully get an early start to cover some ground tomorrow!