tibber wrote:still such a shame about that darn smoke but good pictures in spite of it. Pocket Lake view is really something.
tibber - yeah, this marks two years in a row that we've ended up with heavy smoke in the backcountry. It was sad for me as I've been to the park so many times with crystal clear skies and really wanted my dad, my buddy, and his dad to get to experience the same. But I think even in spite of the smoke, everyone had a great trip.
So on to the next day.
We woke up to rain on our fifth day. We had considered splitting up again for the two of us to scramble up Chapman Peak and then meet up again with our dad's at Francis that evening. But the rain convinced us otherwise and we enjoyed a late morning in our tents. After breakfast and letting our tents dry out, we packed up and headed out for Francis around 10am. The trail was really wet until we started down the switchbacks and then it seemed to dry up. Fortunately, the rain had washed some of the smoke out of the air, so we were at least able to get some less smokey picks of Thunderbird Falls. This is my dad and I right before the last switchback before reaching Thunderbird Pond.
We got the pond sometime around 11am, and despite the fact that the day was still pretty cool, we decided we really needed to go for a swim. I stripped down to my underwear and after a lot of convincing, took a headfirst dive off the big rock. I have a pretty good video - great form. Unfortunately, my ex officio travel briefs were a little too loose after 5 days on the trail... so the video may not be so PG. The worst part was that the water, while not nearly as cold as the tarns at Brown Pass, was still really really cold and I had to try to find my underwear and get them back on. Fortunately, I found them around one of my ankles, so no harm done. After getting out, we dried off in the sun and enjoyed a second breakfast. By the time we were ready to continue on, the smoke was already starting to settle back in.
The hike from Thunderbird on to Francis is nothing special and we covered it pretty quickly. Both sites were empty when we arrived, so we set up in the larger and then grabbed lunch in the food prep area. With a full day at Francis, we decided to take the fishing poles down and enjoy the afternoon. We started by the beach, and immediately started catching trout. I swear it's almost impossible to throw a spinner into that lake more than a few times in a row without having to take a fish off a hook. We decided to work our way around the lake, counterclockwise, towards the waterfall. The lake is quite fascinating as you get closer to the waterfall - in places there is a shelf along the edge with a pretty deep drop off. The water was so clear that you could drop a lure right off the ledge and watch it sink for 10 feet and then watch the trout chase it on the way up. In other places, the ledge disappears and you have to scramble on the shore, up and over some scree, to continue towards the waterfall. In some of those places, a slip would put you right into some deep, cold water.
It took us an hour and half or so to get to the waterfall as fishing was pretty good. Once we got there, fishing got even better. You could stand right in the waterfall and throw it over the edge and pull fish out.
We continued exploring and fishing for a while, and hiked back up the waterfall to get some better views. The lake really was beautiful from this side, especially as the sun started slipping behind the headwall.
The picture below is looking back from the waterfall towards the beach below the campsite.
Sometime around 4:00pm, we decided to head back to the beach so we could catch a few more fish for dinner. Again, the walk back was slow due to the exceptional fishing as we picked our way back along the shore. We continued to leapfrog each other to find fishing spots and continue working our way back until, at about the 2/3 mark, I passed my buddy and had to scramble up on the scree slope to avoid going for a swim in a pretty deep drop off. As I was working my way back down to the lake, with my fishing pole in one hand, my phone in my pocket, and a small tackle kit in the other pocket, I started to slide on the scree. Not wanting to slide right into the lake, my brain made the decision to sit down on the slow my descent.
This will go down in my biography as a pretty poor decision. I had just sat down when I heard a loud pop and hiss - it was amazing how quickly my brain remembered the other thing in my back pocket: my bear spray! I wasn't positive what had happened, but I was pretty sure, so I immediately dropped everything in my hands, ripped the bear spray out of my pocket, and dove headfirst into the lake.
While underwater, I was trying to figure out if my bear spray had really just exploded? Was it a snake? A gunshot? When I came back up, I had my answer. My left eye started burning and I could hear my buddy, who was maybe 30 feet downwind, coughing hard. I yelled that I thought my bear spray had exploded and that he should get as far away as possible. Amazingly enough, he had figured it out before me, perhaps due to the cloud of fire and brimstone wafting over him?
I began to start flushing my eyes with water. I used my right hand to hold my eyes open and my left to scoop and throw water into my face. I had pulled my wet shirt up over my mouth and was able to breathe relatively easily, but my eyes got worse and worse and within a couple of minutes, I could no longer see. My friend kept yelling if I was ok, and I told him I couldn't see, but that there wasn't much he could do. So he waited about 15 minutes until he could walk over and see what had happened. He found my can of bear spray, fishing rod, and phone (I had thrown that back on shore as quickly as I could). He also got close enough to see me and let me know that I was covered in an orange coating of industrial strength pepper spray. When I had sat down, I had stuck my left arm out behind me to catch my fall and it, my left hand, left side, back, and legs were COVERED in it. Meanwhile, I was continuing to use my bear spray-tanned hand to scoop water, also covered with an Exxon Valdez level oily pepper spray coating, straight into my face for the past 15 minutes. On his advice (since I couldn't see anything), I stripped off my shirt and used it to scrub my arm as much as possible, then swim/shuffle down the shoreline to a place where the water wasn't so polluted.
After another 15 or so minutes of flushing my eyes, I started to be able to get momentary glimpses of light - enough that I could get my bearings. My friend, at that point, offered to head back to camp to get me some clean clothes since everything I was wearing, including my underwear, was caked in it. After another 15 minutes or so, I felt comfortable enough to try to start heading back to camp. It was also about this time that I started feeling a little cold - after being in Lake Francis for 45 minutes. I half swam, half walked back to the beach. Upon arriving, I stripped down and, for the first time in my life, went for a skinny dip in the lake to try to scrub off everything I could. I had to get out at least chest deep - and was really feeling cold now. Luckily, about this time, the rest of the group came back down with dry clothes and a towel. So I was able to get dressed. My face, arms, legs, and back were still burning like crazy from the manly musk of the devil's cologne covering me, but at least I could see again.
We made it back up to our campsite in time to see a new group hiking in. The other site was already full, and it became obvious very quickly that these people did not have a permit. They claimed to have a permit for Waterton Lakes, and had hiked in from Waterton, but had decided to walk up to Francis to try some fly fishing. Upon arriving (at 5:30pm!!!) they decided it wasn't possible to get back, so they were going to sleep there. For some reason - possibly the fact that I was covered in some kind of cold war era chemical weapon and was not in the best of moods - I was a little pissed off by this. No one is going to hike 12 extra miles, round trip, for a few minutes of fishing, that late in the day, and carry their full packs with them. They had every intention of poaching a site. I gave them a pretty rude talking to and told them they couldn't set up in our site, so they decided to go camp on the beach. This made me even more pissed, because hey, I wanted to camp on the beach. Oh, and also, these jerks weren't even covered in flaming liquid fire. Honestly, if I'd had another can of nuclear whip cream, I'd have sprayed them down too. I'm sure they got a good laugh out of me, with my face and arms still orange like a backwoods oompa loompa, whining about permits.
After they headed down to set up their tent, we had dinner up in camp. I have to admit, the napalm in my beard really spiced up my beef stroganoff. I wouldn't recommend the recipe, unless you're really into spicy foods. I also finally took a look at the bear spray canister to see what had happened. Upon inspection, it would appear I magically fell right on the point of a very sharp rock. That or the pin that was in my bear grenade fell out at an opportune time.
My hiking group, by the way, thought this whole incident may have been the funnies thing they'd ever seen. The orange sheen must have been particularly enjoyable. I tried taking a selfie to see, but the color didn't turn out too well. You can see, what I thought, was a shaping up to be a pretty good mountain man beard. Unfortunately, the bear spray-in conditioner and beard balm would prove to be difficult to remove and I ended up having to shave most of it off when we left the park.
After dinner, we decided to walk back down to the lake. It was getting pretty cold, according to everyone else, but I still felt like a human torch. It did give me some level of happiness that the guys poaching the beach camp site wouldn't come out of their tent while we were down there. I will admit that they had a pretty sweet view.
That night was not the best night of sleep I've ever gotten. It turns out that bear spray seems to be heat activated. And while strong enough for a bear, it is not pH balanced for a man. I spent most of the night sleeping on top of my quilt, without a shirt off, with half of my body freezing trying to keep the other half of my body from spontaneously combusting. On the bright side, I don't imagine that any bear in the park would come within a few hundred feet of our campsite that night.
In hindsight, this will probably turn into one of my most memorable back country experiences. I like to try to focus on the positives, and there were a few of them. I will say that I have a new level of confidence that bear spray would have an excellent chance of warding off a bear attack. Now, it may just blind both of you for 30 minutes before you get eaten anyways. But at least the bear would have to deal with some spicy burning on the other end of that exchange. Honestly, I think if I were faced with a bear, I'd have to wonder how badly I was about to get mauled to decide if I'd rather risk spraying myself or just get chewed on a bit.
At the end of the day, I learned something important. Probably not a good idea to carry bear spray in your back pocket.