Saturday Aug 28 Sheep Camp – Happy Camp

The Golden Staircase

This is it, an 8 mile hike today, which includes 3,000 feet of elevation gain in 3 miles – what is billed as the most famous part of the trail – the “Golden Staircase”  1500 steps in 1 mile, were carved into the ice and was made famous by a photograph that shows a dark line of men in single file stretched across a field of white. It is the grail of the trail, the place I have doubts about completing. Why? I have tried to summit Mt. St Helen's twice and both times have exhausted myself before completing the climb. Will I give up on this climb also? Doubts reinforced by past experience have hounded me since I made public my goal of climbing the Chilkoot.

I am determined to make the climb if it takes me 18 hours to do it and if I have to do it one step at a time and resting 5 minutes between each step. It is now that I wish I did not bring my camera equipment and tripod as it adds a good 10 lbs to my load; I know that when I finish, I will be glad I bought the equipment but now, as I face the day, I wish I didn't have it. I put my camera in my pack and declared that there would have to be a pretty spectacular photo opportunity for me to take it out.

A Stream to get fresh water

6:00 A.M. - up to fix breakfast and break camp. I have a rash on my inner thighs and it is painful to walk, but I know the pain will diminish as I start walking. I leave camp with the same two women and they quickly leave me behind. That's ok, I'm still ahead of the others. Today's hike starts on a stretch called Long Hill – which lives up to its name. I am steady and slow. I munch on blue berries as I walk along the trail. It gets steeper. I finally catch up to the women because they had stopped to refill their water and I think that is a good idea for me also.  I pull two oranges out of my pack and give one to the women and ask them to help me reduce my pack weight and share one of the oranges – the two juicy oranges weigh over 1 lb. I take time to eat the other one.

As the ladies continue up the hill, I get my water bottle and climb down to the rushing river to fill it. I add iodine tablets to the water and head up the trail, in half an hour I can add the ph balancer that removes the iodine color and taste and 5 minutes after that I can make Gatorade. I continue up long hill to “The Scales”  This is where the Golden Staircase” starts. This is also where professional packers would tell the minors that instead of 10 cents a lb, they were going to charge them a dollar a pound to carry their supplies any further.

This is where a weak heart can falter, this is my Rubicon,  would I meet my Waterloo here on this tortuous piece of earth. This stretch of trail that many have claimed to be “... the hardest thing they have ever done in their life. “

The day is overcast, thankfully. I cannot see very far up the “staircase”  There are orange posts that mark the route to the top, especially for days like today. As I look out across the boulder field I have to cross to reach the staircase, which itself is part of the boulder field, I can only see 3 or 4 orange poles. I spend time at the scales taking pictures and looking around.

I have been hiking in a short sleeve shirt and wool vest and am soaked from perspiration. I take out my rain jacket, which I use as an outer shell, or wind breaker as the wind is blowing down through the pass. I also get out my woolen mittens for protection from the cold and rocks I will be scrambling up...a technical term; considering the speed I will be making on the climb up the staircase, perhaps I should call it a crawl.

Time to go... I am grateful that I can only see a few of the markers at a time. I make the decision to consider this climb a project and I will take the project and break it into a series of tasks. The first task is to get across the boulder field to the base of the staircase – safely. Each additional task will consist of making it from one orange marker to the next. As I start my trek across the boulder field, I look between the boulders and there is refuse from the original climbers, rusted cans and other implements I need to avoid to keep from cutting myself. Stepping from boulder to boulder, I test each one to see if it will move as I put my weight on it. I am using trekking poles as additional balance points, and many times I am glad that I have them. Time slips by, I don't know how long as I am concentrating on my safety. (I didn't bring a time piece and the only way I can tell the time is to take a picture and then check the embedded information) I realize that I am starting up the hill. Suddenly it gets steeper and I need to stop and tie my poles to my pack so I can use two hands to climb (scramble) up the staircase. With every foot of forward momentum I think I had to go up three feet. Finally I started implementing my task strategy. The climb was difficult and I was stopping quite often to catch my breath and to look around to see what was happening – I wanted my heart to stay in the fat burning range and I didn't want to be so focused that I missed what was happening.

Looking back towards Long Hill

Down the valley, I saw the clouds part and blue sky appear and I could see for miles, then I would climb again and take a break and the clouds had rolled in again.  This happened repeatedly. Eventually after climbing for awhile I noticed other climbers starting the climb. Soon some of them pass me and left me behind (I said earlier that this would become a theme) As I arrived at the first false summit – we were warned about this- one of the family groups caught up with me, it was good to see them and I was happy that they had made it this far.  I joined this group and as I talked with the woman – not the mother, but a family friend, she asked where I worked and when I told her The Seattle Public Library, she asked if I knew a certain person, I said I did and she smiled and said this woman was her best friend in college. We had a small break here, but the cold and the wind convinced us to move on.

As we started up the staircase on our way to the second summit, I heard a calm “Help Me” and I looked up hill. The woman had slipped on a rock and fallen down, luckily there pack broke her fall and loosely lodged between some boulders preventing her from being hurt. I have to admit I thought she looked like a turtle on its back.

2nd false summit

We reached the 2nd false summit and the family group took a break. I continued on and in a few minutes, this group once again passed me. I took my time and when I eventually arrived at the third and final summit, I was relieved and proud of myself for successfully completing the “Golden Staircase” climb.

Parks Canada Summit warming center

I entered the warming center that is operated by Parks Canada. The ranger had three thermos of hot water for us to make coffee or add to our dehydrated food for a hot lunch. One of the things I noticed was that the warming center is much better built than the ones in the US and that the outhouses are much nicer than the ones in the US – however Parks Canada does not supply toilet tissue, were the US parks service did. We stayed in the warming shed and got warm, rested and tired. It was hard to get started on the 2nd half of our day's trip.

Crater Lake

The sun came out when we arrived at the warming center and it lit up Crater lake and the land below us.  Leaving the warming center, we would no longer see orange poles marking the trail, we would need to look for “rock Cairns”, rocks that are stacked in an unnatural manner.

Shortly after leaving the warming shelter, we had to cross a snow field. I was the last one off the field, and as my foot rolled forward on my last step it broke through the snow and there was a one foot drop to the rocks below – luckily I didn't fall through. We continued down the smaller boulder field to gloriously flat land.  We hiked along the lakes edge for miles.  We came to another snow field, and as usual I was bringing up the rear. As I stepped onto the snow field, they yelled to me to get onto the center of the field. The sides of the snow had melted out from underneath, creating a dangerous work of art.

As I walked further along the lake I started seeing vegetation and flowers. I finally unpacked my camera to take pictures. I laid down in the meadow to take pictures of wild flowers and water falls.

This is why I don't wear hats

As I stood looking at a waterfall and taking pictures, one of our party asked if I wanted her to take my picture, I said yes and handed her my camera; the picture reinforces my reasons for not wearing hats. My “toupe” (stocking cap) is setting high on my head, it resembles Marge Simpson's pile of blue hair

Our trek to Happy Camp seemed to go on forever – I was tired and footsore when we arrived at Happy Camp – the wind was blowing in from across the lake and was chilly. My goal was to find a campsite out of the wind. This accomplished, I set up my tent and grabbed my pack and placed it in a building the Canadians had for this purpose and then cooked my dinner - dehydrated beef stew – mmm.

I had carried one of those little airline bottles of vodka over the pass to have a celebratory drink for the accomplishment. I mixed it with Gatorade – not a drink I will have again.

Two more people joined us tonight. They started a day after us, stayed at Canyon City and hiked straight from there, over the “Golden Staircase” a long day for them. Arabelle and Steven. Arabelle is from France and has been in Canada on a work visa and has been traveling around “Couch Surfing” this is a way to find free lodging as you are traveling – being hosted by local individuals and families that enjoy meeting people from other places. There is another program she is involved in that hooks up travelers that need to earn money, with people that need work done. Insert link



One of the amazing stories of this trip is the family of five from Canada. There were three kids the youngest a girl of 5, her brothers older the oldest starting junior high. The little girl was almost always smiling except for the 2nd day after she had hurt her knee and was having trouble bending it. The family wasn't sure if they would be able to continue and finish the trip. They decided they would try another day, Myron saying he would carry the daughter if he needed to. I offered to take some of his load if he wanted me to and he declined. At Happy camp, after the family went to bed we were discussing how happy the family was and how great the kids were. Jim mentioned that when he talked to Myron, they determined that when he was carrying the little girl, on the 2nd day of the trip, his load was around 100lbs. It had to be grueling for him and yet there was no anger or shortness of temper exhibited on his part. I said that I had offered to take some of his load and “Thank God, he declined.” this bought a round of laughter from the others. The second impression of this family that amazed me was they were almost always smiling. On Sunday morning, at Happy camp, the little girl came in to the warming/cooking shelter, after just waking and she was smiling. I said 'There she is and she is still smiling.” She smiled at me and said “I can't do anything else.” and then shyly turned her face into her mothers knee.