Hardships in bushwhacking 'the nightmare'

Dispatch from Dan Solmon — July 18, 1997

"I should be loyal to the nightmare of my choice"
           — Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

The nightmare of the Palmer Creek bushwhack certainly requires loyalty. There is no way out except to continue to the end with great care and hardship.

Today's bushwhack was substantially farther than yesterday's. We camped almost 3 kilometers upriver from last night's site. We certainly walked much more than 3 kilometers, as bushwhacking requires meandering a path through the variances of the forest floor.

The ground rarely cleared today in stands of old growth. The massive cedar and spruce trees block out the sun and prevent undergrowth from sprouting. "Old growth is SO wonderful," remarked Morgan. Unfortunately, the stands we encountered were small.

The rest of the day we traveled through alders — by far the worst plants. Their supple trunks and limbs grow at angles that force hikers to step over and crouch under them. The limbs of alders are always positioned perfectly to snag packs, causing great annoyance to all. Alders have caused the most strife, unlike devil's club, which is easily broken, cut, or pushed aside.

For our break in the afternoon, we found an amazing site. A gargantuan avalanche had created a bridge of ice across Palmer Creek. It was the only place we had found up to that point where we could make a crossing, though we remained on our side because the other was even more vegetated. We found two more such bridges before making camp, indicating avalanches in this area are very common.

We stopped late in the afternoon and were glad our hard-won meters had almost doubled the distance we had traveled compared to yesterday. However, we are barely halfway through the bushwhack, and we all expect to have spent four days in Palmer Creek instead of the three we had planned.