*See part 1 for days 1-3 of this kayak adventure…
Day 4: I woke up for what felt like the 50th time with my arms hurting and realized it was time to get up. Well, my bladder told me I was getting up in the next 5 minutes or it was going to pee on my sleeping bag. Thankfully, I did NOT hear the patter of rain on the tent and I could exit the tent without too much drama. I have to say, I learned how difficult it is to put on WET rain gear in a tiny tent in the rain without getting your clothes or your tent or your sleeping bag wet. Did I say difficult? I mean impossible. But this morning was kind to us and rain wasn’t actively falling – so I ran out and got TP from the TP bag (yellow communal dry bag with TP supply, extra ziplocks and paper bags, and a bottle of hand sanitizer). After a quick squat in the bushes, I was good to go! As was often the case, I was the first person to be officially up, and soon our guides came out to begin preparing for our day – that means setting up the kitchen and getting a pot of water going for coffee. I loved them for this.
We had all gotten up super extra early this day because this was the BIG DAY! We were going to see the McBride Glacier! We needed to time it with the tides and ride the tide up the inlet to the glacier or we wouldn’t get to see it. The tide coming out is so strong that we wouldn’t make it if we had to paddle against the tides. That meant we had to be paddling by 6 am. At least today we were base-camping, which means we did not need to break camp and load up the kayaks. We planned to return to our camp that night and sleep there again.
We had our fill of coffee and snacks for a quick breakfast before jumping in the kayaks to start the day of paddling. Despite being absolutely sure I couldn’t possibly lift my arms or paddle another day, I managed to hang in. I was desperately hoping this would be a shorter day of paddling because just lifting the paddle was hard now. It felt so heavy. I even considered sitting out this day, but it would mean I paddled all this way to miss the highlight of the trip, the reason we paddled up the East arm, to see McBride Glacier. No way, come hell or high water, I was going to see this!
We paddled for 2 hours just to reach the inlet to the glacier. As we paddled up the bay, we began to see icebergs floating in the water. The closer we got to the inlet, the more we saw and the bigger they got. I really enjoyed the strange shapes they formed as they melted. Some were pretty basic looking lumps of ice, but some had delicate fingers of ice hanging or projecting up in strange, almost Seusian shapes. Some looked milky white, some clear as glass, and some glowed from within with that classic glacial blue. As we got closer, the shorelines became dotted with beached icebergs that came in with the tide and got stranded when the tide receded. I found them all fascinating.
Since we hadn’t left until 6:30, we were running late and we had to skip the planned rest stop at the mouth of the inlet or we would miss the tide. So, we pushed on up the inlet for another hour of paddling. The inlet itself was narrow with a large bend that prevented us from seeing the glacier until we were almost at the base of it. Once in the inlet, the icebergs became so dense that we had to go slow and navigate around them. I thought about how an iceberg is what ripped open the hull of the “unsinkable” Titanic so…what would hitting one do to our little fiberglass kayak??? I did not want to find out. The narrow inlet also meant it was relatively protected, so we began to see lots of otters and seals, many with young, in the water and enjoying a nice break on the larger icebergs. We also saw and heard a large nesting colony of Kittiwakes.
So, I guess this is where I should tell you about my total and complete stupidity this day. In the morning, it felt warmer (maybe 62 degrees?) and I somehow wanted to avoid being too hot while paddling. I decided to wear just my t-shirt and rain jacket on top with my regular bottom layer of cotton shorts, thin nylon hiking pants and rain pants. I put my magic sweater in my backpack “in case I got cold”. Oh, it’s my magic sweater because it stays magically dry even when stuffed inside a dripping wet backpack in the semi-flooded hull of the kayak. Anyway, I should have taken a moment to process the part where we were going to see a GLACIER? You know – a giant hunk of ICE? I did say it was a stupid moment.
So, as we entered the inlet, surrounded by icebergs, in a gentle rain, I realized I was getting a little cold. My arms were very cold as the wet rain jacket lay directly on my skin. The cold breeze coming down the inlet (glacial wind) meant that the nylon of my jacket became bitter-cold against my skin. My wrists began to ache from the cold, then it moved up to my elbows. It felt like my bones hurt. I told Bastien (behind me in the tandem kayak) that I might be getting a little cold. He asked if maybe we should stop and layer up. I wanted to, but I didn’t know how I would be able to get to my sweater, remove the life-jacket, remove my rain jacket, put on my sweater, then put rain jacket and life jacket back on…all while sitting in the kayak…all without capsizing the kayak in glacial water (literally – glacial water!). So, like a dummy, I said I would be ok. I got a little foggy-brained. I remember saying something about maybe getting cold to the guide, who suggested we should stop and layer up before rounding the corner below the glacier. He warned me it would get even colder the minute we came around that corner just ahead. He offered to help me get my sweater on. I should have said yes, I really should have, but I still thought it would be impossible to get my sweater on without ending up in the water. I said, “no it’s not that bad, I will be ok”. Dumb, dumb, dumb and DUMB!
So, we paddled around the corner to come upon this magnificent tidewater glacier, surrounded by giant icebergs and I was barely processing it. I saw the glacier and thought WOW, I knew this should feel like a special moment…but all I could seem to think about was needing to get warm. I was in a strange mental state where it felt like things around me were surreal and like I was looking at everything though a misty foggy lens. The full-body violent shivers were becoming more frequent and, through my weird mental state, I realized I was in trouble. Bastien, seeing my shivering, thankfully, took over. He paddled us over to the guide and told him I needed to get layers on right now. So, while the rest of the group sat in awed silence below this amazing glacier that we had paddled for 3 days to get to…the guide and Bastien worked to help me put on my sweater. I don’t know how long it took, I was pretty out of it by then. My arms didn’t cooperate well with the signals from my brain, but eventually we got my sweater on and the rain jacket and life jacket back on without anyone capsizing. I immediately felt warmer and within a few minutes, my elbows stopped hurting as badly. But, it was time to turn around and paddle back out of the inlet before the outgoing tide became too strong. Still hazy, I felt sad as we paddled away, knowing that I barely processed this moment and didn’t get to take in the joy of being there. All because of my own poor choices.
By the time we returned to the mouth of the inlet, it had been 4 hours in the kayaks. It was time to stop for a rest. We came out on a little beach dotted with stranded icebergs and our guides began to set up to make coffee and get out some snacks. Everyone made their way into different bushes to pee and then wandered around to explore the spot. I was still trying to warm up. There was a light drizzle so that our outer layers were wet, which made it hard to get warm. I put on gloves and hunkered down into the neck of my sweater with my hood up, using my breath to warm my face. I felt DONE. All I wanted was to paddle back to camp and get into a dry tent and sleeping bag. I desperately wanted that.
There had been a “maybe” plan of paddling up to see another glacier (not tidewater) further up the bay called Riggs Glacier. After coffee and snacks, our guide began the group discussion about whether to go up to Riggs or return to camp. It was already 1pm and the paddle up and back to Riggs would take about 3 hours round-trip. The 2 hour paddle back to camp meant a day with 9 hours of paddling and getting into camp pretty late. Also, the tide was going out at the moment, so returning to camp would be pretty easy right now. If we headed to Riggs, it would be against the tide going up, and by the time we begin to return, the tide would be coming back in, so we would again be paddling against the tide. This meant at least 5 more hours of paddling, mostly against the tide and getting into camp no earlier than 6 pm (after starting at 6 AM!), and that’s if we didn’t eat lunch or stop for breaks.
I felt a desperation that is rare for me. I wanted SO badly to take the easier option and go back to camp. I genuinely felt like my body might just give up on me and then my personal crisis would become someone else’s emergency. When no one spoke right away, I spoke up. I said, “I admit that I am dreaming of going back to camp, getting dry and warm and maybe getting a little rest. But I am only one person out of seven, so that’s just me”. After some silence, other members of the group began to speak out. One person pretty strongly said they had paid a lot for this trip and they wanted to see as much as possible while they were here. They came here to see things and experience Alaska and paddle, going home early was not something they wanted to do, especially when there was another glacier to see. Another person in the group spoke up with a similar sentiment and even added, “I am not even tired!” One person said they could go either way and were clearly trying to be a voice of kindness and compassion. But, then it got really uncomfortable for me. People began to say things like, “if some people are tired” and if “someone in the group can’t do it” and other things that made me feel smaller and smaller. After all, I was the only person who had expressed the desire to return to camp. The worst part was their tone. You know, that tone of “poor you who can’t do it” all while talking (bragging?) about how they weren’t even tired. I began to deeply regret putting my needs out there at all. I had softly admitted to feeling weak, and the group’s responses made me feel like crawling under a rock. At some point, I said something about people saying things that felt personal. Unfortunately, I addressed this mostly to the one person who was trying to be compassionate. Then things just turned ugly. Everyone started to get upset and say how their comments weren’t about me, just that if “some people” couldn’t handle it….yeah. I said I would be fine. I could deal with it and go see the Riggs Glacier, I could do it. They kept saying stuff and I had to vehemently declare that I was totally fine with the plan! Then it went quiet again.
This is when I broke down into tears. I hope no one realized it and I don’t think they did. I tucked my face deep into my sweater with my rain hood pulled down and stifled my sobs so that my body wouldn’t move. I think everyone might have thought I was “pouting” and one or two asked me if I was doing ok. I said I was just keeping my face warm. People went about their business while I sat there trying to hide my crying. When I had it under control enough, I got up and made like I was going off into the bushes to pee. I was really getting away from everyone so I could let the sobs out that I had been holding back. I took my moment to break down, then I dried my tears, pulled myself together, and headed back.
**Note: despite how this sounds, the people in my group were terrific people. They are all kind and friendly, helpful and cooperative. This was just a bad moment and I don’t think anyone really knew I had been hypothermic, they didn’t know how much I worried I couldn’t make it, they just didn’t know. And it’s true that we all paid a lot to be there and had paddled a long way. I understood why people didn’t want to head back, why they wanted to see everything, and how they didn’t want to be held back by one person. Had I not been in the state I was in, I would have been right there feeling the same way. I was just having a bad moment.**
We decided, for the sake of time and because no one was hungry, we would skip having lunch and just get to it. Back in the kayak, it didn’t seem so bad. My arms felt ok, I had warmed up enough to fight back the hypothermia I had experienced, and the fight-or-flight sensation in my body from the hypothermia was finally calming down. I began to feel like maybe I would be able to get through the day – if for no other reason than to prove to everyone that I could.
We got up and saw the Riggs glacier, then paddled back to the mouth of the McBride inlet. We stopped there for a pee, rest, and snack before getting back in the kayaks to paddle back to camp. Just after the break, there was a pretty rough moment. Bastien had stopped to take pictures with his cell phone and while moving around in the kayak…dropped his phone in the bay. We stopped and I felt so awful for him as he actually went through the stages of grief. First, it was just shock and denial. Did that really just happen? He cried and I heard his heart breaking as he felt the loss of all his pictures of the trip. The video he got of the whales, the video of an Arctic Tern diving into the water and coming up with a fish, the bears, the mountains, the glacier, our camps…all gone. Then he was angry at himself, beating himself up for not being more careful, for not preventing the accident. He stayed in anger for a while, going between anger, then loss and sadness, and back to anger. The group, up ahead, seemed to realize something was wrong and waited for us. I told Bastien I wished I could give him a hug and that he could take as long as he needed. I told him that I knew I would be devastated in his shoes and feeling this loss was awful. He wasn’t ready for compassion and lashed out a bit, but I understood and didn’t take it personally. Slowly I began to paddle on my own. I told him not to worry about paddling until he was ready, I was just going to get us moving again. The next hour was a mix of paddling and pausing to process, talk, and grieve.
The last hour was definitely rough and it was just paddle paddle paddle paddle, trying to just get there and be DONE with this long-ass day. We finally made it back to camp and we all headed to our tents to change and rest a bit before dinner. All except the guides! They went straight from this 12+ hour day on the water to making our dinner. I genuinely felt bad for them and a little guilty for resting while they continued to work. While having wine, I finally convinced our guides to let me help with dinner prep! I helped cut up the veggies for our Gnocchi with veggies and tomato sauce.
After dinner, we were all pretty exhausted. We worked together to pack up the kitchen and wash the dishes before taking a last pee and going to bed.
