day four (cribs to tsusiat - 16.5 km)

repelling

beach walking

bridge over cheewat river

bear tracks at cheewat river

boat crossing at nitnat narrows

fresh crabs and salmon

one of the few pictures showing our companion hikers (team red, the bobs, and the four girls)

inside the famous hole-in-the-wall

tsusiat falls

i wake up at cribs feeling renewed by my nine hours of sleep. this is also the first night i didn't get cold. we start our hike at 9:20 and have what many hikers we have passed describe as a long but easy day. we have 16.5 km to cover which makes it our longest distance day on the hike. we had the mindset of an easy day and were forced inland for the first part by impassable headlands. we then hit a section of beach that took us to the cheewhat river (river of urine). we missed the trail access and had to go around the river bank. we saw bear tracks on the banks of the cheewhat just before the bridge. after the bridge there were more nasty inland trails.
it was quite brutal with more up and down hills, mud, roots, ladders, and boardwalks that were missing planks, rotten, or sloped at a 30 degree angle with mud. at noon we arrive at the nitinat narrows which is a waterway passable only by boat. the land in this area is tribal land and the indians run a water ferry across the lake. on the south side of the lake is a dock where they catch crab and salmon and sell it to the hikers going across. i bought a salmon with baked potato and had a coke and beer. they were filleting the salmon and snapping the legs off the crab in front of us to prepare our meal. it was yummy. we took the two minute ferry across the lake and met a group that wanted to be evacuated off the trail. the boat captain wanted $40/person to taxi them to the trailhead. the trail on the other side of the lake was straight up with more mud and roots for 2-3 km. beatin and bruised, we took the first beach access down at roughly the 30.5 km mark. it was a welcome change and we made good time on the shelf. the tides weren't in our favor though and we determined we couldn't get around the hole-in-the-wall. we took the last beach access route to the inland trail and went around the hole-in-the-wall and then proceeded back down to the beach. at that time we saw a group of hikers going through the hole-in-the-wall and decided to go back for some pictures. we made it to our camp site, tsusiat falls, at 6:00. the waterfall was beautiful. we found a site real close to the bear cache and step-up camp. i waded into the falls and decided to bathe two days in a row. it was long hard day. tomorrow was labelled as another "easy" day by several hikers.....we will see.