Hiking Tolkat River

This was our stop, 3 hours on the bus (we only went 53 miles), but what a beautiful 3 hours. We decided to hike the mostly dried up river bed. We thought this would be a fairly easy hike for us since it was flat, and we could see forever, so approaching animals would be easy to see. What we didn't know is that the river is so filled with silt from the glaciers that nothing lives in it and you can not filter it to drink.

I tried to be a little artistic on this hike, I am no where near the photographer Nathan is, but I was having fun. The rocks were so beautiful. I could bore you with lots of them, but I picked my favorite. I could have taken so many pictures of the rocks, but I kept getting too far behind the gang.

Beautiful!

Bonnie, Nathan and the boys hiking ahead of me. The water doesn't look like much and for the most part it wasn't, but there were areas that were really rushing. We had to continually cross small streams of water (it is called a braided river because of all the little streams breaking in and out of the main river.

On one of our crossings I went first. BIG mistake. I stepped on a big, flat, stable looking rock and it tipped. Under normal circumstances, this would not have been any big deal, my foot would have gotten wet, but being 8 months pregnant and carrying the camera, my balance and weight were off. I fell completely on my side so I was laying in the water. Surprisingly the only thing I hurt was my ankle and my hip. I had my hand on my belly to cushion it. Nathan and Bonnie were really upset and worried about me. I was more worried because I couldn't get up and our really nice camera was submerged. I thought for sure it was ruined, but thankfully, we both made it out without any trouble. I was soaked (which actually felt REALLY good-I was so hot), but was dry by the time we got back to the bus.

I love the contrast of the blue sky, white clouds, and green mountains.

This is glacial silt, its whats left when the water dries up. So you can see why nothing lives in it and you can not drink it. It was beautiful, the kind of "mud" you just want to sink your feet into. Everest did, and had a blast, but it ruined some of the pictures I wanted to take. That is life and I am glad he was there to help us remember to have fun.

When we got back to where the bus would pick us up (you can see the shelter in the background), we found a clean flowing stream. We were all very thirsty by this point. Nathan taught Everest how to use the water filter.

Then he showed him how to drink from the filter. I think Everest would have sat there all day filtering water.