Ellesmere-home previous

Got up, showered, ate (home cooked eggs & ham, cereal, more). The four of us met the other four (Bill, Tom, Dan, Jack) at the airport. We couldn’t find the First Air (the folks we chartered the plane from), but a friendly guy I a truck took us to their cargo hanger. We reorganized, repacked, loaded up, and stored our extra stuff.

We loaded the ski-equipped twin otter and with a weather report from the “ranger station” at Tanquary Fiord that said clear and sunny we took off our four-hour flight. Vibrating, noisy, and cramped – just as expected.

We expected to go directly to the ski landing, however due to strong headwinds we stopped at the Tanquary Fiord pick-up spot and refueled from several year old barrels that were left for this purpose. A Canadian Military helicopter was there to pick up the park rangers for a helicopter tour, so we didn’t have an opportunity to meet the rangers at that time.

Due to the remote nature and infrequent visitation, maps aren’t all that detailed.

We flew couple arcs around comparing the awesome view to the maps to insure we were landing where we thought, and the pilots were selecting a landing site. We set down a few kilometers from the peak - the closest good landing site

We made camp right at the landing site so we wouldn’t have to carry everything everywhere. Strange that it is really late in the day and the sun is overhead. Tony and Pete (our Canadians) wanted to go climb right then, but the rest of us were tired from the flight and wanted to rest and start in the morning. Whatever “morning” means in this context.

Five of us went to bed. Tony, Pete, and Greg (who was tenting and sharing food with them) headed up the valley to climb the peak.

A very unique feeling was the plane taking off and heading away. We were over 100 miles from the nearest humans and completely self-reliant. I recommend everyone do something like sometime, even if it us just a hike into a remote area. Nobody get hurt, please.