Neptune Mountaineering in Boulder, CO hosts slideshows every Thursday evening, featuring adventurers and climbers from around the world. On September 17th, Neptune's will be hosting The Journey of the Spirit Bear, our first post-journey talk. Here are the details!

What: Journey of the Spirit Bear, slideshow & live video presentation
When: Thursday, September 17th, 2009. 7:00 pm
Where: Neptune Mountaineering, Boulder, CO (address & directions on the website)
How Much: Free, of course!

Just next door to Neptune is the Southern Sun Brewery, a great brewpub where many of us will meet for dinner around 5:30 PM. If you're near Boulder, feel free to stop by!

- Mike

After sorting through over a thousand photos, I've finally posted some pictures online, and after filling in some of the "blank" spots on the Tracking Map, I've put together a SPOT Adventures page that covers the basic route of our journey.

To view the photos, check out the Webshots Album online. For the Tracking Map, check out the SPOT Adventures Page!

In the meantime, here are a few teaser photos just to keep you happy (click on any photo to go directly to the album):

Rounding the Bend, Whalen Lake


Last Light on Whalen Lake


Walking The Ridge


Plane Wreck in the Rainforest


Butedale Falls


Canoona Lake


Waning Light on Anchor Lake


Floating Vertigo Lake


Scouting the Route on Tyler Creek


Broken Foot on Day 14


Early Passage in Meyers Narrows

Well, for the most part the Journey of the Spirit Bear is a wrap! We're back in Prince Rupert now, wearing dry street clothes and waiting for our flights home early next week. We'll spend our time sorting through the gigabytes of photos and video we took, posting some albums and fleshing out trip reports shortly after we're home, but in the meantime, here's a brief rundown of what went down.

• We crossed the whole island, North to South, under our own power. In that sense alone, the trip was a resounding success. It was tough, but hell's bells, we did it. Excepting a single layover day in Butedale, we saw no other people on the whole of Princess Royal Island. Not so much as a footprint by anyone but ourselves.
• We were passed 15' away by a pod of Orca whales, had wolves howling at us from 20 feet in the middle of the night, and otherwise had a great trek, but alas, the Kermode bears eluded us on this journey. The constant movement of the trip, combined with the unseasonably hot weather, made bear-viewing difficult. We saw plenty of bear scat and fresh signs (we knew they saw us), but none showed themselves to us. No worries, I'm already sprouting plans to come back again.
• Those of you watching the SPOT Track know that we cut the trip just a bit early. On Day 14 we were bushwhacking down Tyler Creek (just walking straight down the creek) and I slipped, jammed my left foot in a rock, and broke the big toe. Swollen, black & blue, the works. I limped the last 5 km out to the Bay of Plenty on Laredo Inlet, and (rather than painfully bushwhacking further on a busted big toe) we made a beeline out in the packrafts, cutting off some of the lowland itinerary on the SW end of the island. Two days later we were back in Klemtu, healthy and happy. I got it seen at the reservation clinic in Klemtu, and am heading out today to the larger hospital here in Prince Rupert to get it checked out further.
• The people here have been nothing short of amazing... the generosity of rural townships has always been impressive, but a number of folks (often quite randomly) have contributed to a safe and glorious journey for us. There are too many to enumerate here, but reports and pictures will follow.

Anyway, there's more to say than I have time for here at the hostel in Prince Rupert, but I just wanted to check in and give a brief update! More coming as we get home & settled. Until then, all the best,

- Mike