At another narrow canyon, we hit an eddy to scout. This time, we climbed 700 feet up a loose slope to get a better view downstream. At the top, we were still unable to see the rapids below. We sat down and discussed our situation.

After what we had gone through, I was scared and felt the river was too high for any margin of safety. I told Jay we needed to get out of the canyon while we still had a chance. We knew downstream things would get worse and there may be no possibility of retreat out of the canyon. The decision was made - we hiked out and it saved our lives.

We walked back down to our boats and collected our gear. We knew the hiking was going to be tough, but thought we could make it back to the put-in that night since it was only 11am and we thought we had only traveled 7 miles on the river. We abandoned our boats near the water and started up the hill with our sleeping bags, bivy sacks, food, 20lbs of camera gear, and clothes lashed to our paddles, carried over our shoulders.

We blazed a trail through thick brushes and moss beds for over four hours until we found a small game trail on top of the ridge. This inviting sight turned out to be a bad deal. Along the trail, we came across a large grizzly track in the mud and plenty of grizzly hair deposited in the bushes. All we had in defense was a rescue whistle that we blew to try and scare away the bears. We were definitely feeling like part of the food chain.

By 5pm, our hopes of getting out of the canyon that night were quickly diminishing. We hiked down towards the beach from the ridge to look for a place to camp for the night and arrived at a small sand and rock beach at dusk.

Despite a campfire and sleeping bags, it was one of the coldest nights I've ever spent camping. A close look at the map showed that we had actually paddled 14 miles in only three hours, including scouting. This meant we had a lot more hiking to do than we thought.

"Despite an early start on our second day, it took us 13 hours of hiking through dense wilderness, freezing rain and darkness to reach the car..."

Despite an early start on our second day, it took us 13 hours of hiking through dense wilderness, freezing rain and darkness to reach the car at the put-in. It was 9:30pm and we were hungry, exhausted and severely dehydrated. We climbed into the car and drove back to the hotel.

While lying in bed in pain that night, we had a knock on our door at 11pm. When Jay opened the door, a group of paddlers, including Lesser, appeared. They had arrived to run the Stikine, but decided to pull out due to the flow. They guessed the flow to be at 30-35,000 CFS, more than double the flow that had ever been attempted previously!

Running rivers like the Stikine requires more than being a world-class paddler. You have to be prepared for anything. We decided to put-in at high water, thinking we could deal with it, and we paid the price. Launching without knowing the water level was a bad decision.

Fortunately, we stuck to our plan to hike out if things didn't feel right. It was hard for us to bag the trip after our efforts to get there and leave our dream unfulfilled. But, I look forward to visiting the Stikine again when it's at 10,000 CFS or lower.