Having lunch above Skull Rapids on the Hood River

Skull Rapid – it’s an ominous name for a long and violent rapid, crashing over and through large boulders. This was our first portage of many, right at the outlet of Esker Lake. We figured out how to organize our gear, how to tie loose gear on to packframes, and how much we could all carry. It was a short portage at only a few hundred meters, and we completed it fairly quickly and had lunch on the bluff overlooking the rapid. The rapid is named for an old muskox skull, slowly decaying in the mats of flowering labrador tea (Ledum sp.).