A few days ago, while hiking to Texas Peak and Paddy's Peak, we had good views of Mt Carlyle. Actually, Mt Carlyle can be seen to the west from Kaslo with it's quite prominent twin peaks easily visible. It was decided that today would be a good day to tackle the peak so 3 of us met at Dan's place at 7 am.First was the 2-hour vehicle access part of the trip, which involved driving towards New Denver, up to the historical mining town of Sandon and from there up the Carpenter Creek Road.
A few km up that track things became sufficiently overgrown that we switched to the mountain bikes. This went fine until we ran into significant avalanche debris, probably deposited 2 winters ago. After carting our bikes over a few piles of this, we abandoned the bikes and walked.The track eventually led towards a low point on Mt Carlyle's SW flank where there had been mining activity over 100 years ago. Remains of old buildings and other mining debris still litter the scene here.
Past this col, the route followed Mt Carlyle's south side until the SE ridge was reached and from there it was merely a scramble over large, blocky granite to the summit.Although light showers had accompanied us this far, we were treated to clearing skies and warmer temperatures once we reached the summit, and views improved accordingly. Ridges and familiar peaks were in all directions, including Kokanee Glacier Park to our south.
After enjoying the views and our lunch, we retraced our steps, taking some time to explore the old mine site. Distant thunder didn't materialize into anything and the truck was finally reached after about 6.5 hours of hiking. About a 10-hour day all in all.
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