The past 4 days have been spent with 4 friends on what Gerald calls his "Thrash & Bash", annual explorations of new, backcountry areas in the Kootenays where access is difficult, terrain is challenging and other people are completely non-existent. This year's T&B met those criteria in spades. Last year's trip was reported here.Armed with food, gear, big packs and a hand-drawn map showing possible elk trails into the chosen area, we set off for the end of the road, about 50 km up the Howser Creek FSR. The weather forecast was for "showers" and cool temperatures. Not bad for hiking, we thought. Sure enough, it started showering soon after we started walking, but a better description would be intermittent "rain".
There was a trail to start with and this trail did appear occasionally throughout the hike, but when we lost it, as happened a few times, we had to resort to alder bashing and rhodo thrashing until the trail reappeared. After 5.5 hours of this, we reached a little valley with a good location for a campground. By then, of course, it was raining and we were completely soaked. Hypothermia was a concern as the only thing that had been keeping us warm was the hiking. Once we stopped, we were freezing.
Tents were set up, a tarp was hung from the trees, everyone changed into "dry" clothes and headed into their respective tents. A fire was eventually started, the rain stopped for awhile and we began the process of drying out.
Monday morning was cool and cloudy, so after warming up, we headed up one valley to see what we could see. We eventually arrived at the toe of a small glacier. Temperature was +3C at mid-day. Back at camp, 3 of the group decided to hike up to another pass while 2 of us kept the fire going and worked on drying things out.
Tuesday, all of us hiked to a small glacier and high ridge east of a prominent peak (The Virgin), where we had fantastic views of peaks in all directions and the Bugaboo spires just to the NW of us. Had we been a little bit higher, we probably could have seen the ACC's Kain Hut. Skies were blue, temperatures were warming, our clothes and boots were less wet than they had been since we started. What more could one ask for?
Wednesday, we packed up to hike out. The problem with elk trails is that they seemed to disappear occasionally, leaving us thrashing around in the bush trying to locate the trail again. This happened repeatedly, but we finally, after 5 hours of this kind of fun, returned to our vehicles for the 2 hour drive back home. I think I can safely say that everyone was pretty thrashed after this little explore into another little pocket of the West Kootenay wilderness.
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