Exploring the Koots - 0905 - The Badshot Range

It's been awhile since we joined the "Sunday Hikers" on their regular day-trips, but this weekend's hike was not one to pass up. The Healey Creek FSR, north of Gerrard, is normally inaccessible because of various slides and road conditions, but, because of some mining exploration going on up that way, the road had been cleared. Accordingly, a group of us headed up there on Monday.

The drive to the pass took almost 3 hours, with slow going for the last few km. The road was cleared and decent enough as logging roads go, but it was rough in places, so rather than shake everyone completely to pieces....

The end of the Healey Creek drainage comes from a pass between the Razor's Edge (shown in the photo) and Mt Abbot. These are large, quite spectacular granite blocks that rear up at the pass, right in front of us when we arrived. The other side of the pass is Hall Creek which drains into the Duncan River only a few km down from where we were.

We hiked up both sides of the pass. To the west, we passed two old mine shafts and much rubble, gaining views out over more spires of the Badshot Range (Badshot Mt, The Spine, etc). To the east, we climbed towards a ridge joining up with Mt Abbot. Nice views to the south of Mt Wagner, the Tenderfoot Glacier and Mt Trione. Horseflies were fierce in some spots. There seemed to be some possibilities for peak climbing and ridge wandering in the area and there were a couple of nice camping spots in the sub-alpine meadows.

After a few hours of wandering around enjoying the views, we headed for home. Some pictures are near the end of this album: Summer in the Koots 2011.

I should also mention a very nice sighting of a mother grizzly and her two cubs on "Highway" 31, just after we left the Healey Creek FSR. The cubs in particular were quite silvery-haired. I tried to get pictures, but even with the amount of time I had available, the camera took too long to charge up the flash so the best I managed was a dark bum disappearing into the bush by the river. I wish I'd had the presence to mind to turn the flash off....