When Gerald told us that he'd spent 30 years looking at this peak from his classroom window, how could we not be a part of fulfilling his desire to stand on it's summit? There is, however, always a risk wandering around in someone else's dreams....
Hindsight being what it usually is, Stu and I agreed to be a part of this and picked up Gerald on Wednesday afternoon, caught the ferry across the Lake and spent nearly 3 hours driving up the Kootenay East Forest Service Road and up the logging roads to the "trailhead" at 1400 meters where we camped for the night. The lights of home twinkled just across the Lake several km away and 800 meters below us.
Morning came at 4 am. The day was expected to be hot (+30C) so we wanted an early start. Once fed and watered, we headed up across the upper part of the clearcut at 5 am, shortly encountering the first bit of forest and bushwhacking. In about an hour we reached the first ridge where walking was fine and breezes cool. We had determined earlier from our maps and a study of Google Earth that we would have to hike far to the north to avoid ridiculously steep gullies so we ended up gaining much of the elevation of the first "hill" only to lose all that elevation by descending steep avalanche slopes just to get to the base of the peak we had traveled to climb.
After a snack and cool water from the stream, we thrashed and pulled ourselves up a heinously steep alder and rhododendron gully (mercifully short) to reach the SE ridge which we plodded up to the top. A quick measurement showed that this was a nearly 40 degree slope, but it wasn't scree at least....
The summit ( at around 2570 meters) was excellent, as most summits are after your uphill labours. Views in all directions, home now even further below us, sunshine, a light breeze, the occasional blackfly.... After some repairs to my glasses which I managed to partially crush (note: it's good to wrap some duct-tape to your ski pole, just in case), we headed back down. Slowly. Managed to find the turn into the heinous steep bush, where we practiced more of what I refer to as West Kootenay aid climbing (aid climbing, for the uninitiated, is where you pull, hang or stand on gear attached to the rock), where you pull, hang or stand on any bush or tree that will help you get up or down. There is NO style to this kind of climbing.... Results are all that matters,
Another rest at the stream, then back up the avalanche slope (now in full, hot sun), a traverse across slopes around to the ridge, back down that, off into the trees for more bushwhacking (much longer than we remembered it from morning) and then, the coup de grace, 200 meters of the worst possible thrash down the clearcut - chest-high bushes, hidden logs and holes, all in the hot sun. Back at the truck in 11 hours round trip. Thankfully the cola was cool. Nothing left except the drive home and the ride back across the Lake to Home Recovery Base.
More pictures of the day are at: https://picasaweb.google.com/dave.mcc51/Baldy
The lesson from this story is when someone tells you that they've been thinking of some trip for 30 years, sometimes it's best NOT to know what you're getting yourself into.
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