Wednesday, we loaded up, drove down to the Kootenay Lake ferry and proceeded up the Grey Pass Forest Service Road (remember, this ascent was done in true BC alpine style - see earlier post).
We arrived at the Oliver Lake campsite not long before sunset, just in time to have a quick stroll to the lake and time to read for awhile. We spent a quiet, pleasant night "car-camping". Before the sun got up too far, we crawled out of our nests, had a great breakfast of instant oatmeal, lots of sugar, ramen noodles and hot iced tea. Can't beat that!. Drove down the road a few km and began the climb up to the trailhead. There were 5 km of very steep and very rough track, necessitating some complete 4x4 climbing (Cath even got out to walk once rather than stay inside the truck!)
The trailhead was reached, we packed, and began the short hike through the woods and up to the alpine meadows and on to the peaks, as there were, we discovered, two of them - one being the peak of Sphinx Mtn and the other, slightly lower, some "unnamed peak". About 600 m elevation gain from the trailhead to the first summit, a short backtrack to a col and then up the second peak with great views of the West Arm of Kootenay Lake and all the surrounding peaks.
From our vantage points we had great views of Loki Mtn, St Mary's Alpine area, several areas in Kokanee Glacier Prov Park (including the antenna structure on top of one peak that I visited last March in skis. What we discovered was that Sphinx Mtn isn't really all that visible from the west side of the Lake because "Unnamed Peak" is in the way. However, it was a nice outing, some exercise was had and we were back home in under 24 hours just in time for my daily dose of "The West Wing".
1 comment:
Thanks for another nice day in the Koots, MD.
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