2007 - Maligne Pass, Brandywine and Eaton Peak

My Flickr site for more pictures - 

Maligne Pass - 
Poboktan Creek to Maligne Lake via Maligne Pass - "The Skyline Will Have to Wait."
apr. Location of Maligne Pass

-  slide show of our trip

Fresh snow!

Chuck McCafferty, Ken Willlis, Dale Macquarrie, and I drove to Jasper to start our trek through Maligne Pass and on to the Skyline trail. Ken had made all the reservations. It was early August. It snowed in the mountains when we woke up in Jasper to start our hike.

Heavy packs again!

The day we left, the weather looked quite promising. The picture above was taken at the junction where you can go north to Avalanche camp or south towards the Jonas Shoulder loop.

We finally got to Avalanche camp. The weather stopped looking promising. It started to look worrisome. The video was taken with my little Olympus still camera. I have made it as small as possible to download quicker.
During the first night it rained ....and rained. In the morning Ken stuck his head outside the tent and announced that the snow line was about 500 feet above us. We were headed to Maligne Pass which was at least that much above us. If we were going to do this hike, we were going to get wet and cold.

Approaching Maligne Pass

It proved to be true. Going over the pass was an exercise in perseverence. The wind blew wet snow onto us where it stuck and formed a layer only to show how poorly our older goretext coats worked.

Just down from the pass at Mary Vaux Campsite, we tried to eat to get warm again. It partly succeeded, so once we ate a bunch, off we went headed for the Mary Schaffer campsite many kilometers ahead.

At the Mary Schaffer campsite. (Ken's photo)

The wilderness

The trail seemed to go on and on. Finally we rounded a bend and found oursleves at the campsite. It had a nice view to the north where our goal lay.

I have never seen so many tracks and scat on a trail (Ken's photo)

One of the many meadows on the trail (Ken's photo).

Trapper Creek campsite was our last camp. It was to be our last camp with the mosquitos and smoke. Dale dealt with his sock "thing", Chuck dealt with the mosquitos the best he could, and Ken was still bubbling with energy.
The next day dawned grey and threatening to rain. We did the last five kilometers to Maligne Lake and took off our packs. Ken hitch hiked to get his car, and our hike was over. The Skyline trail was going to have to wait.

A dandy tent. :-)

Brandywine Mountain
Location of Brandywine Mountain

Dollie and Ann are on a knoll of the South-East ridge
during a brief moment when the peak was in full view.

Alan Lizee is an active member of the Maple Ridge Outdoor Club as well as a member of long standing of the Red Lobster Outdoor Club. He led a trip with two members of the Maple Ridge Outdoor Club up Brandywine Mountain 

"On Aug 10th Dollie, Ann and myself hiked Brandywine Mt as a Ridge Meadows Outdoor Club outing. The entire day the clouds threatened to sock-in the peak, but they lifted often enough to give visual bearings without resorting to map and compass. It took 1 1/2 hrs to reach Brandywine meadows from the end of the Brandywine/Callaghan West Forest Service Road (2w drivable), then another 2 1/2 hrs to the summit of Brandywine. We only had fleeting views along the way of Mt Garibaldi, Castle Towers, Black Tusk, Mt Fee, and Pyroclastic Pk. While on the summit it was totally socked-in and finger-numbing cold. Yet in spite of poor visibility, a great time was had by all.

" - Alan Lizee

"This self-timer shot is all I have. It was socked-in so there was no view from the top"....Al

Eaton Peak

Location of Eaton Peak

Alan Lizee

"I went hiking today with unlimited bear deterrents, which turned out to be a total flop. But guess where the bear was? It was in our yard. Barb, banged on the garage door twice to scare it away. It was not interested in our garbage on the street for pickup at 11:00. I think it just thought our yard would be a cool place to hang-out!

I just had to try this trip out to see if it would be feasible. I would do it again, but you do need the "Boost". Keith, I owe you a bear spray. The bush-whacking up the bluffs first pulled the pin on the personal alarm and by the time I could stop it the batteries and my ears were toast. A little later the bear spray must have been torn from the pack and I could not find it on the way down. Anyway, I made excellent time to the top, and my route finding was bang-on. There are several tent possibilities at the lake for single-occupant tents, so camping is not out of the picture." - Alan Lizee

2007 - Nickel Plate, Battery Mountain, Golden Ears, Baffin Island

My Flickr site for more pictures - 

Nickel Plate - Penticton
Location of Nickel Plate Nordic Centre

The lodge

My good friend Alan Lizee and I headed up to Penticton on spring break to do some cross country skiing with Bob Cuthbert. Nickel Plate is a little less than an hour from down town Penticton and is close to 6000 ft. above sea level, so it is a lot colder than down in the valley. 

Alan and Bob

The weather was wonderful. It was well below zero, and the sun was out. The tracks were set, and there was lots of snow. The wood stove was burning in the hut waiting for our return. What more could I wish for? I wished I was in shape! Oh, well, we had a good couple of days and it was thoroughly enjoyable. After our second day of skiing Alan and I drove down to Oliver to see Lanny and Julie Martiniuk and enjoyed their company for the night. (Keep an eye out for Stoneboat wines)

Battery Mountain via Viking Creek
Location of Battery and Evan's Peak trail

Alan and Chris

"I always thought only a masochist would dare wander up the bushy, bluffy flank of Evans Peak, in Golden Ears Park, until I read a bivouac.com report by Fred Douglas. He and Alice climbed Evans Peak, accessing it from a gully rising out of Evans canyon. On their descent they noticed flagging in the col between Evans and Alouette, and being adventurers, they decided to find out where the tapes would lead them. They headed down a prow between Viking creek and its neighbor creek to the North, and they ended up on the Viking Creek lookout trail. It took 90 minutes to descend from the col to the West Canyon hikers' parking lot."
- Alan Lizee

Lots of snow

"I decided to set my prejudices aside and try to get up Alouette from this access. It turned out to be a quite enjoyable snow hike, winding around a few bluffs and trending generally Westward to gain Alouette's South West ridge. Here we found the snow hiking to be more pleasurable by staying to the East of the summer trail, closer to the actual ridge crest. Chris Cooper and I summited first, then I repeated the hike twice more In April with members of the Ridge Meadows Outdoor Club.

This being the year of the big Fraser River flood threat, I thought a picture of the mid-April snow profile at 1150 meters would be appropriate."
- Alan Lizee

Chris Cooper hiking across the top of  Alouette (Battery) Mt. summit

Blanchard Peak (Needle Point), Chris Cooper, Edge Peak

Golden Ears - Golden Ears Park

Location of the Golden Ears

Looking north from the summit of the Golden Ears

Alan made a solo trip up to the summit of the Golden Ears May 31. Here is what he had to say:

"Hi Gang, I had to go back to the Ears today, Wednesday, because the weather was irresistible, and because there was unfinished business to get done. I hiked without a break to reach the summit before noon. I planned to just take 2 shots from the top and head right back down before the snow softened too much and maybe start sluffing. I ended up spending 20 minutes on top, and did run into a bit of a glitch coming down. The solution worked very well and I was down in no time. It was a wonderful day!
Happy Trails...Alan"

Blanchard Peak (Needle Point) looking south from the top.

In the picture above, Mt. Edge is off the left edge of the photo. Needle Point is the tooth like peak hiding Battery Mtn behind it. The southern part of the Golden Ears is on the right side.

Baffin Island Ski Expedition - May 08 to June 05 2007
Location of Baffin Island
The following article was written by Chris Cooper:

"A very typical camp with great views all the time"

"One more excuse to visit the Canadian Arctic, this time it is Gibbs Fiord on Baffin Island, at 70 degrees Latitude, the team composed of two fellows Chris Cooper, Manrico Scremin and three gals Liz Scremin, Linda Bily and Julia Keenliside.

Liz and Manrico and I had discussed a few years ago to do something in the Arctic on skis but it took a few years to finally pull it off together. Most of my Arctic journeys have been with John Dunn, Sandy Briggs and Mike Sharp so this will be a more modest trip and not too ambitious, having said that it’s great just being out their with new comarades.

This was the first Arctic ski trip for the others so they learned a lot from the old boy!!

Anyway, one must plan on at least a weeks travel time both going and returning on these types of journeys and also one must plan on having some complicated logistics to sort out including using points to your advantage!! It's the only way to get there!"

The group.

"We arrive in Iqaluit on the 9th May and met with Mary Potyrala who just happened to know Mike Sharp, Mary put us up for two nights then onto Clyde River to meet outfitter Levi Palituq who arranged Komatik and Snow machines for our group and moved us and gear to Gibbs Fiord.

A 10 hr journey by Komatik ( sled ) is cold, rough and quite adventurous but we managed to get there with some incredible scenery to say the least."

A sense of scale

"Our three week ski traverse starts here at Gibbs Fiord with walls as high as 5000ft.inplaces, very impressive.

The ski traverse took us through Gibbs Fiord, Stewart Valley, Sail Peaks, Walker Arm, Sam Ford Fiord, Polar Sun Spire,Swiss Bay, Revoir Pass and finally Eglinton Fiord. Levi arranged our pickup near Eglinton Tower which was about 60km from Clyde River."

Family in mind.

"In all I calculated 200km on skis including side trips, which was considerably less than most ski journeys up there and was considerably easier than the marches with John Dunn who we met heading North to Pond Inlet over a 6 week journey. It was great to see John, Sandy and Paul there."

"My last day trip on Baffin."

A Word About Global Warming as of January 1st 2008

"I have just picked up the phone just thinking of our dear friends in Clyde River, I spoke with Levi Palituq and he mentioned to me that there is no evidence of Global warming at present and that it has been consistantly cold temperatures of -40C and will be colder in January and February, It was completely dark December 18, 19, and 20th 2007.

They and the community have celebrated Christmas over a two week period starting in mid December, they came together with lots of music and dancing.

So there we are, another great journey on skis to a marvelous place in Canada’s Arctic."

Submitted on behalf of the group.      Chris G. Cooper