Converse in the North Cascades: Some Lakes on Maselpanik Creek, British Columbia

This is another long post. If the reader gets tired of slogging through the text, there are also some pretty decent photos to look at.

On Friday the 12^th of September I got up before daylight and headed north to British Columbia for four days. My goal was a group of unnamed lakes on Maselpanik Creek, a tributary to the Klesilkwa River, in turn a tributary to the Skagit in B.C. I also planned to go over a ridge to the northwest of these lakes into another unnamed lake on an unnamed creek between Klesilkwa Mountain and Mount Lockwood. And from there, I wanted to try to get around a ridge to the northwest into Clerf Lake.

The main idea was to get into these lakes while the road up Maselpanik Creek was still open. It is in pretty bad shape and a good storm or slide will probably close it for the foreseeable future. As it is, you can drive about four miles, the last three over large waterbars and the last several through a tunnel of willow brush. This isn’t ideal driving but it saves probably a couple of hours walking and once the road gets brushed in, it will be very difficult to walk. So it goes with old roads. A heavily overgrown road is often worse than no road at all.

There were a number of problems with my plan. The plan included getting into the lakes on Maselpanik and then the one over the ridge to the northwest on the same day. That is why I got an early start.

The first hitch in the plan was the approximately four hour drive to my debarkation point. This included another stop and search at the border. The whole hiking, camping out thing apparently arouses suspicion with the border guards. Plus I was growing my beard out and looked really scruffy.

It is really hard to get your legs going well and into a hiking after you have been sitting and driving for hours. On top of that I had had several long nights with little sleep the previous week trying to get the Long Gone Lake trip blog post done. And I had gone to the chiropractor the night before for a much needed adjustment. The adjustment was great. I had been having tingling and weakness in my left leg since before the Long Gone Lake trip. The trouble was, my muscles weren’t quite used to the new angles of their attachments so my legs felt a little weird.

It was about two miles from the road to the lower lake, give or take. I figured this would be a pretty easy trip and, being that close to a road, I figured that, if there were any fish in the lake there would probably be a fisherman’s path. I started up off the road feeling a little weird but in pretty high spirits.

Where I started up, the timber was old-growth or virgin i.e. had never been cut. It was pretty small and scrubby and very open and brushy underneath with numerous fallen logs. Before long I hit a wooded wetland flat with even more downed logs and sucking mud to navigate.

My pace was quickly slowed as I worked through the swamp. Finally I decided to get out of the swamp and into an old logging unit. The unit was 30 or 40 years old and the trees had grown up thick enough to block most of the light from the forest floor which, as a result, was relatively bare. Unfortunately under the canopy there was still an interlocking mesh of stiff, poking, scratching tree limbs that I had to force my way through, getting constant showers of dead needles that filled the nooks in my pack and stuck to the sweat on the back of my neck. A lot of these trees were Engelmann spruce (Picea engelmannii), which have very sharp needles.

I hit an old road and followed it for a while but the going wasn’t really any better. It was full of slide or tag alder (Alnus sinuata), which also presented a mass of resistance to my progress.

I got off the road and back into the old logging unit and continued on until I came to an avalanche track at the edge of the old logging unit. There had been a burn on the mountain above a number of years ago and this undoubtedly contributed to the buildup and subsequent sliding of snow.

At this point I crossed the creek to avoid the avalanche track. Then, unbeknownst to me at the time, I made a fatal error, fatal, at least, to my plans. I crossed back over the creek because the going looked better there.

I had some Google Earth air photos with me and they gave no indication that one side of the creek was better than the other. What they didn’t show, however, was the side of the creek I chose, while it looked like it was covered with forest canopy, was actually a few big trees with a lot of tag alder underneath. So the next thing I knew, I was battling through a bunch of tag alder on a pretty steep hillside.

The thick brush not only made the going difficult, I couldn’t see to navigate. What glimpses I got of the area on the other side of the creek looked very steep and I didn’t see any sense in struggling through that sea of brush to get over there to find out the route wasn’t feasible, whereupon I would have to wade back through the sea of brush. So I stuck with the route I was on.

Finally, the avalanche brush gave way to some large rocks. I felt very encouraged when I first saw the rock, thinking that this was the end of the brush. This feeling was very short lived. As it turned out, the rocks were huge. Some were the size of small houses. A few were probably even the size of large houses. And growing up through them was a forest of subalpine fir (Abies lasiocarpa).

The overall effect was to create a maze. I would go in a direction that looked passable only to be stopped by a sheer drop of 10 feet or more. Then I would have to try another route from that point or back track and try another route.

Subalpine fir is a very pretty tree, with silver highlights and a nice aromatic smell and it is pretty cool that you will often find this species in talus slopes thousands of feet below their normal elevation range. But in a setting like this pile of huge boulders they are a devil tree. They were growing thick enough to hide much of the boulder pile on the air photo. On the ground they were thick enough to visually block any potential routes that I might have taken around obstacles. And, in the open light of the boulder pile, they grew thick, stiff limbs all the way to the ground, making it difficult to move through many areas.

It took close to an hour to get the several hundred yards through the boulder pile. By this time my spirits were beginning to flag. Finally I was through the boulder pile and….more avalanche track choked with tag alder.

I could see timber and the flat the lower lake sat in on the other side of the avalanche track. This encouraged me to push on. I hit an area of ferns and short brush free of tag alders near the middle of the track. This made going a little easier before I had to wade through the tag alders on the other side to get into the timber.

When I hit the fern area in the middle of the avalanche track I could finally see the other side of the creek. It was well timbered but looked pretty steep. I could see though that there was at least enough of a flat to get me below the boulder pile on that side. I decided to take that side of the creek out and cross back over below the boulder pile if it got too steep.

It was better inside the timber on the other side of the avalanche but not by a lot. The huckleberry brush (mostly Vaccinium ovalifolium and V. membranaceum) and white flowered rhododendron (Rhododendron albiflorum) was growing thick and chest high in some places, trying to trip me with every step and resisting my movement forward.

I finally stumbled to the lake. It had taken me over three hours to travel roughly two miles. I had hoped to pick up some kind of fisherman’s trail but there was none and no sign of any camp. This was quite interesting to me. As close as this lake was to a driveable road, I was expecting to see some signs of human activity but there were none other than the fish I saw in the lake. It looked as if no one had ever been there or at least not in centuries.

At this point I was pretty discouraged. This was supposed to be a relatively easy trip and I was not mentally prepared when it turned out to be much harder than I had expected. I picked my way around the south side of the lake. It was thick brush most of the way, again, no trail, which was even more discouraging.

I did see an osprey dive after a fish. That was a pretty cool sight. I had just put my camera back and missed getting photos of the dive. It looked like the osprey missed whatever it was after. It flew to a tree and landed but I didn’t see anything in its talons and it didn’t look like it was eating. So I waited for about five minutes hoping for a repeat performance but no luck.

I continued along the south side of the lake and then to a talus slope on the west side. This wasn’t the best route but I wanted to get a look at the lake to see what, if anything, I could see. I didn’t see any amphibians but I did see a number of fish including several that were fry sized, about an inch long, as well as fish of many different sizes. This was a good indication that the fish population in the lake was self-reproducing.

I headed through the talus slope and up toward the upper lake. The talus was easier but there were still a few spots of big rocks that created navigation problems.

The five hundred foot climb to the upper lake wasn’t too bad although I was wading through chest high brush most of the way. There were some bluffs but I found a good way up past them near the creek.

Arriving at the upper lake at about 6:00 p.m., I was exhausted, more mentally than physically. According to my plan, I was supposed to have been past this lake and over the ridge and into the lake to the northwest by this time. It was obvious that I wouldn’t be going into that lake on this day.

I did find an excellent campsite near the outlet. Again, no old campfire rings or trails.

In a sphagnum pond near the outlet I observed a long-toed salamander (Ambystoma macrodactylum) larva.

I had enough daylight left after dinner to do a little fishing. I had seen several surfacing when I had arrived and heard one make a big splash. On about the third cast I hooked a nice rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss), 15 or 16 inches long. This fish had a lot of fight and leapt out of the water several times before it could be landed. After taking a few photos I turned it loose. I had already eaten and I had no good way to save the fish till morning. And I don’t actually like fish that much anyway, though I love fishing.

That evening I abandoned my plans to try to get all the way into Clerf Lake. It had taken much longer than I had expected to get to this point and the terrain was much rougher and there was no trail or path. I planned on taking another route on the way out but this was an unknown, other than that there was no trail there. It could be much better than the route I took in but it could possibly have even more complications and delays than the route in. And, once I did get out to the road, it was a long way back home and I needed to be back to work on time the next week.

I had taken and extra day in case I ran into complications. The idea was that if it took longer than expected, I could use that extra day to move my camp farther in. But, in addition to not being sure what the route back out would be like, I didn’t know what the route ahead would be like. Everything was telling me not to go any farther in with all my gear. Being tired, I was also prey to homesickness and it was hard to get self-motivated to go any farther. I decided to do a day trip into the lake to the northwest and some ponds near it.

The next day, Saturday the 13^th, I made my way through the thick brush on the north side of the lake. There were several lobes or inlets on this side of the lake which made the shape of the lake more interesting but they were a pain to navigate. I tried to stay back away from the lake as much as possible to avoid these lobes.

There was another talus slope along the lake with big rocks in it. These weren’t as big as the ones I had encountered along the creek on the way in but they were big enough to present some obstacles and slow my progress down.

I saw what I am pretty sure was a loon (Gavia immer) from the talus. I heard it call shortly before I saw it. I would dive and swim long distances underwater before resurfacing. The coloration of the bird was brown, not black and the white markings weren’t really distinct but it could have been a young loon or one in winter colors. I have seen some diving ducks swim underwater similar distances, but this bird didn’t look a lot like the diving ducks I am familiar with though, I admit, I am hardly an expert.

I followed another talus slope up to a saddle on the ridge northwest of the lake. I was looking for a wide gap that appeared on the Google Earth photos I had. I didn’t find this gap but I did find a spot to get off the ridge. It was a little steep but I felt pretty safe going down.

From the ridge top I could see that I would have to go through a large talus slope to the east in order to get down to the lake. Once I was down off the ridge top I headed in that direction only to find that the talus slope I was on ended in some impassable cliffs.

I had to go back west to try to find a way down past the cliffs. Not too far from where I came down there was a large gap in the cliffs with a gradual enough slope to get down. Unfortunately, a large rock had fallen into the one critical spot in this gap, creating a steep spot with a ten to fifteen foot drop.

I looked this spot over carefully and saw that there were several places where I could get down. The only problem was that if something went wrong or I screwed up and I fell, it would probably be pretty serious. I was all by myself and a long way from help so I decided not to chance it. I went a little farther west and found a better spot to get down.

Once I was down past that series of cliffs, it was a matter of navigating the talus slope back to the east and dropping about 1500 feet. The talus was a mix of easily navigable smaller rocks and big rock obstacles. At the eastern edge of the talus, I could see some big timber just beyond an avalanche track. The avalanche track ran near the eastern edge of the talus and I could see a swath of dead scrubby trees in it from an avalanche last winter or spring. I steered clear of that traveler’s nightmare and got into the timber above it.

The timber wasn’t a lot better. There were some big trees all right but the brush underneath was thick and chest high, just like most of the rest of the trip to this point. In addition, there were numerous springs and lots of wet ground.

I slowly made my way down through the resistant, tripping huckleberries and rhododendrons.

I finally hit the flat where the lake was. It was mostly sphagnum with scrubby trees and brush in the high areas. I got there at 1:00 p.m. It had taken me nearly two hours to make it the 1500 feet down off the ridge.

I reached the lake at the south end near the inlet and could see numerous fish surfacing but I didn’t stop to fish. Because of the difficult travel, time was running short and, unless I got a break, I probably wouldn’t have time to get into the ponds near the lake and back to camp. I ate a quick lunch and started down the east side of lake through more thick brush.

There was an old logging unit on this side of the lake, maybe 30 to 40 years old. The cutting line ended about one hundred yards from the lake and the road was probably within a quarter mile. Again, no campsites or trails despite lake being loaded with fish. The road was heavily overgrown and not walkable for years but still things like campfire rings and trails can persist for decades and I didn’t see any.

I continued through the thick, never ending brush, past the lake outlet to the north end of the lake. At this point the ponds were about half a mile away but it was now after 2:00 p.m. Time was running really short. It had taken me about six hours to reach this point. It would be dark by 8:00 p.m. leaving me six hours of daylight to get back. I was carrying a headlamp in my pack but I didn’t really want to try navigating that country by headlamp unless I absolutely had to.

Of course, I had dallied quite a bit on the way in, looking at things and taking pictures. There would be less of that on the way out which would save time. I had also noticed what looked like a much better route back over the ridge which might save me a lot of time if it worked. If it didn’t work, it would cost me time. So this wasn’t a sure thing.

I made one last desperate attempt to get to the ponds and I finally hit a fairly brush free area in the timber. My spirits soared. I might just make to the ponds and back to camp before dark. The going was good for about ten minutes and then I ran into another pile of huge boulders. It would take about half an hour or 45 minutes to go directly through these boulders and about half an hour to go around. I was out of time.

As I made my way back to the lake I realized that I had miscalculated. It had taken much longer than I had expected to travel in this area. If I had moved my camp to this lake and stayed the night, I would have had time to get into the ponds and move my camp back over the ridge the next day, Sunday the 14^th. Then I would have had all day Monday to get out which should have been fairly easy even though I was going to try a new, unknown route out with unknown problems and delays.

Of course, hindsight is 20/20. By Saturday afternoon I had information that I hadn’t had Saturday morning. With this information I could have made a better plan. Along with knowing better routes to take, that information would have been easy to get into the ponds and back out on schedule. But I had to go over the ground to find this information out. This is pretty common when exploring new territory. Quite often I end up making an initial trip and then make a subsequent, more productive trip later after I know the lay of the land better. Still, it was very discouraging, missing the ponds.

I found a sphagnum meadow on the north end of the lake with a bunch of long-toed salamander larvae in it and a number of moose, deer and bear tracks around it. I took some pictures and made a few notes before making my way to the outlet on the east side of the lake.

At the outlet I fished for a little bit and caught one fish, a rainbow trout. I was mostly fishing to find out what species of fish was in the lake, or at least one species in the lake. Sometimes there is more than one species present. I would have liked to stay and fish some more to see if I caught anything else but time was running short.

I started the long journey out at about 3:00 p.m. I took a different route through the scrubby trees in an avalanche track. It was pretty miserable. I don’t know if this route was any better or worse than the one I took off the ridge into the lake. It would have been a scratching, slipping, pushing fight through thick brush either way.

I made it back to ridge top at about 5:00 p.m. I had noticed a large, wide, low gradient gap and decided to chance taking it. This was the large gap that I saw on the air photos. I didn’t know if I would end up cliffed out and have to retrace my original route. This would be a serious time setback so it was a bit of a gamble to try the gap.

I lucked out. It was easy to get up on ridge from the gap and I found good way back to the route I had taken up in morning. On my way back, I went into an unmapped lake to the south just below Thompson Peak. This small lake was about 200 feet above the lake where I was camped. Unfortunately it was getting dark so didn’t stay long. Since this lake isn’t mapped, it technically doesn’t count for my project if one follows a strict interpretation of rules I set for myself. But it was right there within quarter mile so of my camp so it seemed silly not to at least go and look at it.

I got back to camp after dark, tired ,hungry and discouraged. There was no help for the discouragement so I ate dinner and went to bed.

Sunday morning the 14^th, I was up pretty early. After breakfast I started back out. I found a nice, brush free route through some timber that took me most of the way to the lower lake. I hadn’t had a chance to fish this lake on the way in so I stopped and fished and took a few photos. The fish in this lake were rainbows too.

I headed down the creek on the side opposite the avalanche tracks and giant boulder pile. I found the going quite easy and there was a well worn game trail to follow. It looked like bears were the main users of this trail but I wasn’t too worried. The timber was open and I could see a long way. So, if I had encountered a bear, I would probably have had time to take some kind of evasive or defensive action.

The trip back to my pickup was relatively uneventful and much easier with the new route working out and my knowing the best route to take after I got past the last avalanche track.

I took the old logging units out. I was mercilessly poked and scratched and showered with dead needles but it was still better going than the swamp in the flat. I found the old road that I had followed on the way in and followed it out, though mostly from the sides because the road bed itself was choked with tag alder.

In the area of the flat I could no longer hear the creek because it was flowing so slowly but the road was going in the right direction so I stuck with it. Occasionally I would stop to quiet the rasp of tree limbs on my pack and listen for the creek. I finally saw some big timber that hadn’t been logged and I started down toward the creek but it was too soon. I was still in the swamp area. I kept traveling in the old logging units for another 15 minutes or so.

Finally I heard the creek again. This meant it was out of the swampy flat because it was flowing over a hill slope steep enough that it made noise. I cut down to the big timber and found the going there quite good as well, all the way to the road I had driven in on.

The distance it had taken me over three hours to cover on Friday, I covered in about an hour and a half on the way out on Sunday. I have the trick to getting into those lakes pretty well figured out now. Unfortunately I don’t think I will ever be going in there again. It was certainly a beautiful spot but I have my eye on several different routes into the ponds I missed and the road I drove in on doesn’t look like it will be driveable for much longer.

Working the Canadian Skagit so far has been much harder than I had expected. Some things like the massive amounts of brush and lack of fisherman’s paths I couldn’t have foreseen but one thing I need to work on is getting my head wrapped around the maps of the area.

I have been spoiled with 1:24,000 scale USGS Quads. The best maps available, or at least that I could find for the Canadian Skagit are 1:50,000 which are less detailed. I have also found that the map symbols are different and don’t provide the same information as USGS quads.

There is nothing wrong with the Canadian maps but the scale keeps throwing me. They are physically bigger than the USGS quads so mentally I expect the scale to be the same as USGS quads. When I was planning this trip I looked at the lakes and expected them to be much smaller and closer than they actually were. So it took more time than I expected to get around these lakes and explore them.

I also need to work on being more realistic about how much road time I will spend getting to debarkation points and what toll this will take on my energy.

The last avalanche track and tag alder (Alnus sinuata) patch I crossed before getting to the lower lake. The brush here was over my head. The pile of giant boulders is in the patch of timber just on the other side of this avalanche track. What appears to be a solid forest there is actually a lot of mostly subalpine fir (Abies lasiocarpa) growing in the gaps between the rocks. I could have taken many more photos of brush but I think the reader can get the picture from this representative photo.

Fish near the outlet of the lower mapped lake on the west side of Maselpanik Creek. I later found out that the fish, or at least the ones I caught, in this lake were rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss).

The lower lake from the south side. I saw an osprey dive into the lake shortly after putting my camera up after taking this photo.

The lower lake from the talus slope on its west side.

The upper mapped lake from my camp.

Long-toed salamander (Ambystoma macrodactylum) larva in sphagnum pond near the outlet of the upper mapped lake on the west side of Maselpanik Creek.

Rainbow trout caught in upper mapped lake. My foot is in the photo for scale. My shoe is about 12 inches long. This fish was 15 or 16 inches long though the perspective of the photo makes it look a little shorter. It probably weighed about a pound.

Looking south down the upper mapped lake from near my camp at sunset.

Looking south down the upper mapped lake from near m camp in the morning.

Looking west at the upper mapped lake. Thompson Peak is near center frame and the uppermost, unmapped lake is in the flat area near center frame.

Thompson Peak from the upper mapped lake.

Common loon (Gavia immer), or at least I think so, at upper mapped lake.

Looking roughly south at the uppermost, unmapped lake and Thompson Peak from the ridge northwest of the mapped lakes on the west side of Maselpanik Creek.

Zoomed in view of the uppermost, unmapped lake.

Looking north at lake between Klesilkwa Mountain and Mount Lockwood, northwest of lakes on Maselpanik Creek. Mount Forddred, Mount Payne and Mount Rideout in the distance.

Looking west along the ridge I crossed between the lakes on Maselpanik Creek and the lake to the northwest. This is near Klesilkwa Mountain. The high point in the photo is not Klesilkwa Mountain. It is just a high point on the ridge. About the time I decided to take this photo, the contrail to the left side of the frame appeared. There were numerous flights over the whole area, with resultant contrails.

Looking north down the lake to the northwest of Maselpanik Creek lakes from a sphagnum/sedge flat at the inlet.

Looking south down the lake to the northwest of Maselpanik Creek lakes from the outlet. The outlet is on the east side of the lake. All my maps incorrectly show the it on the north end of the lake.