Galene Chain Lakes, British Columbia

On Friday the 19^th of September I headed back to Canada. My goal was to get into Galene Chain Lakes just on the Canadian side of the border by Ross Lake and hopefully a little farther into some ponds to the west. I had made an attempt to get into this area earlier this year and took a bad route. After a little research on the ground and on the internet, I found the better route.

The long range weather looked like it would be deteriorating and I had other things to take care of before autumn really set in so I figured this would probably be my last overnight trip this year.

I had read part of account from 2012 that said trail at that time was in pretty good shape so I wanted to take advantage of that before conditions deteriorated. The trail isn’t officially maintained so over the years the downed logs and brush accumulate, making the trail more difficult to travel.

The trail is part of a climber’s route to Mount Rahm and Devil’s Tongue and probably a few other climbs in the area. I was hoping to pick that route up and follow it to some ponds on McNaught Creek, a little east of Mount Rahm and Devil’s Tongue. Of course I didn’t research exactly where the route was, thinking I could figure that out for myself. I have found that doing a little exploring on my own tends to lead me to places I wouldn’t otherwise go if I was following a cookie cutter guide of some kind. Sometimes these places are very interesting, sometimes not and sometimes they are places I wish I hadn’t gone into. Almost always I come across something interesting though. Of course this takes more time on my part and I often end up reinventing the wheel, finding the established route after hours of detours. 

I also hoped the Galene Chain Lakes trail went past all the Galene Chain Lakes so I could observe each one on the way, eventually staying at the upper lake on the first day before continuing on to ponds on McNaught next day.

I took my time getting to the trailhead on Friday, all day actually, and I didn’t try going anywhere on the trail that day. I spent the night in back of my pickup, wanting to be well rested and have the whole day ahead of me before starting up the trail. This way, I figured I would have enough time to get to the upper lake, while surveying each of the lower lakes on the way. The length of the trail is about 13 kilometers or about 8 miles so, in theory, this plan should have been easily workable. This was, of course, assuming that the trail would be in pretty close proximity to the lakes.

The trail was in pretty good shape and well used, much better than the trail up the South Fork of the Cascade River that I had traveled twice this year. Unfortunately it followed the ridge several hundred feet above the lower two lakes before ending at the middle lake. The lower lakes were far enough from the trail that it wasn’t really worth it to drop my full pack and make a detour into each with camera and notebook on the way in.

So I went to the middle lake, set up camp and then backtracked to the lower lakes with day pack. It took about half an hour to get down off the trail into the lowest lake in the chain which is unmapped. I wanted to check it out anyway and I was happy I did.

I observed some Columbia spotted frogs (Rana lutieventris) here. This was my first observation of this species on the Canadian side of the border. I am sure there are lots of them in Canada but I hadn’t run into any so far on my previous trips. I have also seen this species on Ross Lake, just below Galene Chain Lakes and in the Pasayten Wilderness, just on other side of Ross Lake and the Skagit River. Its nerdy I know, but I was quite thrilled to find those frogs there, right up there with catching a nice fish or having a successful hunt. With these observations, I gathered another small piece of the puzzle of the distribution of this species, though admittedly, my methods are rather crude and shouldn’t be considered the be-all and end-all.

I suffered my second minor mishap of the trip here. This trip would be plagued with minor mishaps that seemed to set a tone. The first minor mishap occurred while setting up camp. I pulled a muscle in my left side while jumping for the end of some parachute cord I was using to hang my food out of the reach of bears. This left me feeling like I had a permanent stitch in my side and it was aggravated when I put strain on it grabbing and pulling brush in order to stay on my feet while traveling off trail.

The second mishap, which I previously alluded to, was forgetting my combination whistle, compass, thermometer at this lowest lake. Religiously, up to this point, I always remembered to collect it and record the temperature, but I got in a hurry and left hanging on a limb on a log. I didn’t realize it was missing until I was at the next lake, the lower, mapped lake. I didn’t have enough time to retrieve it and get back before dark. All this being said, I will take a number of minor mishaps over a single major, serious, mishap any day.

The lowest mapped lake was full of long-toed salamanders (Ambystoma macrodactylum) as was the lowest unmapped lake and a small pond between the two.

I was able to get back to the trail and to my camp with enough time before dark to look the middle mapped lake over a bit. I discovered that it too was full of long-toed salamanders. This lake and the one just below it were deep enough for fish but there was no sign of them. The lowest, unmapped lake was too shallow.

I also had time to look around a bit and discover the outlines of a couple of cabins near my camp that I hadn’t noticed before. There are, or were, a couple of mining claims at this lake and the one above. There was what appeared to be a prospect hole near the lake shore. I also noticed a number of artifacts, a rock bar and hatchet head mushroomed from being beaten on and a stove, cookware and chairs that seemed to date from a later time than the cabins.

Sunday morning, the 21^st I was up pretty early. Having to go out of my way to get into the lower lakes had set me back a bit but I figured that, with a little luck, I could hit the upper lake and hopefully pick up the climber’s route and have enough time to get into the ponds on McNaught Creek.

There was a well beaten trail heading north along the east side of the lake so I took that, figuring it was probably the climber’s route. This trail kind of petered out in some talus at the north end of the lake. I continued north and started curving back west, uphill. There was no trail at this point. Finally, after about half an hour or 45 minutes of intermittently walking and taking pictures of Hozomeen Mountain and Shawatum Mountain both of which impressively dominated the skyline, I figured that I was about high enough and should be pretty close to the upper lake.

As I made my way back west, I looked down and there was the lake, about four hundred feet below me. I was astonished. I couldn’t believe I had overshot the lake by that much. The extra time it would take to pick my way down into the lake was going to put a crimp in my timetable for the day. Well, no help for that now, I figured, I better get down there.

So down I went. The going wasn’t too bad and in a little less than half an hour or so I was at the lake. I started my regular routine, noting the wetland plant species and looking for amphibians or anything else that might be interesting. The south side of the lake was opposite me and it looked a little brushy. In the interest of time, I decided I probably wouldn’t look it over. I saw a long-toed salamander and got some decent photos of it so I figured that would be good enough.  

In about half an hour or forty five minutes after reaching the lake, I reached its west end. I figured this would be about good enough but decided to go a little farther. Suddenly I was on a well beaten trail.

So there was a trail from the middle lake to the upper lake, so I thought. I followed it down a little to see if it was obvious where it came up from the middle lake. A short distance down the trail there was a fir snag that had been killed when it was girdled in two places by notches that looked like they were cut for rigging blocks and lines for pulling large objects. “Funny,” I thought, “There’s a snag almost exactly like this one just below the middle lake.”

Then it slowly dawned on me. With a sinking feeling I went a little farther down the trail, around a corner from the snag. Sure enough, there was a small talus slope that the trail went through, just like below the middle lake.

“Stupid! Stupid!, @*#*%$#&”. I went back up the trail. Sure enough there was my tent. I was back at the middle lake. In my hurry, I hadn’t paid close enough attention and used a little reasoning to figure out that I was looking at the middle lake from up above. Again, in a hurry and coming downhill into the morning sun, I hadn’t noticed my tent, which is yellow and tan and blended well with the golden morning highlights.

I felt like a complete novice and an ass to boot. This was really going to put a crimp in my timetable. The ponds on McNaught Creek were now probably out of reach for this trip. I had just wasted too much time.

Back up the hill I went. The route I took down was a good route up, better than my original route. In about forty five minutes from the time I realized my mistake and started back up the hill, I was back where I started from. Ten minutes from there and I was at the upper lake.

I walked around the entire lake. I didn’t see any amphibians. I did see some old, scattered bones of a large animal, a bear or deer or goat. I saw a whistle pig or hoary marmot (Marmota caligata) and a Clark’s nutcracker (Nucifraga columbiana).

Clark’s nutcrackers are related to crows and jays. The often frequent the high country in the late summer and fall seeking whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis) seeds. The seeds of this pine are rather large and are or were an important food source for many animals. Whitebark pines grow slowly at high elevations and are susceptible to white pine blister rust (Cronartium ribicola) a non-native fungus that kills five needle pines, like whitebark pine. Unfortunately, in my travels in this area, I saw a lot of large whitebark pine snags and no large, apparently healthy trees. There were a lot of whitebark pine seedlings but these will probably not survive long.

By the time I got up on the ridge heading west toward Mount Rahm and McNaught Creek, it was noon and I had already put a lot of unnecessary up and down on my legs. There was an awesome view south of the Ross Lake area and north farther into Canada from some huge meadows on the ridge.

I could see the route ahead and it looked daunting, though certainly doable under the right circumstances. I didn’t know if I had enough time and energy left in my legs to do it. The route would require me to drop hundreds of feet, climb hundreds more back up and then drop hundreds more, all the while traveling several miles in order to get into the ponds. To get back, I would have to repeat the ups and downs in reverse.

At noon there was still plenty of spring in my legs. I just didn’t know how much would be left at the end of the trip when I would have a steep climb back up before dropping back into camp.

I decided to try the route to see how far I could get and how I felt. Part way down the ridge, I ran into the boundary cut for the U.S.A./Canada border. It seemed like I had been following a pretty well beaten path down to the border cut and this path looked like it continued along the cut. I wasn’t sure if this path was created by climber’s headed for the Mount Rahm, Devil’s Tongue area, by bears, or by both. There was a lot of bear sign in the area.

I looked at the border cut and, if I followed it, I would have to drop several hundred additional feet before starting back up. Also I couldn’t be sure if there were any nasty drops along the way. Of course the crew that cut the strip was able to get into the area and cut the trees for the boundary but the may have used special climbing gear to do this that I didn’t have. If I had read up a little more about routes into the area I would have probably known if this was a feasible route.

As it was, I had to make my own decision and decided to not follow the cut and stick to the ridgeline which trended south for about a quarter to half a mile before trending north, back across the border, then west.

It was a little after 2:00 p.m. when I finally stopped. I was on the part of the ridge trending back north towards the border and I could see the route ahead up the next ridge and it looked pretty good. I also had plenty left in my legs but my natural caution or maybe over caution kicked in. I was out of time.

From this point, I was probably still about two hours into the ponds, that would make it about 4:00 p.m. An hour or so to look the ponds over would put me at 5:00 p.m. That would leave a little less than three hours to get back to camp before dark over the ups and downs that had taken me about four hours to cover on the way in.

It was possible that if I hustled I could still just make it in and back before dark but this would be cutting it extremely close and, if I ran into any problems, I would be spending the night out without my tent and sleeping bag. Probably not the end of the world, but not too comfortable either. If I hadn’t screwed up and wasted all the time in the morning, I would have probably made it pretty easily. I also needed to get all the way home on Monday so I could be at work on Tuesday. My assumption that I would be able to make it out on time on Monday was based on my starting from Galene Chain Lakes, not farther in. Getting out on time might have been questionable if I ended up having to travel from farther in than Galene Chain Lakes on Monday.

I was really disappointed and felt pretty lousy but I needed to turn around. After eating lunch, which I had postponed so I could put more time into travel to try to make the ponds, I headed back.

The trip back to camp was relatively uneventful. I got some pretty good photos of the Ross Lake area from the big meadows. Unfortunately, a lot of smoke had rolled in over the course of the morning and early afternoon, undoubtedly from a still active forest fire somewhere, and the thick haze blocked a lot of the views. I don’t know if the haze added or detracted from the photos. It probably added a little drama but it obscured a lot of the fine details. I got back to camp about an hour before dark, had dinner and turned in for the night.

The next morning I got started out at about 8:00 a.m. The day had started out fairly sunny with a lot of broken clouds but, as I started out, a minor system moved in. Some fairly strong winds accompanying this system blew the smoke away. The system dropped a few light sprinkles here and there and created some very dramatic views down Ross Lake. I took a lot of photos from the high country on the way out.

I hit the river crossing at about noon. The rest of the trip out was also relatively uneventful and I made it home at about 6:00 p.m.  

 So there it is. I actually made it into Galene Chain Lakes this time. Through a series of errors on my part and a learning curve, I didn’t get into the ponds on McNaught Creek but I pretty sure how to do this now.

It would be best to make this attempt while the knowledge is still fresh in my mind. It won’t happen this year though and I have a bunch of other places in need to get into in the next few years. Beyond that, the other responsibilities and distractions of life may prevent another attempt.

If I waited long enough, this is somewhere I could take Sacha and the girls. The trail is pretty good at the moment and probably within the capabilities of a precocious ten to twelve year old. There is only one sketchy spot that could be navigated around.

It remains to be seen however, if the girls, or at least one of them is into things like this. A fun, challenging trip for one kid could be a nightmare trip for not only the kid but everyone involved if that kid isn’t into it.

And, at some point, a trip like this will be beyond my physical capabilities. I have a number of old injuries that are going to catch up to me some day. I just don’t know when that day will be. It kind of hurts to abandon the attempt right now. I am in tip top shape and there is a lot of spring in my legs. It won’t always be that way. But I am out of time for this year.

I will end with the old cliché; Time will tell. 

Old wood stove. This was in a small meadow just off the trail a few miles below the lakes. 

Pails of ash or charcoal in the small meadow just off the trail a few miles below the lakes. 

Pacific tree frog Hyla regilla in the small meadow just off the trail a few miles below the lakes.  These are the frogs you hear calling loudly on spring nights. Their calls are a staple of Hollywood sound tracks. They come in a variety of colors including solid green and mottled brown and tan and brown and green. 

Looking south down Ross Lake from the first opening along the trail. Jack Mountain is in the distance. 

Ross Lake and Jack Mountain from the first viewpoint on the trail. 

The middle mapped Galene Chain Lake from the south end, looking north not too far from the trail and my camp. 

Hozomeen Mountain and Ross Lake from the trail on my way back down from the middle mapped lake to the lower lakes. 

Wider view from same spot on trail as previous photo. Pictured from left to right, Hozomeen Mountain, Little Jackass (the low knob in the foreground) Desolation Peak and Jack Mountain in the distance.  

The lower, unmapped Galene Chain Lake, looking northwest. 

Columbia spotted frog (Rana lutieventris) at lower unmapped lake. One of the first indications that this might be a spotted frog are the eyes which are oriented more upwards. The eyes of similar species of frogs are oriented more outwards to the side. 

Closer look at Columbia spotted frog. I always try to capture a few individuals for a closer look at certain features that help identify the species. Here we are looking at the groin area. If this animal was a red-legged frog (Rana aurora), the groin would have green mottling. This individual doesn't. Also the spotting in this area doesn't look like a red-legged or Cascades (R. cascadae) frog. 

Leg coloration is another species indicator. There isn't much color on this individual's legs, but it appears to be "painted on" rather than to emanate from under the skin as it would if it were a red-legged frog.  The coloration is not like either a red-legged or Cascades frog.

Looking southeast at lowest, unmapped lake. 

Long-toed salamander (Ambystoma macrodactylum) larva at lowest, unmapped lake. 

Looking northwest at lowest, mapped Galene Chain Lake. 

Looking southeast at lowest, mapped lake.

Long-toed salamander larva at lowest, mapped lake. 

Shawatum Mountain from near my camp at the middle, mapped Galene Chain Lake. 

Remains of miner's cabin at middle, mapped, Galene Chain Lake. The rotting logs form a barely recognizable square. The trail along the south side of the lake cuts across a corner of the ruins. 

More artifacts. Another wood stove made of light sheet metal for easier packing. 

Water or fuel can. 

Middle, mapped Galene Chain Lake from north end. 

Hozomeen Mountain and middle, mapped lake. This photo was taken on my way down to the lake under the mistaken notion that this was the upper lake and I had overshot it. 

Middle, mapped lake at my arrival or re-arrival. 

Middle, mapped lake from the south end, looking north. I took this photo shortly before stumbling onto the trail and realizing my mistake. 

Rock between middle and upper mapped Galene Chain Lakes. A lot of the rock in the area looked like volcanic tuff, smaller rocks embedded in a concrete like matrix. The rock appeared fairly solid but it also seemed to crumble fairly easily or at least the matrix part of it did. 

Looking northwest at upper, mapped Galene Chain Lake. 

Looking north at Upper Galene Chain Lake. 

Looking north from ridge above Upper Galene Chain Lake. 

Looking west from ridge above upper Galene Chain Lake at Silver Ridge, Devil's Toothpick, Devil's Tongue and Mount Rahm. 

Looking south at Ross Lake area from ridge above Upper Galene Chain Lake. 

Hozomeen Mountain from above Upper Galene Chain Lake. The air is beginning to get hazy in this photo from all of the smoke rolling in from a fire somewhere. 

Looking south at Ross Lake, Desolation Peak and Jack Mountain from ridge above the upper lake. 

Devil's Toothpick, Devil's Tongue. 

The waterfall below the outlet of Silver Lake from near the point where I abandoned this trip and turned around. I have been to Silver Lake twice but have never seen the area from this viewpoint. The snags in the foreground are most likely whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulus).

Looking north into Canada from my turn around point. 

Rock rabbit or pika (Ochotona princeps). This guy was keeping a wary eye on me as I ate my lunch at my turn around point.  

Silver Ridge from my turn around point. The ponds that were my goal are below the knob in the middle distance. 

Border monument. I doubt that this was broken by an act of deliberate vandalism. I t was probably hit by a tree or succumbed to frost jacking. This is in the middle of the border cut so, if a tree hit it, that tree might have been cut up. 

Ross Lake, Hozomeen Mountain and Little Jackass Mountain from big meadows above Upper Galene Chain Lake. 

Looking west from big meadows above upper lake at Silver Ridge, Devil's Toothpick, Devil's Tongue and Mount Rahm. 

Looking north from big meadows. The haze has really set in at this point. 

Shawatum Mountain in the morning from near my camp at Middle Galene Chain Lake. 

Looking north at Middle Galene Chain Lake on my way out. The clouds are part of a rapidly approaching system. 

Hozomeen Mountain from trail. The thick clouds of this system moved in in a matter of minutes, creating some dramatic skies. It rained a little bit but hardly enough to wet anything. 

Looking south down Ross Lake at Jack Mountain from the last/first viewpoint on the trail. 

Looking south down Ross Lake at Jack Mountain from the last/first viewpoint on the trail. 

Looking south down Ross Lake at Jack Mountain from the last/first viewpoint on the trail. 

Western toad (Bufo boreas) at trail crossing of Galene Creek. Distinguishing characteristics of western toads are: lumpy or warty skin, paratoid glands behind the eyes (the large lumps behind the eyes) and a light colored dorsal stripe down the middle of the back. 

View of my pant leg after wading across the Skagit River at Nepopekum Bar. I hit the river just about at its lowest point of the year. It was only knee deep. When I crossed earlier in the year, it was almost waist deep.