Summer Trips 2019 Vol III September, October

Upper Klesilkwa River Sept. 6^thto 7^th

Turned down $1400 to $1800 dollars in overtime to do trip. Plan was to go in on route on Paleface that I had scouted weekend before. In my fantasy plan, I would be able to get into the large lake at head of Klesilkwa River and into some large ponds just northwest of it on Friday then hit some ponds on the ridge to the east between the Klesilkwa and Masselpanik Creek the next day. Weather forecast called for good weather on Friday and Saturday with a good chance of showers on Sunday. That was okay by me. As long as weather was good enough to see things when I got to the various places I wanted to visit, I didn’t mind getting a little wet on the way out, assuming I didn’t have to deal with thunderstorms and having to navigate ridges in thick fog banks. Got up at regular work day time (4:30 a.m.) because Sacha needed to get up early to get ready for school. Got started at about 8:00 a.m. Couple of quick store stops and bank stop, then off to Chilliwack Lake and up Paleface Creek. Got to jump-off point at about 1:00 p.m. Little bit tired, long drive and last bit was over some fairly rough road.  Made it into lakes on Paleface trib a little before 2:00 p.m. Sweating heavily. Headband wringing wet. Weather sunny but also seemed pretty muggy. Short rest then started up toward what I though was saddle between Paleface Creek and the Klesilkwa. Got into some large talus which slowed me down a bit. Talus comes in different sizes from small stuff that is difficult to navigate because it constantly shifts underfoot, to just right size to stuff that is so big that it creates obstacles that require some fairly difficult rock climbing to navigate. This talus was just on the big size of just right. Finally got to saddle a little before 3:00 p.m., a little later than I had expected. I looked over the ridge expecting to see the lake at the head of the Klesilkwa River below. Instead I saw an older burn at the top of the ridge and down below was a valley with a talus slope and wetland near the head of it. This wasn’t right. Dug out map and figured out that this was a trib. to Paleface Creek and I needed to get around to the north. Had a feeling the week before that I might regret not checking this saddle out, but, given the time it took me to get here, I might have run out of time anyway. No help for it now. Looked like there was a route I could take to the north along the ridge. Turned out to be a good route. Got next saddle to north without much trouble and looked down to see the lake below as I had expected. Next problem was how to get down to it. Recalled from time I had been to this lake in 2014 that route over ridge on I was on looked pretty easy. Of course, at that time I didn’t have to deal with getting down off the ridge. Where I had ended up was on top of a cliff band. Dropped pack and headed north along cliff top. About a hundred yards along found a chute down into slope below. Chute was right at the edge of what I felt comfortable in going down. Pretty steep and lots of slick vegetation. Definitely doable but only if there wasn’t another choice. Looking south several hundred yards, it looked like ridge broke pretty gently into slopes below. Decided to take that route. Sure enough found good spot to get below the cliff band. Time was about 4:30 p.m. Going pretty good until I got into bigger talus, again, on the big size of being just right to move through easily. Spent a lot of time picking my way through. Pick a route and pretty quickly end up looking into a hole in the rock that I couldn’t get across. Backtrack and pick another route. Quite a few rocks shifted underfoot. This is always a bit scary. Wouldn’t want to get trapped in boulders. Another cliff band below me. Couldn’t exactly see it but remembered from air photos and from looking this area over in 2014. I traveled north and found a likely spot to get down through cliff band but abandoned that in favor of another spot a little farther north. Something didn’t look good about the first spot. Second route proved to be a good one. Getting pretty thirsty though not desperate. Only a little water left in jug but saved it in case I ran into some kind of trouble. Could hear any number of small streams running underneath talus but none on surface where I could access them. A little bit maddening but, again, wasn’t really desperate so I just pushed on. Had bare talus on second route down a good distance and when it petered out into thick, brushy avalanche hammered krummholz trees. Found a gap a little to north that led to another patch of bare talus. Lucked out like this several times before luck finally ran out. Had to struggle 50 yards or so through brushy krummholz to get to another big talus slope. More big, difficult talus but thought I was done with brush. I was wrong. Big ring of brush at bottom of talus with no good way around. Near bottom of this slope saw another open patch of talus a little to the south that seemed to lead farther down. Bashed through more brush to get to this talus only to find I was in same boat. Pretty close to valley bottom at this point. Beyond last patch of brush was more talus on a more gradual slope at valley bottom. Struggled through last bit of brush and was in talus. More big stuff that was difficult to move through. Almost 7:00 p.m. at this point. In my original fantasy plan I was going to get to lake at head of Klesilkwa River and ponds to northwest today. I realized now that this was not realistic. At this point needed to find a place to camp and regroup the next day. Found some water on surface and watered up. No good flat place to camp here. Several wetland flats nearby but these usually too wet for good camp. Looked over several spots at edge of talus but no nearby and no flat ground and it was starting to get dark. Finally found a spot near small pond in sphagnum. Spot just big enough for my tent and on high ground that wasn’t wet. Would have a heavy dew because I was so close to wet ground but good enough. Small stream cut deeply incised several feet into ground nearby. Could get water there. Pitched tent threw line over small tree nearby to hang food and got out headlamp. Went over to stream to get water for cooking dinner and stepped hip deep into dry stream channel that had been completely covered with brush like a pit trap. Crashed and burned with a big thump. Somehow managed to jam pinky finger on left hand. Took a little time and a lot of effort to extricate myself. Didn’t seem to be any serious damage to my person. Pinky hurt a bit. Found spot to get water and cooked dinner. Almost fully dark at this point. After dinner went to hang food and managed to pull line off tree branch. Had suspected that this might happen and had kept rock nearby that I had used to get line over limb earlier. Tied it back on and threw it back over limb. This time line stayed over limb. With that done, turned in for night. Heard a couple pygmy owls calling in distance. Mind started to wander onto subject of sasquatches and creepy things but got a handle on that pretty quickly so I could get some sleep. At this point in my life I am a pretty strong skeptic of sasquatches but your mind can run wild when its getting dark in the middle of nowhere. Pretty good sleeping spot and slept okay through night. Next morning cold and had hard time motivating myself to get out of sleeping bag. Not a morning person and it is always hard for me to get out of bed. Really hard this morning. This day (Saturday) supposed to be pretty cloudy so I half expected everything to be socked in but it was clear. Abandoned plan to try to get into ponds on ridge between Klesilkwa and Masselpanik. Route up ridge I would have to take into these ponds had looked steep from top of ridge from Paleface day before but from present perspective looked very doable. Probably have to dodge a few bluffs and cliff bands but otherwise ground not too steep. However, my main goal was ponds to northwest. That would probably be enough. Last thing I wanted to do was climb up 2000 feet on ridge after probably fighting my way into those ponds. I probably wouldn’t have enough daylight anyway. Ponds on ridgetop probably better accessed by making camp at spot on Paleface side of ridge (noticed nice spot there not too far from top of ridge) and running ridge to southeast and then back north into ponds on a day trip. This would save dropping a lot of elevation and then having to gain it back again. I could see a route all along the ridge and it looked pretty good, relatively brush free but there was a lot of talus to navigate. It would have to be earlier in year too, probably would need as much daylight as I could get. Anyway, those ponds were out and I needed to concentrate on getting into ponds to northwest which were at about the same elevation I was. By now I realized that this would probably take some doing in itself.  Made my way through small gap in brush into wetland flat and big timber beyond out of the way of avalanches. Going pretty good in timber. Made it to big lake in ten minutes or less. Had traveled on east side of lake in 2014 and recalled that it was pretty difficult and brushy so decided to try west side where timber looked bigger for quite a distance. Talus slope reached down to lake near middle of west side. Talus was overgrown and brushy and presented a bit of a hassle but after that more timber with a fairly bare understory. Route took me along small dry valley just to west of lake outlet stream which was actually the Klesilkwa River but, at this point, the river was only size of small creek. Started heading downslope and I started to worry. In 2014 I had ended my attempt to get to the ponds at the edge of a talus slope. It was taking longer than I expected to come to this talus. Finally I saw a large opening in forest which I took to be the ponds. It was the talus slope. The exact same thing happened in 2014. I figured it would be pretty easy from here on, in fact, it kind of haunted me over the years that I didn’t push it a little harder and try to get into the ponds on the earlier trip because I had been so close. Once again, I was wrong. The talus was again some of the bigger stuff and I had to do a lot of backtracking on my route through. Adding to this, the talus slope was pretty old and had a heavy growth of moss and lichens on it. This stuff was really slick and I had to watch how and where I set my feet or they would shoot out from under me. On the west side of the talus I could see some cliffs and bluffs so I angled down slope to hit the timber below them. When I finally got to the west side of the talus after probably half an hour or more, I saw a solid wall of devil’s club at the timber’s edge. The talus didn’t actually end at the timber. Trees were growing up through it. So I was faced with a wall of devil’s clubs growing up through big holes in the rock all covered with various windfall trees to make things even more difficult. Devil’s club is an interesting plant. It grows on fresh soils, in other words, soil where water is close to the surface but not necessarily on the surface. I would have thought that the talus would have been pretty well drained but apparently not. I took a lot of time figuring out a route through the devil’s club and managed to get through with a surprisingly small number of thorns from the devil’s club and scrapes from the rocks and logs that I had to crawl over. After that I was back in the timber next to a waterfall on the stream flowing from the ponds with regular solid ground under my feet. From here on the going was relatively easy and I got to the lower pond in about ten minutes. Obviously if I had pushed on in 2014 I would have run out of time. It was at least 40 minutes into the ponds from the spot where I turned back in 2014 and, in 2014, it was nearly dark when I got back to camp. There was some tall huckleberry brush and some krummholz trees at edge of lower pond. Lower pond wasn’t much of a pond at all, mostly a sphagnum bog with a stream running through it. Besides the sphagnum, there was a lot of scouring rush and several species of grasses growing in the area. By the waterline, it looked like there was probably more standing water here earlier in year but “pond” was down a foot or two. Worked my way to upper pond. This one was more substantial, probably about 10 feet deep at the deepest. There was a large berm on the northeast side which kind of formed the dividing line between the upper and lower ponds. This pond appeared to be a classic example of a landform called a SAIL (Snow Avalanche Impact Landform). The idea of how these landforms are created is that avalanches hit the valley floor in areas of soft, fine sediment with enough force to excavate a crater. These craters often fill with water so I have encountered a number of them during my explorations. This pond was at the bottom of an avalanche track so it fit the profile quite well except that there was a lot of large talus in the berm and on the bottom of the pond. SAILs usually occur where the soil is fine and therefore more subject to excavation under the impact of an avalanche than large materials like boulders (talus) would be. Of course there weren’t any boulders in the lower pond so maybe the SAIL was created in fine soil and the talus was deposited later from the cliffs above. Interesting find anyway. Didn’t see any fish or amphibians. Good chance there were amphibians in ponds but upper pond deep and dark and lower pond covered with vegetation. Saw some camp robbers (gray jays) on the way out. Always like seeing camp robbers. They are pretty fearless. Used to see a lot of them when I was younger then not any for years. Now seeing quite a few of them again. On way out I skirted mossy talus slope where all the devil’s clubs were and ended up near confluence of outlet of ponds and Klesilkwa then followed Klesilkwa out. Had to drop maybe a hundred extra feet but was much easier going than talus and devil’s club. Made it back up to lake about 1:00 p.m. and worked my way back along the west side. Wanted to try fishing the lake a bit. Had caught rainbows out of it in 2014 and just wanted to check again. Didn’t figure it would change but who knows? Access to lake pretty difficult in most spots. Got down to it at the inlet. From the distance, it looked like there were some pretty big beaches that I could stand on and cast but these turned out to be big mats of bur-reed and or floating leaved pond grass which presented a lot of opportunities to snag my line. Managed to find one open spot and caught another rainbow. Good enough. I noticed some large clouds in distance over the tops of Mount Forddred and Mount Payne to the north. Weather forecast had called for a high chance of showers this evening. There had been no mention of thunderstorms in the forecast I had seen (or at least remembered) but the clouds I was looking at looked a lot like thunderheads. Time to get moving. On way back to camp clobbered myself in the forehead. Brushy mountain hemlock bough about head high. Pushed through it, kind of soft, green whish then WHAM! I saw a few stars stood there stunned for a few moments. There was a big spike knot on the tree trunk head high right in the middle of hemlock bough and I had just slammed my head into it at full walking speed. Luckily it hit right about where the bandanna I had wrapped around my head for a sweatband was thickest. That and my felt hat cushioned the blow quite a bit but I still got a bit of a lump. Stood there for a few moments with that kind of hurt feeling you get when you are a kid and some other kid comes up and punches you for no reason. Well, time to get going. Got back to camp a little after 2:00 p.m. Stumbled across the perfect camp spot 30 yards from where I had camped the night before but I couldn’t have known that the night before as it was getting dark. Had kind of decided to try to get back out of this spot today (Saturday) earlier in day and still thought it was a good idea. Legs were tired and a little rubbery from rock hopping talus and wading through bush all day but figured that there was plenty enough left in them to get me back up over the ridge, even with a full pack. Ate quick lunch and packed up and headed out. Had hoped to get started about 2:30 but it was a little after 3:00 p.m. by the time I was headed out. Process of getting out went in reverse of process getting in. Few hundred feet from camp and I was in talus at bottom of cirque slope. Sky had gotten dark all of a sudden. Then a patch of blue sky and sun opened up again. Along with this was a shower of big, fat raindrops. Watched big puff of spore dust from shelf fungus growing on a log and not a second later another drop hit and another puff of spore dust. Didn’t figure this shower would be intense enough to soak me through at least I hoped not. Would probably sweat more in raingear than I would have gotten wet from rain. Sure enough, rain stopped just before I started into brush between talus on valley floor and next patch of talus up slope. Hoped to follow talus patches up above lower cliff band. Missed middle talus patch in avalanche hammered trees. Came in a little low. Not too bad though. Should be pretty straightforward from here on out with not too much more brush. In second talus slope heard a rumble just as I put weight on rock and it shifted. Hoped it was the rock that made the sound. Two steps later I heard thunder in the distance, no mistaking it. S….t! Now it was decision time. Did I want to turn around and hole up down in the valley bottom or chance having to deal with an electrical storm or two up on that exposed ridge. Thunder was still pretty far off so decided to chance it. Got up into open talus shortly afterward. Could see rain and storm clouds moving up from the south to the east of me. Sky was still fairly clear over me but I was right up against the ridge so I couldn’t see to the west of me and, more than once, I have seen a perfectly blue sky turn into black clouds complete with lightning and torrential rain in less than five minutes when a storm rolled over a ridge I was right beneath. At this point I needed to get above the upper cliff band and I would be on top of the ridge. I was closer to the steep chute to the north of the cliff band that I had decided not to go down on the way in. Decided to go up that way because it would save me some time and, usually, it is much easier and safer to go up a spot like that than it is to go down. Meantime I needed to be careful as I picked my way through the talus. It would be bad enough if I ended up getting trapped by some moving rock. It would be even worse to be trapped and have a bunch of electrical storms roll over me. I occasionally heard a rumble of thunder off to the east which helped spur me on though I tried to stay calm and be methodical about working through the talus. I figured that, if a storm did roll over me, I would have to find a hole in the rocks to hunker down in and hope for the best. My uncle Bud told me about that happening to him on the talus slopes below Hidden Lake Peaks. From the way he had described his experience, I didn’t want to have a similar one myself. Got to the spot that I thought was the chute up through the cliff band, a line of green vegetation leading up out of sight around a corner in the rock. Pretty steep but okay as long as I was careful. Peeked around corner and saw that this wasn’t chute, it ended in cliff. If this didn’t work out I could see a spot a little farther north and a little higher where I could definitely get above cliff band. Another corner a few yards farther on. This one was the chute I wanted. Saw open path all the way to top of cliff band. Steep but doable. Was on top of cliff band in about ten minutes. Walked a little farther south and had good almost 360 degree view for miles. Lots of storm clouds to south and east and several rainbows. These storms were probably ones that hit some of the guys I could have been working with this weekend. They were about 40 miles south of where I was, working on Diablo Dam and they got hammered with rain and wind. Clouds were more broken over rest of sky with lots of patches of sunlight but it looked like lots storms were brewing. Fortunately, I didn’t see anything immediately heading in my direction. Time was a little after 5:00 p.m. If I could get to lakes below on Paleface Creek at least by 7:00 p.m. I should have enough light to get the rest of the way out on the trail, figuring it would take me about half an hour to get the rest of the way out. Was hoping to get there by about 6:30. Made several stops to take some photos. Missed my route around ridge. I was a little low so had to backtrack a bit. Got to spot where I came past big bedrock outcrop/cliff and saw where I had come through about a hundred feet higher. At same spot saw a likely route straight down into valley, a little steep but doable. Always tricky going down in a place like this because you could end up cliffed out and have to backtrack up hundreds of feet. Figured that I had enough time to chance it so headed down. Had to navigate one really steep spot by backtracking a bit but otherwise found good, if steep, routes down to valley. More talus to navigate and then finally I was in the relatively flat ground above the lakes on Paleface Creek. Checked out a more direct route from lakes onto ridge between them and Klesilkwa and most of them looked really steep with a lot of bluffs and cliffs. There was one likely spot with what was potentially a sketchy spot at top. So, it appeared that I had stumbled onto what was probably the best route up on to ridge into Klesilkwa on the way in. Stopped and took a pics of Foe Peak and was on my way. Time was about 6:45. By time I got on trail in timber between the mostly cloudy sky and time of year, it was getting pretty dark. Had to take time and really look for flags because they were pretty hard to see. Several times had to pause for a few minutes before I picked up trail again. Wasn’t really worried about getting lost. Still enough light to travel in timber safely (old-timer once told me that if it gets dark in on you in the mountains, you need to stop and hole up for the night because you can easily step off a cliff and not know it). Trouble was, if I got off trail I wasn’t sure where I would wind up. Wouldn’t be end of world but might entail more work and difficulties. If I could stay on trail, I knew exactly where I would end up. Managed to stick with it to logging unit where I had plenty of light again. When I got back to rig, clouds were painted pink where setting sun shone through holes in the clouds to the west. Time was about 7:50 p.m. Put pack in truck and made a few adjustments and was on my way. Trip out pretty much dry. Road down from Chilliwack Lake a little disorienting. Have driven this road a number of times in the daylight but this was first time in dark and I had a hard time recognizing a lot of the reference points along the way on the road. Got into Chilliwack a little after 9:00 p.m. Stopped for something quick to eat and was on my way. Didn’t really run into any rain until the border. Light showers as I got into line to cross. Wait wasn’t that long but raining heavily by time I got across. Just as I rolled into Sumas there was a big lightning strike and the town went dark for a second before a number of lights came back on. Whole trip back through Nooksack Valley was punctuated by numerous lightning strikes and flashes, some that lit everything up almost like it was daylight, and heavy rain. Was glad that I had been able to get out of mountains. Got home after midnight. Didn’t want to freak Sacha out because she wasn’t expecting me back until next day (actually, since it was after midnight, I guess it would be later in this day). So got my emergency blanket out of pickup and carefully sneaked into house and laid out on couch. Figured I would really freak her out if someone tried to get into bed with her when she thought I was still in Canada. Next thing I knew I hear her saying, “Pat? Is that you? Why don’t you come to bed?” Apparently I had started snoring and woke her up. She also apparently recognized my snoring because she didn’t seem to be too freaked out. Anyway, crawled into bed and slept rest of night/morning there. Funny thing, right hip and knee and left knee had been bothering me off and on all hiking season. Absolutely no problems or pains during the whole of this trip. Weighed pack at end of trip, 66.4 pounds. Ironically, I had taken measures to try to lighten it up a bit. Possibly the little bit of rain I got on it and the wet brush after the shower added a pound or two. Didn’t know it at the time but this was my last major trip for the year. 

Photo of my itinerary for this trip on white board in kitchen at home so Sacha would have some idea where to tell people to look if I didn't show up. I had been writing these out on paper but found the white board to be a pretty good method, though not very permanent. The scribbles on the right are a hand drawn map. The large pointy things are Phoebe practicing writing the letter "M". 

Looking west from ridge between Paleface Creek tributary and Upper Klesilkwa River. 

Looking northeast from ridge between Paleface Creek tributary and Upper Klesilkwa River. Lake at head of Klesilkwa River in valley in foreground and Mount Payne, Sumallo Peak, Rideout Peak and Silvertip Mountain (mostly hidden by ridge in foreground) beyond. 

Mushrooms near lake at head of Klesilkwa River. 

                                   

Obstacles encountered at the edge of the talus slope on the way into the ponds northwest of the lake at the head of the Klesilkwa River. Devil's club (Oplhopanax horridus), downed logs and large holes in the rocks. The holes in the rock presented some pretty significant obstacles that aren't well represented in the photo. 

Looking west from near the outlet of the lower pond which was more of a  very wet flat with a stream running through it. 

Another view looking west from the lower pond. 

Inlet stream of lower pond/outlet of upper pond. 

Looking northeast at lower pond from inlet. 

Sometimes as I move through thick vegetation in wetlands I see small brown rodents swim away. I had never gotten a good look at one and assumed that they were some kind of water vole or most. This trip I actually got a good look at a rodent I spooked. It jumped into the stream between the two ponds and swam to a rock and stayed there for a minute or so. From the looks of it, this rodent, at least was a deer mouse (Peromyscus spp.). 

After hanging out on the rock for a bit, the mouse took off and continued swimming across the stream and into the scouring rushes on the other side. 

Mound between the two ponds from the stream between them. 

Looking northeast at the lower pond. 

Upper pond looking roughly east. Berm on left side of frame. 

Probably a wolf track. 

Upper pond looking northeast. 

Upper pond looking north at berm. Large boulders obvious. If this pond was created by a SAIL landform, maybe these large boulders were deposited later or the theory (at least as I understand it) of how SAILs are formed is wrong. 

Upper pond looking west. Clerf Lake is on the other side of the pictured ridge. I had entertained a plan to try to get to these ponds from Clerf Lake for a few years. Looking at it from this side, if I had somehow been able to get over the ridge from Clerf, the route down to these ponds would have been a nightmare bash through brush and avalanche scrub. 

Looking north at lake at the head of the Klesilkwa River. Mount Payne visible on the horizon. There are no obvious thunderheads, but the look of the sky at this point had me a bit worried. It looked like thunderheads were brewing. 

Rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) caught at  lake. 

Looking southeast at ridge between Upper Klesilkwa River and Masselpanik Creek on my way out of the head of the Klesilkwa. The thunderstorms missed me for the most part but they were right there. 

Looking east at ridge between Upper Klesilkwa and Masselpanik Creek from about same spot as previous frame.  

Looking northeast from about same spot as previous two frames. 

Looking northwest at ridge between Upper Klesilkwa and Paleface creek on my way out of Upper Klesilkwa. The chute where I got up on the ridge is at about center frame. 

Looking northeast from ridge between Upper Klesilkwa and Paleface Creek. Rainbow (barely visible) over Silvertip Mountain. 

Looking north at ridge between Upper Klesilkwa and Paleface Creek. 

Looking north at ridge between Upper Klesilkwa and Paleface Creek. Lakes at head of Paleface trib. where my route ran at left lower frame. Foe Peak center frame.

Sep 14th and 15th

Weathered out this weekend. Get together Sat. the 14^th. Went into Tupso Lake with Sacha and the kids earlier in the day. Good trip. Looked like we might get rained on but weather held. Got a few blueberries, starting to get overripe but not too bad. Ended up catching a couple of fish-first I had ever caught out of Tupso even though I have fished it a number of times. Really rainy on Sunday the 15^th. Plan was to walk into Day Lake from road system on Pilchuck Creek side. Hoped to at least keep in shape. Walked about 15 miles round trip. Rained steadily pretty much all of the way. Got into pass between Day Lake/Creek and Deer Creek but didn’t quite make it to lake. Closer route from Cumberland Pass for foot but this route would be good for bicycle. Pretty much flat for most of way. Trip maybe ill advised. Wore inserts to protect bottom of feet from gravel road but when feet got wet, socks rubbed toes because there was less room in shoe because of inserts. Rubbed several raw spots on toes. 

On the way into Tupso the first meadows. 

On the trail. There were berries which often means bears which also means bear hunters. We were a bit concerned with making the girls highly visible and it turns out that regular pink works as well as blaze orange in making someone stand out. 

Hot pink was another hunter color I remember from years ago but haven't seen in a while. The girls are just wearing regular pink and they are quite obvious. 

Fruits of the trip berries and fish, the first fish I have ever caught out of Tupso even though I have fished it a number of times. 

Sep 21^st

Weather iffy this weekend so worked Friday and part of Saturday. Weather pretty  nice Saturday afternoon so went into Tuckaway Lake which isn’t too far off Blue Lake Trail. Tuckaway drains to SF Nooksack so wasn’t part of Skagit project but it always kind of intrigued me.  Got in pretty easily though almost made mistake of following small stream down from small pass starting at Blue Lake Trail. Fortunately spied flat where Tuckaway Lake sat and headed that way. If I had stayed with creek, I would have ended up in Wanlick Creek though I would have probably realized my mistake before too long. Tuckaway Lake nice enough spot. Pretty gloomy and overcast. No fish that I could tell. Didn’t catch any or see any surface. No amphibians sighted at lake though saw a bunch of long-toed salamanders in small pond in sphagnum along aforementioned creek. Rained all day Sunday. Spent most of that day fixing the back gate to the pasture. 

Looking north from near the outlet of of Tuckaway Lake. 

Looking roughly south or southwest at Tuckaway Lake. 

Dead dragonfly spent after breeding. I think this particular dragonfly is a blue darner (Rhionaeshna/Aeshna multicolor).

Looking roughly west, southwest. 

Sep 28^thand 29^th Eaton Creek 

Weather again iffy but decided to do a scout up to Eaton Lake. Eaton Lake drains to Silverhope Creek and ultimately the Fraser River but was route I planned to take into some lakes on Sumallo/Skagit River. Decided to do this when I scouted possible route up Potter Creek on Sumallo earlier in year and discovered it would be pretty rough. Had a lot to do at home but wanted to do this one last trip. Whole summer pretty disappointing as far as trips into mountains went. Weather forecasts indicated that the weather on Sunday might be decent in Hope though I didn’t see forecast for mountains. Watched Vashti’s basketball game Saturday morning and helped with a household move before heading up to B.C. Got to Hope at about 6:00 p.m. figured had a little time before dark so scouted up Highway 5 and Coquihalla River. Wanted to see if Sowaqua Creek Road was in use. This would be another possible access route for some future trips. Looked like the road was still in use though I didn’t go up it very far. Headed back to Hope and up Silver/Skagit Road up Silverhope Creek. Pulled over in wide spot a little above Eaton Lake trailhead and sacked out in back. Slept pretty well though hard to get neck comfortable. Woke up about 6:00 a.m. shortly after it started raining. Ate breakfast and drove to trailhead. Parked on Silver Skagit Road because I didn’t know what was up the Eaton Creek Road and I had often seen cars parked down on main road in summer. I assumed that there would be some parking up the Eaton Creek Road but probably not a lot so people had to park down the main road. Started up road. Sure enough there was parking where road ended about a quarter mile up. This time of year in this weather there was plenty of parking, only one rig there but I could see where this area  would get filled up pretty quickly on a busy summer day. Headed up trail. Trail looked like it was well used which I had expected. Steep at bottom which I also expected. Rain wasn’t heavy but was steady, a little heavier than a mist and it was pretty cold. Snow level down pretty low. Wasn’t dressed to spend much time in snow, especially sloppy wet snow. Changed plans. Had a lot of stuff to take care of at home and I didn’t really want to get cold, wet and miserable before heading home to arrive too late to take care of the things I needed to. At first decided to go to lower crossing of creek and call it good. Nice waterfall at lower crossing. Something about trails, kind of compel me to keep going if I haven’t reached destination. Hate to quit before reaching destination. So decided to go at least to spot where tight switchbacks started. Trail grade was fairly low past lower crossing of creek. Got to first switchback and stopped. Still felt compelled to push on. Got to next switchback and finally forced myself to call it good. Whole summer pretty disappointing.  Got back to rig a little before 9:00 a.m. Wrote some quick notes (saw vanilla leaf Achlys triphyllaalong trail which is interesting because apparently this species, which is common west of Marblemount, doesn’t occur, at least on the Skagit, until you get to the north end of Ross Lake). Headed home. Sure enough, weather was pretty good in Hope and down the Fraser. Partly sunny with only a few light showers here and there. Quite a bit different than up the mountain valley, which isn’t surprising. At home mowed the lawn and took care of some chores with the cows. In looking at map, I didn’t actually get to the start of the tight switchbacks. I only traveled about a mile or so, maybe a little less up the trail. Disappointing, though I probably gained more by taking care of stuff at home rather than continuing up the trail. 

Waterfall on Eaton Creek. The trail to Eaton Lake passes just below this waterfall. This was my first and best photo. It was raining/misting hard enough that the subsequent photos were pretty blurred from water spots. As it is, there are even a few water spots on the lense in this photo. 

Deer Hunt 2019

Worked opening weekend. Went out after work several nights. Only saw one deer, small doe. Ironically saw her from close distance, about 20 feet away and watched for half an hour or so. Downwind so she couldn’t smell me. She knew I, or something was there but couldn’t figure it out because she couldn’t smell me and I was standing still. Didn’t want to spook her because I wanted to look over small rise nearby and, if she spooked, might scare away anything that might be there. Pretty cool. Watched her browse and nose the wind trying to catch my scent. Never see deer this close for this long when all I have is a camera. Have quite often seen them this close for extended periods while hunting with rifle in hand. Went on long hunt second weekend of season, actually on Friday. Same place I got deer previous year. Saw lots of sign but no deer. Next day, Saturday was Vashti’s last basketball game so went out early and looked at a few places before going to game. Headed out after game to try another spot where I got deer in 2014. Good spot, always lots of deer but pretty long walk in. Had game cart this year which I hoped would help get deer out if I happened to get one. Had gone a couple of miles in direction of that spot when I realized that I had forgotten to pick up new alarm clock at hardware store. Was cutting it close to get a hunt in where I had planned to go but needed that alarm clock so turned around and got it. Also made another stop. Raining heavily. Good weather for blacktail hunting. Got to takeoff spot at about noon. Had to walk from there a mile or two into area I wanted to hunt. Rain hitting windshield was a little chunky. I was still wearing converse with an extra pair of wool socks. Feet would definitely get wet and probably cold. Had cotton/wool long underwear on and a sweatshirt under rain gear. Maybe a little underdressed. Would get wet under rain gear but should be okay as long as I kept moving. No extra clothes so if I got hurt somehow, would probably be in trouble. Had lighter and matches so theoretically could start a fire but that would be a challenge as wet as everything was. Mostly planned to keep moving. Dropped game cart off not too far from pickup. Hid it in some thick reprod. Lower end of road I was walking was in pretty good shape but getting brushy at top. Had to fight through quite a bit of brush. Could feel that clothes underneath raingear were slightly damp, couldn’t tell if it was from sweat or rain water soaking in around neck and cuffs. Still warm enough even though the rain occasionally was chunky sleet. Felt crusher thoroughly soaked by the time I reached spot I was planning to hunt. So wet that when brush pressed against it, it squeezed water dyed red and salty with this last summer’s sweat down into my face. Kept my head quite warm though. Wonders of wool. Very windy and foggy when I got to hunting spot. Could see that someone who had key to gate below had driven through earlier but it had been a while ago, mud was mostly settled in puddles. Could see from vehicle tracks that they probably hadn’t even gotten out of their rig, just road hunting. Cut down through newer logging unit. Unit so new that there wasn’t much growing there for deer to eat. Saw lots of sign but figured that that was from deer moving through the area. So foggy that I couldn’t see more than a hundred yards or so. Wind was swirling. Not best conditions for hunting. Have quite often had deer under such conditions wind me and run off before I can see what it was. Kind of frustrating. You can hear them running off but you can’t see them. Started up road towards spot where I got a deer in 2014 and saw more in 2015. Went around corner and there was a deer there in the road about 30 yards away with its head down feeding. Dropped to knee and tried to flip scope cover off. Discovered that brush had scraped the rear cover off. Hoped scope wasn’t fogged up so badly that I couldn’t see through it. About that time, deer looked up and I could see that it was a buck. Went to flip safety off and discovered that it was already off. Don’t know if I had already flipped it off and forgotten about it or the brush had flipped it off. Felt kind of weird but no time to think about it. Took aim and discovered that I couldn’t see anything through scope. Though it might be fogged up but looked and saw that front cover hadn’t flipped off when I had tried to remove back cover. This all happened in a matter of a few seconds but I felt like I was wasting a lot of time. Deer was going to bolt any second. Flipped front cover off and was relieved to be able to see deer’s side through scope. Quick aim and fire. Good shot. I didn’t flinch for once. Saw bullet hit and looked like good solid killing shot. Deer took off immediately and ran around corner. Took my time following. Left spent cartridge in chamber of rifle, safer that way but otherwise was ready to inject another shell in chamber and shoot again if need be. Walked down road and saw one big splotch of blood. Usually good sign. I hit one once and there was a lot of blood but I eventually lost the trail and never found it. Usually if there are only a few big splotches of blood means you got good hit and they are bleeding out internally. Got around corner and went up small rise and there was the deer, dead. From shot to this point less than 30 seconds. Thank goodness. Relatively quick kill with little suffering. Walked up to deer cautiously until I could verify that it was really dead. Eyes open and glazed and it wasn’t moving. Took a moment for reflection. Sorry for deer but glad for me. Lots of meat.  Now work started. Raining steadily but didn’t want to get blood and guts all over new rain gear so took coat and sweatshirt off and rolled up sleeves. Put sweatshirt inside raincoat to keep it dry. Took about half hour to gut deer-some people can get this job done in a few minutes but it always seems to take me longer. Saved heart and liver. Knew some people who liked heart and liver and weather was cold so should be able to preserve them well. Last year it was so warm and it would take me so long to get heart and liver out in a plastic bag that I didn’t even try. Ravens, crows and coyotes got a nice bonus that year. Put sweatshirt and raincoat back on and dragged deer back out to road. Found a place to hide it in some brush under a bushy silver fir tree. Camouflaged carcass with silver fir boughs-didn’t trust that someone might come driving along and decide that they would take the deer. If this happened, I would also lose my tag because I had notched it to indicate the day’s date and month and attached it to the carcass. Started back to retrieve game cart. Took about an hour to get back. Stashed and hid rifle in rig and started back with game cart. Feeling pretty hungry and little weak from low blood sugar. Ate a snickers bar from lunch stash as I walked along and it helped a lot. Realized quickly that I should have taken cart a lot farther along with me. Used up a lot of time going all that way back for the cart. Had killed deer some time after 1:00 p.m. Got back to rig and started back with cart at about 2:30 p.m. Got back to deer a little after 3:00 p.m. Loaded deer on cart and lashed it down as best I could. Retrieved heart and liver-had left in sack with mouth of sack open to let heat dissipate. Knew it would be long haul back so ate more food was using lunch bag from summer hiking trips and whatever I hadn’t eaten from those trips. Ordinarily would have been pretty good but I was wet and getting chilled the longer I stood around-wind had picked up quite a bit and increased wind chill factor (made it feel much colder) to something that was probably pretty close to freezing. Wolfed down cold food and drank some water and started on my way. Cart much superior to wheelbarrow that I had used to bring out deer the year before and way better than dragging. First hundred yards I thought it might not be too bad. Then I started uphill. Quickly realized that this was going to be a lot of work. Found I could only progress about a hundred yards at best without having to stop and rest. Wind howling, swirling rain and sleet. Was working so hard that I didn’t really get cold. It was cold enough that I didn’t really break a sweat either. Finally reached flat ground. Going much easier here but handle of cart kept my arms at weird angle and I could feel a lot of stress on my shoulder joints. Got to brushed in side road that I had come in on and dove off on it. Fighting brush even harder while pulling deer on cart. Discovered a lot of ground that I had thought was flat was actually uphill-nothing like pulling a heavy weight to make such things obvious. Brush squeezed water, sweat and dye out of my hat and into my face. Spots where sleet/snow on ground. Sleet/snow stuck to everything, especially feet which quickly got painfully cold. Bad traction in spots where sleet/snow accumulated. Slipped every other step and completely slipped and fell numerous time, once slamming my knee hard. Knee hurt and had to pause for a bit but not too long because feet really started to ache from cold if I quite moving for too long. This went for breaks too. Could go about 100-200 yards between breaks and breaks a little shorter than I wanted but had to keep moving. Finally got to downhill spot. Made mistake of trying to go down in front of cart which just about ran me over. Discovered that if I stayed above it, it was actually pretty easy to maneuver downhill. Figured wheels would be big enough to roll over a lot of stuff, especially going downhill with whole weight of cart behind them but found that they were stopped by surprisingly small obstacles created by rocks, roots and holes. Had to fight cart over each one of these as I encountered them. Had to stop and readjust deer on cart several times. Baling twine that I had used to tie it to cart kept slipping and letting deer slide almost off cart. Finally tied some around base of its antlers and to handle. Worked best of all the tie-ons but still had a tendency to slip. Was dreading several spots ahead where large ruts had been washed into road. Getting dark by the time I reached next big uphill stretch. But this was also last big uphill stretch. Would be downhill after this except for last little bit to rig. Only other large obstacle was large tree across road. First rutted section was on first downhill stretch. Navigated that pretty well. Had to fight wheels out of rut several times. Pretty smooth going after that. Still pushing through a lot of brush. One spot going downhill my feet started sliding and it was too slick to stop. Able to glissade several hundred yards down road behind cart. This was quite easy. Wished it had been that way all the way out. Discovered a few spots where I hadn’t noticed that it was actually uphill on the way out. Discovered these spot quickly as it was pretty difficult to push cart uphill so I had to switch it around and pull it. Finally got to tree across road. Last obstacle between me and rig. Had hoped that I would be able to get cart, deer and all, over the tree but no dice. Couldn’t get enough leverage to get wheels to roll over trunk and cart frame probably hanging up on protruding limbs. Finally had to cut deer loose and drag it over before lifting cart over. Pretty dark by the time I got that done. Dragged deer back on cart and tied antlers to handle and didn’t tie anywhere else. Discovered another rutted spot in road and had to fight this for about 5 minutes before I could get cart rolling again. Good going from here on out. Had to stop several times to gather up tie strings that I had cut and let hang loose. They tended to get wrapped up in cart wheels or I was constantly stepping on them. Had to stop a few times on last uphill stretch to rig but finally I was there. Full dark by this time. Dropped pack and got out of rain gear. Still raining but easier to move around without rain gear and I had another fight ahead. Really tired but almost done. Another fight to get deer into back of rig. Though cart might help with that but it didn’t. Finally got into back of pickup and braced my legs and pulled until I got front shoulders over tailgate then kept pulling and another brace and extra pull to get hind legs in. Loaded cart and hopped in pickup. Time was about 7:15 p.m. Started down road but realized that I couldn’t see it. Couldn’t tell at first if inside of windshield was fogged up because of my wet clothes and because I was still steaming with exertion or if the fog was so thick I couldn’t see more than a few feet. Turned defrost on high and quickly realized that it was mostly that the fog was so thick I could only see a few feet. Crawled along in first gear for quarter to half mile before got out of fog. Really disorienting. I have driven that road quite a bit but it was completely unfamiliar in the thick fog. Pretty good going after that but hit another thick fog bank near bottom of hill and had to slow down again. Got home a little after 8:00 p.m. Since deer was already field dressed, waited until next day to skin it.  

Venison for the year. 

Summer Trips 2019 Volume II, August

B.C. Trip Aug 2^nd, 3^rd

Had to be back to help out for salmon barbeque fundraiser at Community Hall on Sunday so took care of some chores and errands Friday morning before heading north. Turned down $640 in overtime on Saturday to do the trip. Camped out at Snass Creek trailhead. Saturday got up pretty early and headed just down road to Skagit River Trail between Highway 3 (Crowsnest) and Silver/Skagit Road. Wanted to scout it for several routes I planned to take later. Walked 8 or 9 kilometers (5 to 5 ½ miles or 10 to 11 miles round trip). Got back to rig a little after 1:00 p.m. Over an hour wait to get across border. Got back home at about 6:00 p.m. Sunday went early and took alder and helped set up hall. Did chores around house during middle of day and then helped clean up after barbeque. Was there until after 8:00 p.m. Some of the other folks were there later. Looked like we had mediocre showing. Bummer. This is the main fundraiser for hall for the year.

Clerf Lake, Klesilkwa River, B.C. Trip Aug 8^th, 9^th

Supposed to get rain on weekend and figured most, if not all, of route would be pretty brushy so decided to take Thursday the 8^thoff and head in then when weather supposed to be good. Weather on Friday the 9^thcalled for slight chance of thunderstorms and showers with better chance of rain on Saturday. Plan was to get into Clerf Lake with good weather on Thursday and play it by ear on Friday. Hoped to have good enough day Friday to get over ridge to west and small lake there. At least then would be able to see what the place looked like and if ended up getting wet, it would be on the way out. Nothing worse than getting soaked just to end up looking at a fog bank. Talked Andy Zitkovich into taking Thursday off as well and making trip with me. Both had Friday off because we were on new 4-10 schedule at work. Got good early start from Rockport at 7:00 a.m. Remembered everything except Canadian cash which I remembered that I had forgotten just a few miles from the border. Sky heavily overcast all the way from Rockport to Hope. At Hope sky showed few breaks in clouds and weak sunlight. About 10 kilometers up SilverSkagit Road there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Was that way for pretty much the rest of the day. Got to road up upper Klesilkwa River at about 11:30 a.m. Parked on SilverSkagit Road and started out. I was packed for 3 days so pack was probably about 65 pounds, with heavy chunk of camera and wool coat that I still don’t feel comfortable without. Neck stiff and messed up. Slept on it wrong or maybe compressed gas bottles I had wrestled around the day before had caused it. Made pack feel kind of uncomfortable on my back but not unbearable. Bridge over fork of Silverhope Creek that drained south to Klesilkwa had been taken out a few years before so had to walk a quarter to half mile to area that had been logged in about 2014. Had been out here in about 2014 and been able to drive to this point at that time. Hadn’t seen a definite trail following grown over road up the Klesilkwa at that time but also hadn’t looked too hard. No obvious trail this time either. Followed flat area that looked like road grade behind a newer berm piled up at edge of logging unit. Looked like a faint trail over berm so figured it would be good enough. If this wasn’t road we wanted, we counted on being able to pick up road as we moved up Klesilkwa. Flat area became pretty brushy in a short distance. Thought we saw a grade a little higher on hillside and made for that. Sure enough, it was the grade. Faint trail on grade but couldn’t tell if it was made by humans or game. Soon came across a few newer flags and cut brush, evidence people had been in there within the last few years. Had read a report online about Clerf Lake a few years before that said something to the effect that it was a nice walk up an abandoned road or something to the effect that it was fairly easy. Wasn’t counting on that. From air photos from Google Earth looked like it might be pretty brushy at least in spots. And it was. Certain areas were pretty good walking where trees had grown tall enough on the road side to shade the road pretty well but other areas were choked with tag alders. Fortunately someone had been in there not too long before us and brushed out some of the thicker parts. Looked like a lot of the brushing was at least a year old but there was some fresh cut brush from this year as well. Weather was warm. Didn’t look at thermometer at that time but figured it was at least 80 to 85 degrees F. Looked at thermometer that evening when it was noticeably cooled and temp at that time was 75 degrees F. Remembered reading something on Environment Canada website that humidity would be about 80 percent. It felt like that wasn’t too far off. I was sweating profusely. Thanks to the brushing, going wasn’t too bad. Still pretty brushy but not nearly as bad as it could have been. We were able to move through spots in a few minutes that would have taken a quarter to half hour to navigate if they had been completely brushed in. Reached spot where brushed trail left road grade and cut up hill. At this point we could see ridge on east side of Clerf Lake not too far off. Hoped we were close. Followed flags up hill and soon ran into another grade. This was apparently the grade that I figured the trail would follow. Trail followed grade for short distance then took off from switchback that looked like the one I had been looking at on my maps. Had missed intersection with this upper grade in the brush below. Flagged trail now lead through second growth forest that looked like it had been logged 40 to 50 years before. Not to hard to follow but had to be careful or would have been easy to lose. Not end of world if this happened. Route pretty straightforward at that point but figured if we could stay on trail, someone else had already figured out a route and it would be easier. Trail finally led to avalanche track choked with tag alders. Could see big timber on other side about quarter mile away. Started in that direction. Nice gaps in tag alders at first but soon became solid thicket. Worked our way through brush slipping, falling, pushing through resisting limbs. Took about 45 minutes or so to get through this patch. Big timber on other side. Figured we were really close at this point. In valley of creek draining Clerf Lake and could hear it not too far away. Really tired. Had been looking at this route for years. Originally thought it would be pretty easy since road was so close but over years realized road had been abandoned for years so would be harder but probably still not quite mentally prepared for this trip and was more tired than I expected to be. Felt a little depressed and hopeless. Took break in timber. Another avalanche track not too far away on other side of timber. Andy suggested looking at maps and air photos to see if we could determine best route, hopefully avoiding most, it not all of tag alders. I was sweating so heavily that sweat had soaked through bandanna that I wore as a sweatband and into my hat to the point that sweat started dripping on maps as I was looking at them. Wrung out bandanna. This was the third time this day. I usually don’t generate enough sweat to have to wring out bandanna more that twice. Air photos showed another strip of timber and lake on other side of tag alder patch. Andy found pretty good route down close to creek. No more flagged route but game trail made by bears and moose, judging from tracks and scat. Started out again. Within a few minutes of working through brush, left thigh cramped in different set of muscles than I had experienced earlier in year. Surprised and disappointed. Figured that I was in good enough shape at this point that I should be able to push on even when legs very tired. Had to stop and rest and let cramp pass. Took a couple of leg cramp pills and waited it out. Right thigh started to cramp in same spot as left leg but this passed fairly quickly. Very depressing. This trip wasn’t that hard considering some of the places I would need to go in future in order to complete my project. Felt like giving up. Cramps passed in about 10 minutes and legs felt good enough to continue. Walked carefully from this point on. Move in wrong direction or getting leg hung up in brush at wrong angle could bring cramps back. Good route pretty close to creek. Brushy but not very thick. Also had game trail to follow. Moose and bear again. On other side of brushy area was patch of big timber on fairly steep slope, the final approach to Clerf Lake. Made it up last hill okay, no cramps and we were at lake. Time was about 3:30 p.m. Four hours, not too bad considering the brush. The overall distance we covered was probably less than five miles. Four hours to cover that distance on a good trail would be poor time. Clerf Lake is pretty spot. No good camping spots near outlet. Chest high oval-leaved blueberry or blue huckleberries as we always called them (Vaccinium ovalifolium) growing thick everywhere. Finally found spot to squeeze my tent in near outlet. Andy found spot a little farther out on east side of lake where he could lay his bivvy sack out on some big rocks. After setting up tent, tried working my way around east side of lake. Several large talus slopes there that would be pretty easy traveling to get to south side of lake and be able to look north directly down outlet. Had to get through several tag alder slopes first. Tag alders were growing on pretty steep slope. Hard traveling even though all I had was my camera. Finally gave up after about fifteen minutes and turned back. Large patch of timber on west side looked like much easier traveling. This was also just below the saddle we wanted to try to get through the next day to get to the small lake to the west and looked like the most likely route. Traveling was much easier on west side of lake, at least until I got to the brush patch there. At edge of timber had to get through another tag alder and willow patch to get to talus. From other side of lake it looked like if a person took an angle upslope, the distance to travel through the brush would be shorter. Tried this but brush seemed endless. After half an hour or more finally gave up. It was about 6:15 p.m. and sun had gone down behind the ridge. Figured it would be cutting it close to push on through brush and then back through it and get back before dark. Got back to timber at about 6:45 or 7:00. Was able to scope out a better route to saddle to west now that sun had gone down. Looked like the best thing was to follow edge of timber up higher. Would still have to get through small finger of brush but, once through, should be able to follow timber up above the larger brush patch. Headed back to camp and took a bunch of photos of Klesilkwa Mountain at the head of the lake and the unnamed (as far as I know) knob to the east of Klesilkwa Mountain. Fished a little bit and caught one, a rainbow trout, which I had kind of expected. Lots of fish in lake and probably could have caught several more but I needed to take care of other things before it got dark. Cooked and ate dinner and turned in. It might take a little extra time to get through the brush but we should have plenty of time. Looked like at least a few people came into Clerf Lake every year. There had been fresh cut limbs along the way in and there were small bits of evidence of human presence around the lake, a few fire pits, a Monster Energy drink can and an old rubber raft that the woodland critters had torn apart. Woke up next morning and didn’t want to get out of sleeping bag. Pretty common occurrence with me. I’m not a morning person. Missed Sacha and the girls and had a few other hangups. Pretty common until I get going. Once I get going I’m usually okay. Crawled out of tent and found that we were socked in. The cloud ceiling was a couple hundred feet above the lake. That pretty much put an end to the attempt to get over the ridge, at least at this moment. The saddle we were looking at going through was an iffy proposition to start with. It looked pretty steep and was in a lot of steep ground covered with slick vegetation that would probably be even slicker with cloud drip. I didn’t really want to be wandering around in the fog in that stuff. A lot of time the cloud cover lifts and the weather forecast called for this day, Friday to be pretty decent with a slight chance of thunder storms, so maybe the clouds would lift. Andy showed up and we figured we would give it until 9:30 or 10:00 a.m. If the clouds hadn’t lifted by then, we would head out. Maybe we should have waited until later but it was supposed to rain the next day so it wasn’t an appealing prospect to me to wait all day and not get a chance at the other lake and then get soaked the next day on the way out. If I knew we would have a chance at the lake, I most likely would have tried it. We were already expecting to get rained on Saturday but we also expected to be able to see to navigate over the ridge on Friday. No change by 10:00 so we headed out. Stumbled on a large wet meadow on way out. Had come in a little above this spot on way in. Moose bed in meadow, or assumed it was a moose bed, was as big or bigger than my bull (cattle) makes in the pasture. Also saw smaller bed, deer, small moose, bear? Lots of moose tracks and bear scat. Small pool in meadow still had mud stirred up in it from last time bear or moose was wallowing in it. Hit timber on other side of meadow and were soon at edge of big avalanche track that we had struggled through on the way in. Found a better route around it (Andy’s idea). There was still timber on the opposite (east) side of the creek from the way we had come in (west side) so we crossed the creek and followed the timber down below the worst of the brush. Saw a couple of adult tailed frogs on way out. Always nice to get an amphibian observation in. It was a surprising short distance to get below the avalanche track on the east side of the creek. Apparently it was narrower at the bottom and we had hit it, actually followed the flagged trail, into a higher, wider part of it. We didn’t want to stay on the east side of the creek for too long because it looked like it got pretty steep and brushy and we would likely not have as nice a road grade to walk on. Crossed back over to west side and saw a number of old cut stumps so we knew we should be pretty close to flagged trail. Knew we were below it so took a slight uphill angle and kept our eyes peeled for flags. Even if we missed trail at this point, there was a large landslide that had come down last winter or spring that crossed the trail. This slide was large enough that it would be hard to miss so once we cut the slide we would be able to pick up the trail at that point because we had noted where we had come through it on the way in (a small silver fir that spanned the gulley several hundred feet above one of the road grades we had been following). We picked up the trail about fifteen minutes after crossing back over to the west side. From then on it was a matter of keeping track of where the ribbons were leading. Crossed back over the landslide without too much of an issue. Had a little trouble finding flags on other side but only for a few minutes. We knew where our markers were but the nearest flag was hard to see. Traveled back out without incident and arrived back at rig at about 2:00 p.m. Four hours which was a little surprising. I had expected to make a little better time on way out especially with the better route around the big avalanche track. We had stopped several times so maybe our stops were longer. Speculate on cramps, maybe I had gotten more dehydrated than I realized, wrung headband bandanna out three times which was unusual, maybe day hotter and more humid than I realized, maybe just getting old, although this was a pretty rapid decline from year before. Body performed quite well year before. Maybe stiff neck affected me more than I thought or the long drive before the hike. Maybe a combination of everything. Psychologically not quite prepared for difficulty of trip. Though if I take a good hard look at some previous years, there were some trips that kicked my ass when I was much younger (Bench Lake when I was 30 and Firn Lake a few years later, first time I had ever gotten cramps, as well as a few other rough hikes). It’s just harder to remember those trips than the ones that were successful and that kind of sets one up, expecting things to be easy with no pain or discomfort. In my experience, hikes are rarely, if ever, without at least a little discomfort.  

Rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) that I caught in Clerf Lake. The fish is still alive and I threw it back in the lake shortly after this photo was taken and it swam away. 

Looking south from outlet of Clerf Lake. As far as I know the peak is unnamed. 

Same view as previous frame. Ridge to right of frame runs toward Klesilkwa Mountain. 

Looking south from outlet of Clerf Lake Friday morning. Same view as previous photo. This is why I try to avoid going out in marginal weather. Quite often this type of weather makes navigation difficult and you usually end up looking at a cloud bank hiding the more interesting scenery. 

Andy Z. at outlet of Clerf Lake Friday morning. 

A butterfly we saw in the larger wetland on the way out. This is a Parnassian, probably Rocky Mountain Parnassian (Parnassius smintheus). 

Adult male tailed frog (Ascaphus true) seen on the way out. The "tail" which is actually a copulary appendage that allows these frogs to breed in the fast moving water of streams can just be made out between the legs.  

Adult female tailed frog. We saw this one in the same spot as the male tailed frog. 

Unnamed Lake below Klesilkwa Mountain, B.C. Aug 15^th, 16^th

Goal this weekend was lake that we weren’t able to get into from Clerf Lake week before. This small lake is west and a little north of Klesilkwa Mountain. Route was on Trans Canada Trail up Paleface Creek. Had been up this route the year before on a scouting trip. Expected to walk 5 to 6 miles to get to spot where outlet stream of lake crossed the Trans Canada Trail/Silverhope Forest Service Road and camp there. If I had time, would try to get into lake. Took Thursday off work to do trip again. Weather system in Alberta supposed to brush that part of B.C. with low clouds and chance of rain on Saturday. Wanted to see what the place looked like. Got pretty early start about 8:00 a.m. Delayed a bit, watching Bugs Bunny with the girls while their mom took a short run. A few short stops at the bank and then to border. Got across pretty quickly, only about 15 minute wait. Stopped in Chilliwack to get something to eat and got turned around a bit and spent about half an hour finding my way back. Got to Paleface Creek Forest Service Road at about 2:00 p.m., pretty good time so far. I expected to be walking several miles up the Paleface Road before catching a trail that connected it to the Silverhope Creek Forest Service Road. This road/trail system is part of the Trans Canada Trail and last year the Paleface Road wasn’t driveable. Without thinking, I started to pull in to park when I noticed that the road looked different from last year. It had been opened up and looked driveable. So I started driving up it. Sure enough, it was driveable with some pretty good waterbars but nothing I couldn’t get over. I found it open all the way up to the trail to Silverhope and even farther. It looked like they had built some new road beyond the existing road that I was familiar with the year before. This would make my life a little easier since I had planned to use this road/trail to access a lake and some ponds at the head of the Klesilkwa River, which sits roughly east of Klesilkwa Mountain and the trip I was doing that day. The head of the Klesilkwa is just over the ridge from the new road. Checked new road out Parked rig and got started at about 2:30 pm. Hard to hike after such a long drive, especially since last bit of it was pretty bouncy. Trail was in really good shape. Much of it had been brushed recently. Got to spot where I planned to camp at about 4:00 p.m. The Silverhope Road wasn’t driveable by large vehicles at this point. I did see tracks of trail bikes. This left me about 4 hours to get into the lake and back out that day but I decided not to try. This was a calculated risk. I wanted plenty of time to check the place out and check out the gap in the ridge that we had planned on trying from Clerf Lake to see if it as doable. The weather was nice and clear and the forecast for the next day called for a mix of sun and cloud. I just hoped the ceiling wouldn’t be so low that I wouldn’t be able to see anything. This way I would have plenty of time to check things out. There wasn’t a very good spot to camp in the area. The road was brushed in except where they had cleared for the trail. Spent over an hour trying to decide where to camp. Finally pitched tent in a wider spot on road and hung my food. Took short walk back up trail/road and then had dinner a little early. It didn’t occur to me until I had set up camp that I could have continued on up into the lake and camped there. It would have taken a little longer, but I still should have been there well before dark. I had expected to have to walk a bit farther and it had been set in my head that I would be camping down at the road/trail. By the time I figured this out I had already set up camp and it would be pushing it to break everything down and try to get in before dark. I decided to just turn in early and try to get a good early start in the morning. Turned in at about 7:00 p.m. It was still light out. Slept surprisingly well considering I was on a road bed. Small bump in just the right spot to keep hips a little lower than upper body. Woke up at about 5:30 a.m. Finally got out of sleeping bag at a little after 6:00 a.m. Figured that it would be a pretty easy day. Only had to go up a little less than 2000 feet. The slope looked fairly gradual, nothing super steep. I had thought about starting out near head of valley and gradually gaining elevation and sidehilling into lake but decided it would be a safer bet to follow road/trail to point where it crossed the stream flowing out of the lake and then following this stream up. This would give me a sure fire reference for where I was going. Figured I would have plenty of time to get into lake, check it out and maybe check out another route before heading home. Got started at about 7:30 and started up on south side of creek and immediately got into a welter of brush. Decided to cut up through a logging unit that was about 30 years old. Couldn’t see very well from brushy road but looked like the trees were big enough and tight enough together that traveling would be fairly easy underneath, maybe have to deal with thick, dead limbs. I was wrong on that count. Trees were pretty widely spaced and there was enough room between them for a healthy growth of brush, head high oval-leaved blueberry-one of the worst types of brush to deal with in my book. Growth pattern tends to trap and impede feet with every step you take. Fought my way to bigger timber near creek and started up. Still brushy here but better. Had to circumnavigate huge rock near top of logging unit. From the top of the logging unit it was about 50/50 brush and open ground. There were a lot more steep spots, quite often large rocks to navigate than I had expected but nothing that really worried me. Finally I could see what looked like an opening above. Maps showed a kind of flat on the south side of the creek and I figured that I was getting close to it. Sure enough, it was a flat with a wet meadow in it. Saw several salamanders in oxbow lake near a small stream that flowed toward the lake outlet stream that I had been following. Debated stopping and taking notes but finally decided to. Didn’t know if I would hit this flat on way back down. Cold, only in mid to upper 50’s Fahrenheit. Had been a mix of blue sky and heavy clouds when I had started out but now it was just solid clouds with no blue showing and a steady breeze that really cooled things down. On air photo looked like I was about half way into lake and it was only about 8:30 a.m. Of course the air photo I had was from Google Earth and some genius there had updated their photos a few years back with more recent photos, the only trouble was that in the new photos everything was covered with several feet of snow so it was a little difficult to tell exactly where I was. For navigation on the ground it would have been better to have the older photos that showed the vegetation and other features of the landscape more clearly. As nearly as I could tell, I was a little below what looked like a big talus slope under the snow. I could see a talus slope a little above me so I figured that was probably where I was. From the talus, the lake looked pretty close. Took notes on wetland and continued on, aiming for the talus slope. Immediately out of wetland, ran into another huge rock that I decided to navigate around in a direction away from the talus slope, planning to sidehill back in that direction once above the rock. Once I got above the rock found steep slope covered with heavy growth of white flowered rhododendron. White flowered rhododendron is a plant I have a complicated relationship with. Many times I have been glad to have it to hold onto in steep areas but it is also very difficult to move through and you have to be careful how you grab onto it because it is very brittle and can break off in your hand quite easily. It is also very slick underfoot. It isn’t too bad to go through downhill because it usually lays in the downhill direction. Of course this makes it twice as hard to move through in an uphill direction and even harder to sidehill through. There was no help for it but to struggle through it. Usually resorted to just going straight uphill, looking for spots where it wasn’t quite so thick and then try to sidehill in those spots. Fought through up and across slope for I don’t know how long. Hard to see, brush usually in my line of vision. Seemed like it was taking a long time to get to talus. Finally, as I was eyeing a route uphill through more rhododendron, happened to glance down and see talus a little below me about a hundred yards away. Made my way to it and found that it was the lower part of the slope that I had seen from the wet meadow below. Worked my way through talus. Could hear lake outlet stream not too far away on far side of talus. Figured I was pretty close at this point. From maps and air photos looked like I should be able to sidehill up just a short distance and be at lake. Again slope didn’t look too bad until I actually got to it. More white flowered rhododendron on a steep slope. Stumbled and floundered into it, trying to keep a course in the direction of the lake. After what seemed and eternity, finally got into some more open ground covered with heather. I knew I was right below lake at this point. One final stop to catch my breath and then the final push into the lake. It was about 10:00 a.m. when I got there. Two and a half hours-a little longer than I had expected. There was a steady wind blowing from the south and it chilled me almost immediately. Put on sweat shirt and wrung out bandanna which was soaked with sweat and turned into an instant swamp cooler in the breeze. Disappointed to see that ceiling was pretty low. Could see surroundings of most of lake except for Klesilkwa Mountain which was mostly hidden in the clouds. Oh well, took the gamble yesterday that I would be able to see more today. Checked lake out and small pond just below outlet. Lots of salamanders there, probably long-toed salamanders. Lake was a sky blue-green color like it had a bunch on glacial flour in it. Interesting to me because there weren’t any glaciers on the maps and I couldn’t see one on Klesilkwa Mountain, just some snowfields. Wanted to check out gap that Andy and I had considered trying the week before in order to try to get to this lake. Could see it and it wasn’t too far away. Route to it took me past inlet stream on east side of lake. Found the inlet stream was carrying a lot of color in it. Followed it up a short distance and saw its source, a good sized snowfield. Maybe this had been a glacier at one time but now it was an average sized snowfield. Continued around to try to find the gap from the Clerf Lake. Pretty cool to look down into Clerf Lake where we had camped the week before. Finally found the gap and it looked like an effort the previous week would have been a wasted effort. It looked like it dropped off sheer for at least a hundred feet at this spot. Found a big crack in the rock that looked like it headed down into the cirque above Clerf Lake but didn’t follow it. Looked like it led partway through the cliff but then dropped off sharply. It would have taken a little more effort to explore this area and it looked like I would just end up at the edge of another cliff, albeit a little lower than the one I was standing on. I didn’t need to get into Clerf Lake so called it good at that and headed back. Saw a bunch of whitebark pine up on the ridge. Seemed like a lot of them were in pretty good shape. There were some snags here and there and there was one that looked like it was being killed by blister rust but everything else looked pretty healthy. Got back to spot where I left my pack at about 1:00 p.m. I had been poking around for about 2 hours. Tried fishing lake for 10 casts. No bites, no fish following bait in. Hadn’t seen any fish surface whole time I was there so figured no fish or at least they were laying low that day. Clouds cleared up off Klesilkwa Mountain so got some photos of that. Nice to get full view of mountain. Wasn’t too impressive from this angle and elevation but if sky had been different probably would have still been able to get some good, even striking photos of azure lake in foreground with mountain and interesting clouds in blue sky in background or even interesting dark clouds. As it was, sky was pretty much plain white slate. So it goes sometimes. Started out. Went down about 100 feet and stopped near small waterfall and had lunch before continuing on. Took route down pretty close to outlet stream. Plan was to keep to south side of stream or keep stream on my right hand. Same drill, lots of brush and steep ground and had to backtrack several times to get around giant rocks. Hit flat wet meadow and crossed a stream there. Didn’t click at that time that it was the outlet stream of lake. I thought outlet stream was farther north and thought it funny because the stream I crossed was pretty good sized to have just sprung from the ground. Could see talus to the south where I had come through earlier and took a few photos before continuing down. Lots of brush and steep ground with a few nice open patches of timber. Had to cross several tributary streams. Tried to cross these as soon as I realized they were there, otherwise would have to cross farther down when stream had cut down a steep sided gully. Kept thinking I needed to be farther north and trended that way a bit but gullies kept pushing me back south where I finally heard a small creek. Figured that this was another stream that I had crossed the day before on the road/trail and tried to move farther to the north but kept being pushed back towards this stream. Finally gave up. Wasn’t worried about getting lost. All I had to do was keep going downhill and I would hit the road/trail. I was starting to get a little concerned because it seemed like it was taking a long time to get down, longer than I remembered going up. It had taken about 2 hours to get up to the lake and I was at about an hour and a half already. About the time I was thinking that, I saw a logging unit ahead. So the road was close. I quickly realized that the logging unit was a small newer (20 years old) cut just across the creek from where I had camped. This blew my mind. I was almost certain that I was way to the south of this creek when, in fact, I was just north of it. It wasn’t until later that I realized that the creek I had crossed in the wet meadow above was the lake outlet. I just didn’t remember crossing the stream. A look at some photos I took of the meadow verified what had happened. What threw me was that the creek took a large bend in the meadow (and the fact that I wasn’t doing a very good job of paying attention, I knew from my maps that the creek took a large bend). It worked out well though. At the edge of this logging unit there was a good spot to get down into the road and I took it. Got back to camp at about 3:30 p.m., packed up and headed out. Made a couple of stops on the way back and finally got to rig at about 5:00 p.m. Right hip and knee hurting a bit, left knee stiff and hurt to bend. Probably several songs in the soundtrack in my head that day but only one I really remember is Psychedelic Furs, Heartbreak Beat which played on a continuous loop for most of the day. Stopped in Chilliwack for something to eat and headed home. Got back to Rockport at about 10:00 p.m. Quick shower and turned in. Next day did some chores and finished digging out well at mom’s. Roof had started to collapse so I needed to dig it out and replace roof.

Outlet of small lake north and west of Klesilkwa Mountain. 

Canid track in mud of pond and outlet of Klesilkwa Mountain lake. Guessing that this is a wolf or very large coyote. The track is about 10 centimeters or 4 inches long. There was no sign that humans had been in this area recently, no tracks, fresh fire pits etc. so this was probably a wild canid. 

Salamander in outlet pond. This is probably a long-toed salamander (Ambystoma macrodactylum).

Looking east at Klesilkwa Mountain lake. Clerf Lake is on the other side of the ridge to the left of the frame a little bit. 

Looking north at Klesilkwa Mountain lake. 

Looking northwest at Klesilkwa Mountain lake on my way up to look over ridge to east at Clerf Lake. 

Clerf Lake from ridge between it and Klesilkwa Mountain. The Klesilkwa River is in the next valley over.  

Close up of unnamed (as far as I know) peak or knob above Clerf Lake. 

Looking down at notch at top of route we were thinking about taking the week before to get into Klesilkwa Mountain lake. It doesn't look bad here but my stomach was churning with vertigo when I took this photo. The notch looked navigable but it dropped off almost vertically right below. The steep spot isn't in view and I wasn't about to lean over the cliff to try to get a more descriptive shot. 

Looking northwest on my way back down into Klesilkwa Mountain lake. The wind was blowing pretty hard here and it was cold enough to make my eyes water even though it was the middle of August. 

Interesting rock I came across by lake. It looks like it is a conglomerate (combination of several different rocks) but I don't know this for sure. 

Looking west at outlet pond below Klesilkwa Mountain lake. 

Looking southeast at Klesilkwa Mountain above lake. 

The sky was overcast most of the day, obvious from this photo. 

Bur-reed (Sparganium spp.). In pond at side of road at head of Silverhope Creek near pass between Silverhope and Paleface Creeks. 

Black bear tracks in mud of roadside pond. 

This was a small bear. I put my foot in the frame for scale. 

Slide Lake  Aug 18^th

Sacha and I took the kids into Slide Lake. Kids did the trail okay. They are fully capable of doing this trail but there was a little drama and whining at the start. Once we got doing everything went okay and everyone seemed to have a good time. Caught three fish. Interesting. When I was a kid and at least into the 1990’s the fish in this lake were westslope cutthroats (Oncorhynchus clarki lewisi) or at least that is all we ever caught. Then the first time we took Vashti in there when she was still a baby, all I caught were coastal cutthroats (O. clarki clarki) which are the cutthroats that are native to our waters (all of these fish had been stocked since Otter Creek, which drains Slide Lake goes subsurface for about a mile, presenting a migration barrier to native fish). This time one fish we (I hooked them and Phoebe reeled them in) caught looked like a westslope cutthroat, one looked like a coastal cutthroat and one looked intermediate between westslope and coastal cutthroat. I have a hunch that the genetics of these fish were pretty complicated. Some years ago I worked with USGS on genetics of rainbow/cutthroat hybrids and in those fish, one that looked physically like a rainbow might have a majority of cutthroat genes and vice versa. 

The start of the journey with a little attitude being displayed. 

A little farther along and everything going smoothly. 

Large Douglas-fir log bucked out of the trail in 2003. Every year we have gone into Slide Lake we took a photo here. 

The dry lake bed just below Slide Lake. This area looks like it is ephemerally wetted in the spring/early summer during snow melt. I think I have only seen water here a few times. I had never actually been down into this area so we decided to explore a little this time around. 

Large rock near the edge of the dry lake bed. 

Thick monoculture of asters-possibly daisies (Erigeron) in dry lake bed. 

Slide Lake. 

Phoebe checking out the fishing pole. 

Phoebe with the fish. 

Close up of the fish. The upper one looks like a westslope cutthroat (Oncorhynchus clarki lewis). The middle one looks like a cross between a westslope cutthroat and a coastal cutthroat (O. clarki clarkia). And the lower one looks like a coastal cutthroat. If one were to do genetic testing on these fish, the genetics might tell a different tale than the phenotype (looks). 

Interesting pattern of growth around hemlock log bucked out of the trail. The fungus appears to have populated the sapwood, or living part of the tree when it was still alive. The sapwood of a log seems to be the first thing to deteriorate when a tree dies. I suspect that it is the first to be colonized by fungi and other organisms because, since it was the living part of the tree, it has a higher content of easy to digest simple sugars and nutrients than the heart wood which is non-living, harder to digest complex sugars like cellulose. 

Walker Creek Pond 1956 foot elevation,  Aug 24^th

Had planned to go back to B.C. and do another trip, heading in Friday, the 23^rdand coming out either Saturday or Sunday. Only supposed to be slight chance of showers Friday, then partly sunny Saturday. Planned to get in on Friday hopefully after the showers and hope for better weather Saturday. Sky overcast when I started out Friday morning. Had a few stops before heading to B.C., chiropractor and steel place to get material for water well cover. By time I got to Concrete rain was pretty steady. Chiropractor appointment a little after 10:00 a.m. Got there in time and got material for well cover. The whole time it rained pretty steadily. Ate lunch and started north. Still raining steadily and didn’t look like it was going to let up. Couldn’t know exactly what weather was doing where I had planned to go but I strongly suspected it was raining pretty steadily there as well. I would probably have to go through a lot of wet brush to get to where I wanted to go and it would be socked in to the point I wouldn’t be able to see anything. Got diverted by some road construction and decided to cut my losses at about 1:00 p.m. If I went all the way to Chilliwack Lake like I had planned and it was a bust at this point I would be getting back really late. Decided to just head home and take care of a few chores and go out on a closer day trip on Saturday up Walker Creek in the Cultus Mountains on Saturday. I had planned on going into these earlier this year but things didn’t work out. As it was now, the walk would help keep my legs toned up. Quit raining about 2:00 p.m. and got sunbreaks by 4:00 p.m. Walked dog, watered cows and checked out some things down on my place. Even though there were sunbreaks, I still got soaked walking through the brush on my place. Got started about 8:00 a.m. on Saturday. Plan was to go into two mapped ponds on Walker Creek. I planned to access the area from the Walker Valley ORV park. Park was pretty crowded but found a place to park and started up the hill. Took shortcut through pit near bottom of one road. Didn’t know if hiking was allowed but didn’t see any signs prohibiting it. Fortunately didn’t run into too many people and heard them coming well before they got to me and was able to get well out of the way. Got to first “pond” at 11:30 a.m. As I had suspected it wasn’t really a pond. It was a flat where it looked like there was standing water occasionally during spring runoff and other floods. Otherwise there were just a few pools here and there from stream oxbows. The whole area was covered with a canopy of alders that were growing on higher areas throughout the flat. Walker Creek had a surprisingly high gradient 2-3% here, considering it was a flat and was represented as standing water on the USGS Quad. Of course, it could have been flatter at one time and been filled in by alluvial deposits from the creek. There was a berm in the flat, running to the creek that looked artificial, like someone had built it. I was surprised to see fish in the creek. I figured that there had to be a barrier below this point. Of course someone could have planted the fish here but the stream was pretty small, only a couple feet wide. Maybe an old millpond or storage pond that someone dumped fish into. The creek was so small that I figured that I couldn’t really fish it. By the time I got close enough to drop a line in, the fish would see me and spook. Got through investigating the flat at a little after noon and had lunch. Decided that I had time to try to get into the next pond up. I strongly suspected that it would be pretty much like this one, except it might not have any fish because the creek would be a lot smaller and the gradient was pretty steep and would have a number of waterfall barriers. At top of flat finally got good look at fish, good enough to determine that it was a trout of some kind but wasn’t set up to fish such shallow water. Easier with bait and you have to sneak up on holes so you don’t spook fish. Also saw a frog. From the looks of it, a red-legged frog but it was on the edge of a big undercut bank and when I tried to catch it to get a closer look to verify my suspicions of its species, it jumped under the bank. Got some good photos, enough that I was pretty comfortable with my I.D. Found deep hole in creek at top of flat and tried fishing that but no luck. Either no fish or they weren’t interested in the fly I threw in. Didn’t see any fish. Kept following stream up, keeping to what appeared to be westernmost stream which should have taken me to the pond above. Pretty big riparian leave strip so travel was pretty good for most of the distance. Had to navigate windfalls occasionally and dive into reprod of logging unit a few times. Got to next road above where the leave strip got smaller. Had been going up east side of stream but switched to west because going looked easier. It might have been easier but it was still miserable. Large rock just above road and went on west side of it. But a bunch of trees that had been left had fallen off this side, probably because they were pretty much growing on the rock and didn’t have very deep roots. This combined with reprod in logging unit and a healthy growth of devil’s club and salmonberry made going miserable. Finally got around. Leave strip smaller so very brushy by stream because underbrush got more light. Choice between than and reprod. Took reprod a lot of time. Thick miserable. Light mist started falling. If it kept up I would be soaked going through reprod. Found on little dried up pond but didn’t look like one I was looking for. At some point mist quit but thick brushy areas still pretty wet. Didn’t look right on air photos though air photos didn’t show much detail. Finally crossed back to east side of stream. Looked like I should have been in right place but no pond. Figured maybe it didn’t exist. Pushed on a little farther then saw open spot above. Figured that this must be pond. Pushed on to open spot and discovered that it was actually a road. Shouldn’t have been a road there (before I got to pond) if I was where I was supposed to be. Therefore, I was in the wrong place, or the pond didn’t exist and I had walked right by where it was supposed to be. Assumed the latter and started up road on direction that should take me out. Shortly ran into dead end where they had blocked the road. Road beyond blockage wasn’t as well used as one on my air photo so realized that I was actually in the wrong place. Headed back in the way I had come from. Didn’t know exactly where I was. Hadn’t printed large air photos so wasn’t even sure I was on the photos that I had. Didn’t trust USGS Quad because the roads shown on it were probably pretty old. There were a lot of new or newly opened roads that could make it hard to determine where I was. Good thing was that I would probably be okay as long as I followed road down. Might have to backtrack once in a while but roads would lead to valley floor. Might be quite a distance from where I parked rig but I would get down. Could also just cut down hill but decided to stay with the easier walking on the roads. Got to intersection and dug out air photos and was able to determine where I was. I was in pretty good shape. Now it was a matter of just chugging my way out. Something about going downhill on roads and trails at end of trip. Tired and pace usually settles into monotonous rhythm that causes pack straps to start cutting into shoulders. Got back down to pit where I had cut up hill and started down road instead of taking shortcut through pit but changed my mind and cut down through pit. Got back to rig and saw that I had gotten a nice parking ticket for the sum of $99. Wasn’t too surprised about that. Place is really popular so I’m sure it is patrolled regularly. Still bummed out though. Too bad I forgot pass at home. Soundtrack in my head for day was pretty much Judah and the Lion: Why Did You Run? Got really tired of that so switched to Psychedelic Furs: Heartbreak Beat at some point.  

The lower "pond" on Walker Creek. This was mostly a flat with a lot of wet ground with Walker Creek flowing through it. The alders are growing on ground that is slightly higher. This may have been a full fledged pond at some point, either a natural pond that filled in with creek sediments over the years or an artificial pond whose dam has failed. There were some mounds near the bottom of the flat that looked suspiciously like they were human made. 

Walker Creek in the flat.

Another view of Walker Creek in the flat. 

I am pretty sure that this frog is a red-legged frog (Rana aurora). However, I was not able to capture it to verify this for sure. 

Depot Creek to Masselpanik Creek,  Aug 30th  to 31st

Plan was to go into about 6 lakes/ponds draining to Masselpanik Creek which drains to Klesilkwa River which drains to Skagit. Masselpanik FS Road pretty badly overgrown at last check earlier this year and probably not accessible very far by vehicle. Shorter route looked to be via Depot Creek trail then up a side valley running from Depot Creek (or more accurately, into Depot Creek) into an area near headwaters of Masselpanik Creek. Had hoped to do trip over Labor Day weekend. As per usual this year weather was shaping up to be nice during the work week and iffy over the weekend. Didn’t look like a washout except maybe Sunday but looked cloudy enough to hide most of surrounding mountains or even ridges I had planned on taking. Took Thursday off work to try to beat weather. Lower part of Depot Creek FS Road brushed out a bit which made me a optimistic that it would be in pretty good shape. Had been pretty rough last time I was up it in about 2008. Vegetation closed in at first “Y” in road, not a good development. Road got pretty rough but looked doable. Shifted into 4 wheel drive high and continued. Pretty soon shifted into 4 low, or thought I did. Road had been traveled frequently and often but brush close on either side, made me a little nervous. Tried a slightly different route over another bad spot over some big boulders and got high centered. Not good. Road tight and I was blocking anyone who wanted in or out. This could be a long ordeal that ate up all of my time for walking. Set brake and got out of rig and checked it out. High centered on rear end just barely. Worst part was that I was almost in the boulder filled ditch. If I got off boulder I was on and ended up in that ditch, I would be really stuck. Passenger tire off ground about an inch. Front tires on ground so got back in and tried to reverse off boulder. No luck. Got out and looked things over again. Noticed rock I was high centered on sloped in direction of passenger side of pickup, the side that was off the ground. On a whim, braced myself and grabbed under driver’s side wheel well and shoved with my legs, aided by a bit of adrenaline in my veins. Relieved when pickup shifted quite a bit. Tried shoving again with no result. Stopped there, didn’t want to hurt myself. Looked and saw that passenger wheel now on ground and rear end was off boulder. Hopped back in rig, started it up and made sure front wheels were pointed back toward road and not ditch. Put it in reverse and backed out. Hit boulder hard with front end but kept going and was back into road. Relieved. Backed down until I could turn around. Checked under pickup, worried about hole in oil pan or damage to rear end and front end. Didn’t see any dripping oil. Good sign but I couldn’t see really well. Took about 6 forward and reverse to get back headed the other way and headed back out. At some point seemed like I was going too fast and checked to see if I was in four-wheel drive and realized that I hadn’t been. Briefly thought about turning around trying again, using the right route through the boulders but decided enough was enough, especially since everything this year has been a little bit off for me. Parked down at “Y” in road where road got better. Rechecked underneath rig and everything looked good.   Added a little less than a mile to my walk. I had almost made it on road. Depot Cr trail on USA side had lot more windfalls than last time I was over it in 2008, having recently been logged out by Canadian climbing club at that time. More logs down this time around and lost trail a few times. On maps valley looked kind of gradual and border also crossed it making the contour lines on the different maps I had look different so I wasn’t sure what to expect. The times I had been up trail before I hadn’t been looking for this valley so I didn’t know if it would be easy to spot from trail. Creek draining valley paralleled Depot Creek for quite a distance and I wasn’t sure I would be able to identify it when I crossed it on the trail. On air photo there were several large vine maple patches across creek from upper valley. If I could locate these, then I could just head north for the valley at that spot. Lost trail again in swelter of windfalls and finally decided to just head for border at that point and follow it until I hit the valley. At the time I thought that this would be a foolproof way to find the valley. Got to border cut in a short time and started following it east. Border cut was pretty brushy so stayed just below it. Ground was pretty steep sidehill in a burn that was 80 to 100 years old. Lots of small windfall logs to get over. Ran into small creek but valley was much steeper than I expected so I figured that it wasn’t the one I wanted. Continued on for several more hours, expecting the ground to break into a more gradual slope as I entered the valley. Finally stopped and checked maps again next to a steep rock outcrop at about 5:30 p.m. By this point, I realized that I had messed up. Even if I did find the valley, at this point it was too late to get to the flat on Masselpanik Creek. Didn’t want to camp in valley on Depot Creek side because it looked like there was a good chance I wouldn’t be able to find water. The lake in this valley looked very dry on air photos. Decided to bag it, go back to Depot Creek and camp for the night and figure things out in the morning and scout the route out. Figured I was pretty close to the valley but didn’t know how close. On the way back I came across it. There was a well defined land feature, a bench, about 40 feet high that I had to climb up to get to flat on top where Depot Creek ran about a quarter mile away. Once back on trail, dropped pack and started up trail to see if I would be able to see the main upper part of the valley where it came between two ridges. Sure enough, only had to go up trail a little bit and look back in direction I had come and could see wide gap of valley between two ridges. Oh well, too late now. Picked what looked like good spot to camp but when I went to pitch tent noticed that it was within the kill zone of large silver fir snag. Top broken out of snag but still enough left to hit little flat where I wanted to sleep and probably crush me. Getting late at this point, after 7:00 p.m., and would be getting dark soon so didn’t have a lot of time to find another spot. Moved a short distance away but spot was far from ideal. Large hump in ground would make it hard to stretch out and get comfortable but I finally decided that this was as good as it was going to get. Pitched tent, cooked and ate dinner and turned in a little after 8:00 p.m. It was already starting to get dark. Didn’t sleep well that night. Right hip had begun bothering me at some point but didn’t really notice it until I dropped my pack at trail. Hurt worse than it had for years, a deep throbbing pain. Must have tweaked it somehow on sidehill or in crawling over some log in a way it didn’t like. Large hump in ground where I was trying to sleep didn’t help and actually made it worse if I got in wrong position. Felt like I woke up every ten minutes all night long to try to get in a more comfortable position. Must have slept for some pretty good stretches though because night seemed like it was over pretty quickly. Didn’t linger too long in sleeping bag that morning because it wasn’t very comfortable. Ate breakfast and started out for the valley. Right hip was killing me, constant throbbing pain. Hoped it would go away the more I walked but it seemed to persist. I started to wonder if I was done for the year. Found the valley and started up. It was actually much more gradual than I had expected. One small, steep hill at border cut. Small flat right in the middle of the border cut. This might have made it hard to pick up the valley if my plan from day before had worked and I actually got to this point because the valley actually wasn’t very well defined here. As it was this day, I had been following the valley for a good distance and knew the trend or direction it was following. Valley still quite gradual on Canadian side. Another steep hill that was a bit bigger that the one at the border just below lake. Sure enough lake was dry. Pretty cool spot. Looked like the lake filled up during snowmelt runoff and maybe heavy rainfall floods but then dried out pretty quickly. Estimated that water might get as deep as ten feet in deepest spot. Horsetails so thick I couldn’t see ground at north end of lake. Took break and some photos at north end of lake before continuing up valley. On maps looked like I was about two-thirds of the way to the headwall of this valley and the flat on Masselpanik Creek. Looked like the remnants of an old trail through talus at north end of lake but couldn’t be sure. Valley got a bit steeper above lake but not too bad. Valley bottom very brushy so stayed on the sidehill above it. Pretty soon hit an old trail. I hadn’t been imagining things earlier. Trail looked like it was an engineered, built trail and not some way path. Actually followed it through a nice switchback. Trail trended up valley towards flat on Masselpanik and I assumed that was where it was going. About half way between Dry Lake and valley headwall brush in bottom of valley petered out and was replaced by large talus slopes below cliffs. Was pretty much like this to head of valley. I stayed on sidehill on west side of valley. Would pick up parts of old trail and lose them again. Toward top of valley started running into brushy patches more and more frequently, mostly vine and Douglas maple. Several times debated turning back, could see that this would be a doable route so why to trouble of pushing through brushy areas? Finally lost trail for good but kept going because at this point I was almost at the flat. Much steeper here but still doable. Finally found bear trail that went the last several hundred yards up to flat. When I finally got to top, I was surprised to see there was a berm ranging in size from about 30 feet to 50 feet or more. On maps, this valley looked like it was an example of headward erosion into the flat on Masselpanik Creek, in which case, the flat should have been flat until it dropped abruptly into the headwall of Dry Lake Valley. This was kind of a mystery. Took a few photos from top of Dry Lake Valley. Was going to go back the way I came but looked like there was a good route down through talus a little farther around headwall on east side of valley in talus slope below cliffs. Worked my way around to that area and found this to be a better route than the one I took in. It looked brushy near the top from the other side of the valley but only had to get through a few, fairly open tag alders to get into the talus. Talus was pretty old (no new rockfall) and lichen encrusted and there was a distinct line between the talus that had come off the cliff and the talus in the valley floor. Followed talus down until I found a good spot to cut back up onto the west side of the valley. Took sidehill on west side of valley to avoid brush at bottom and made it back to Dry Lake pretty easily. Had heard small stream near bottom of hill below Dry Lake on way in and headed for there and stopped for lunch. Got back to camp at about 4:00 p.m., packed up and headed out. At some point during day’s walking my right hip quit hurting so badly. Strangely, I hadn’t really noticed when. There was no distinct cessation of pain, it just kind of magically disappeared. Got back to rig at about 6:30 p.m. Pulled pickup out of parking spot and checked for any oil on the ground that might have come from rear end or transfer case. Nothing. Very good. Since big trip was shot, planned to sleep in back of rig and explore route up Paleface Creek next day. Thought I might be able to camp at main road where it crossed Paleface Creek and head up road next day but when I got there looked like it would be a pain to get down to creek for water so decided to head up road. Road crossed nice spring not too far from Trans-Canada Trail so figured I would camp there for the night. When I got to that point it was after 8:00 p.m. and getting pretty dark. Rather than cooking dinner, I raided my lunch stash for wheat thins, teriyaki sticks and boiled eggs and turned in for the night. Slept really well that night, something small but still pretty big got into wheel well of pickup, bigger than a mouse, a rock rabbit or chipmunk. This thing ran around and made quite a racket for a while but finally went away. Didn’t feel like cooking in morning so had a couple of breakfast bars and was on my way. Pulled pickup out of parking spot and checked for any oil on the ground. None. I figured I was probably good to go at this point. Drove up road about another mile. They had built a new road here and there was a new logging unit on a northeastern tributary of Paleface Creek. There were a couple of small lakes near the head of this tributary and it looked like it wouldn’t be too hard to get into them and then over the ridge to the northeast of them into an unnamed (as far as I know) lake at the head of the Klesilkwa River. I had been into this lake in 2015 but still needed to hit a couple ponds in the area. This looked like a better route than following the old logging road up the Klesilkwa River. Andy Z. and I had followed part of this road up the Klesilkwa earlier in the year when we went into Clerf Lake but to get to the lake at the head of the river, I would have to take another road off of it that looked pretty brushy. So the route from Paleface Creek looked like it might be a much better one and probably quite a bit closer as well. Got started about 8:00 a.m. Crossed outlet stream of lakes which was pretty brushy but I didn’t have to go far. Started up through timber on south side of stream. Talus slope just beyond timber to south but decided to stay with timber, especially since I would have to bash through more brush to get to talus and going was pretty good in timber. Went like that for quite a distance. At one point talus extended into timber a bit and I could have gotten into pretty easily but decided to stay with timber. This proved to be a mistake. Not far above this point, ground started to get really steep around some rock bluffs. Really brushy too. Looked like I was close to the flat where the lakes sat so I found a spot through and kept going. At top of this little chute took note of snags and a log that looked like shredded wheat cereal in case I needed to find my way back to this spot to get through bluffs. Hopefully I would be able to find it in all the brush. Already thinking about trying to get into the talus to the south. I thought it came all the way up the slope almost to where it broke into the flat where the lakes sat and it would definitely be easier going than through the bluffs. Continued up another hundred feet or so and hit some more rock bluffs. Found another way through over a limby windfall tree that was a royal pain to get over. I was definitely going to look for another way out. Still noted surroundings just in case I needed to find this exact spot again. Another hundred feet and I topped out the ridge and could see the lower lake a few hundred feet below with a nice gradual slope between me and it. Again noted surroundings and started down. Not too far above lake ran across a well beaten trail. Lots of ripe blueberries around and had already seen some bear scat but this trail looked like it had resulted from human activity not wildlife, even bears. Headed to outlet of lake and dropped pack and followed trail. Sure enough, I started seeing flags. So this would be my route out. Some flags looked new but others older and trail looked like it had been around for at least a few, if not many years so probably predated most recent logging activity. Checked out lakes. Very nice spot. Supposed to have 30% chance of showers for this day but none came and, as day went on it cleared up even more. Could see saddle or ridge I would need to go over to get into the Klesilkwa. Looked quite doable. It wasn’t too far away and I had originally planned on walking up and scouting it. However, I kind of wanted to get going and I had looked at the other side in 2015 and recalled that it had looked like a very doable route then. I might that regret decision but I called it good looking at it from the lakes and headed out. Trail out was more of a flagged route but easier than wayfinding. It looked like whoever made it took some effort to conceal it a bit on the lower end so I won’t go into more detail about it out of respect for that. Hopefully they won’t mind my mentioning it. Of course it is going to be buried in a wall of words so it is pretty unlikely that I will blow their secret. Got back to rig at about 2:00 p.m. Pulled pickup out of spot where I had parked and did one last check for any oil on the ground but didn’t find any Then I headed down the hill. Line at border was short so got back home pretty early, sometime around 7:00 p.m. Sacha wasn’t expecting me until the next day. Next day went to upper lake/pond on Walker Creek that I had missed the week before. Remembered Discover Pass this time. Had been a few showers early in morning but was clearing by time I got started up hill at about 10:00 a.m. Really muggy. Was dripping sweat in half an hour. Got up to small upper pond at about 12:00 p.m. Pretty much what I expected. No standing water and pretty much impenetrable mass of willow with a few alders in overstory. I spent my time walking mulling over the Dry Lake Valley on Depot Creek in B.C. and, at some point on the walk up the hill, I had an idea what had happened on the upper end of it. It seems reasonable that the berm on the Masselpanik flat at the head of the valley was a terminal moraine from a lobe of ice that had occupied the valley, maybe during the last ice age. When the ice melted back, the pressure was relieved from the bedrock on the east side of the valley and the rock there crumbled into the valley, forming the talus slopes. The process of rock breaking loose after pressure is relieved is called exfoliation and is a well known process. They don’t like to drain unlined power tunnels for hydroelectric plants because of this process. When the pressure of the water is relieved, rock has a tendency to fall from the walls into the tunnel where it can migrate down and cause problems with generators. I don’t know if my idea is right or wrong but I wrote it down anyway before I took notes on the upper Walker Creek “pond”. Got back home at about 6:00 p.m. Next day, Labor Day, went fishing with Sacha and the kids. Didn’t catch many fish but had a good time.

Looking north at the Dry Lake just after I broke free of the timber. 

View north at Dry Lake just after I broke free of the heavy growth of willows seen in the previous frame. 

Looking south at Dry Lake. The light green in the lake bed is a growth of solid horsetails. 

Heavy growth of common horsetail (Equisetum arvense). This grew so thick that I couldn't see any soil. 

More horsetails. 

Looking southwest at Dry Lake as the clouds start to lift. The mountain in the background is probably No Doubt Peak (a play on the name of the nearby Mount Redoubt?)

Another view looking south at Dry Lake. 

Another view looking south at Dry Lake.

Zoomed in view of No Doubt Mountain. 

Looking down Dry Lake valley from its head on the flat on Masselpanik Creek. 

Another view of No Doubt from head of Dry Lake valley. If this is No Doubt Peak/Mountain, it is just on the U.S. side of the border. 

Looking southwest at Dry Lake on the way back as the clouds are really starting to lift. 

No Doubt Mountain from Dry Lake. 

Looking north from the middle of Dry Lake. The trail I made walking through the thick growth of horsetails can be seen near the middle of the frame.