| Author |
Topic |
|
surrey
Canada
647 Posts |
Posted - 05/02/2010 : 12:44 PM
|
Wow what a trip..... 10 hours is going to make a nice wall of text
Parked in the lot at 8:30am meet up with Shar and decided to ditch the snowshoes. I had a spare set of 6 point crampons I offered up but, Shar was good without. I was a bit scatter brained and left my GPS in the SUV (oops).
Very cloudy and overcast and just a bit of rain. The trip to Swan falls was pretty fast as neither of us had met before so we had lots to chit chat about.
At the 1000m ribbion I put crampons on. Shar being more fit then myself did alot of the uphill trail breaking. She was abble to break the trail in with only 6-8 inch postholes, where as I was breaking pretty deep when I was leading. Snowshoes would not have been usefull at all as most of the grade was 45% or more (which I knew from last year).
We got into the medow before the last push up to egale ridge and just like last year tottaly lost the trail. So we just went up. Reaching the peak around 12:30pm
By this time is was raining/snowing, and the snow on the trees was melting such that is was like standing in your shower. It was very, very wet. It was also very cloudy so no views for Shar.
Now the fun begins.......
Turns out Shar had never been to the top on this side. I had never been to lindasy lake. Moreover, neither of us had been on the connecting trail. We had no map or GPS. However, we thought as long as we keep the down hill side on our right side we should be okay. The next 8km's or so was alot of up and down, east to west in 5 foot deep snow :) Also, we had quite a few 60% grade decents, although we tried to skirt the uphill as much as possible.
All in all, we ended up getting too far to the east. I ended up bring out the compass (good thing it's in my first aid kit). We could see a lake, but it was on our left side (not good as it was not Buntzen). A bit latter I knew for sure we had gone the wrong way. We needed to regain the ridge and head west (Shar had picked up on it right away, and had stopped our descent)
After regaing the ridge it started to clear up, and the SUN came out :) We continued going SW and finally came across some very old tracks also going SW and follow them untill we got to lindsay lake. From here back down was very easy.
It was great to have another person to do this trip with, thank you Shar. Many times we had to spread out and scout ways around things that where to steep. As well, it was nice to have another person when you start to second guess yourself. I'm sure neither of us would have attempted this alone.
Hard to say how far we went (no gps or maps lol) Shar's step counter was at 30,000 steps, about 21km on level ground. We spent about 5 hours in the snow, and our total elevation gain was likely close to 1300m-1500m. Total time was 10 hours with maybe 30 mins of breaks.
            
 |
Edited by - keadyn on 05/02/2010 5:41 PM
|
|
 Fast hikin, carrot chompin, always grinnin, gear scatterin recipient of the Theta Lake manouver
Burnaby
2039 Posts |
Posted - 05/02/2010 : 3:18 PM
|
Well done.  |
|
|
|
Coffee swillin', wine lovin', Owl fearin' Andie McDowell stunt double, who sports retro gear
Vancouver, BC
5465 Posts |
Posted - 05/02/2010 : 6:51 PM
|
| Yes, well done!! I'm surprised to see the crap weather in the pictures; weather in Vancouver was absolutely gorgeous. |
|
|
|
Happy go lucky, plaid wearin, postholin, safeway gaitor sportin, old-school film shootin, giver of many regards
Abbotsford, B.C.
Canada
13445 Posts |
Posted - 05/02/2010 : 9:06 PM
|
You were fortunate for the weather to break your way. Nice shots
K |
|
|
Surrey, BC
Canada
185 Posts |
Posted - 05/03/2010 : 10:18 PM
|
Hey Keadyn, Thanks for being the one to provide the written and photographic record in this team... great job with the trip report!
I have nothing to add except agreement that Eagle Ridge/Lindsay Lake can now be done without snowshoes. Even though all the tracks we saw up top were snowshoe tracks, I was glad I hadn't lugged mine up. I wasn't sinking through enough to miss them. I was glad for gaiters though (Keadyn had none) and Keadyn was glad for crampons (I had none).
Oh yeah, if you head up that way, don't necessarily follow two sets of north-south footprints... they'll get you there, but not by the straightest course :)
I had an awesome day; even enjoyed the rain-snow-sun combo. Thanks for a good trip, Keadyn. |
Edited by - Shar on 05/03/2010 10:20 PM |
|
|
van, bc
Canada
259 Posts |
Posted - 05/04/2010 : 12:10 AM
|
Nice trip kaedan and shar. Amazing that you were able to find the way without map or gps! The initial climb is really tough even in summer i heard.
Noman |
|
|
Coquitlam, BC
Canada
153 Posts |
Posted - 05/10/2010 : 11:04 PM
|
| I actually got lost on this trip like you a month ago, except I was going in the other direction... Sometimes in the snow, the markings are not very clear and it can be easy to get lost. |
|
|
| |
Topic |
|
|
|
Egale peak -> Lindasy lake -> El Paso -> Down
