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Van, BC
Canada
2800 Posts |
Posted - 09/19/2010 : 10:11 PM
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Photoset: http://www.flickr.com/photos/realaworld/sets/72157624989559480/with/5005182188/
Elevation profile:
Google Earth birdseye:
 
Google Earth 3d:
Friday night's questionable weather saw me, Alastair and Mark (w/ Frank) heading down the Silver-Skagit Road to the Maselpanik Creek FSR. Crossing the immediate bridge and we found a nice clearing on the right at the intersection of two FSRs where we could car camp.
Overnight brough heavy rains (at least it sounded that way from inside the XTerra) and dawn revealed light rain and low hanging clouds. We geared up and piled in Mark's truck to see how far we could get up Maselpanik FSR.
Google Earth 3d - Maselpanik FSR:
The water bars became progressively deeper, and we had to stop and use an ice axe to pry a large rock out of the way on the side of the road. Unfortunately, a larger waterbar combined with Mark's camper conspired against us and a dragging metal rod brought our 4x4ing to an end.
40 or so minutes of hiking along the nice FSR and we hit a junction - straight continued up the valley along Maselpanik FSR; left lead to a creek crossing (old bridge long removed) to the other side of the valley and our access to Finlayson. After crossing 4 massive deactivation ditches at the start of this road, we were soon at the creek.
Google Earth 3d - junction and creek crossing:
I had forgot my sandles in my car, and Mark was nice enough to toss his creek shoes back for me after he made it on the other side. Unfortunately, his throw came up short. Quite short. And we both watched the shoe float downstream in the middle of the creek. The other shoe made it across though, so I crossed in one shoe and one bare foot. The stream was about knee high and flat enough at this stretch that no hand line was needed. Cold, but not unbearably so.
Boots back on at the other side we joined up with the logging roads and swung right. The road soon crossed through an old cutblock that had burned. Lots of fireweed and blackened stumps that looked like black bears out of the corner of your eye.
At first we thought about taking a spur road that switchbacked to the left, but decided against it and kept going. At the end of the burn cut block we went a bit further but then retreated thinking the edge of the cut would afford the best line up.
Fire cutblock:
There was, of course, no trail where we were going. We were aiming to skirt around the right hand side of a little knob (visible from the valley and on the maps)that was just in front of the ridge we were aiming for. The burn cut block was actually pretty good to climb - no slash like an average block.
Google Earth 3d - ascent path (left) and descent path (right):
Soon enough we were on top of that and into the forest. All things considered, the bushwack wasn't that bad. No real cliff bands to speak of to avoid. Not too much deadfall, and it wasn't a matchstick forest. We were hiking in light drizzle and into the cloud - not sure if I've ever hiked in more humid conditions. It was still quite warm though, and I soon took off my waterproof shells when the rain stopped. Mark and Alastair and Frank did a great job of finding occasional game trails to follow up the mountain and contour over to our right.
Ascent bushwack:
Occasional checks of the GPS and consulting of the map confirmed we were going the right way. When we got around the knob on the right, we picked up a very distinct game trail that had the occasional piece of flagging. Someone had been here before, but not for a while. We followed this for a bit before turning to climber's right and bushwacking (a nasty one this time) our way up the ridge. Rather than go directly up and over, we contoured around slightly and picked it up in a nice meadowy area with plenty of blueberries and plenty of bear crap.
This trip was originally supposed to be of Whitworth Peak, but after eyeballing the route we would have to take (involving skirting around the outside of the Whitworth/Finlayson valley (straight down and up would involve too many cliffs) and the end scramble, consensus changed to Finlayson.
Eyeballing Whitworth:
Along the ridge with Finlayson in cloud:
Lunch:
Whitworth:
Video 360 Panorama - Ridge to Finlayson
http://www.flickr.com/photos/realaworld/5004979136/in/set-72157624989559480/
Getting to Finlayson involved a beautiful walk along the ridge to the base of a loose shaley sandy scramble. In Google Earth 3d:
While not a particularly difficult scramble, it was somewhat hard due to the exposure (slip down and you'd be tumbling a ways down a steep slope) and lack of trustworthy handholds (what you'd think was solid rock was loose and would break away if you tried to yank on it). In any event, we all made it up to what I'm calling Finlayson's subsummit. (It is what Google Earth labels as the true summit; that's wrong though, as both the GPS and the topo have the true summit as the further higher peak to the E-NE.)
Google Earth 3d - crux to subsummit and ridge towards summit:
We continued along the connecting ridge, but I hit my limit and decided to turn back (I could handle the exposure, but not the handholds that I couldn't trust any weight to). Frank, Alastair and Mark continued along and successfully summited while I took pics and enjoyed the occasional fog banks.
        
1) Mark along the ridge.
2) Summit push.
3) Alastair scrambles along the connecting ridge.
4) Frank leads the humans towards the summit.
5) What was probably the true summit crux.
6-7) On the summit.
8) Looking back on subsummit from ridge.
9) Meltwater basin.
I made my way back to the subsummit, and Mark on the main summit yelled over that it was going to be easier for them to take an alternate way down (down a scree field and traverse around the subsummit), so we agreed I would go back down the way we came up and we'd all meet back up along the ridge.
Video 360 Panorama - Finlayson subsummit
http://www.flickr.com/photos/realaworld/5004376207/in/set-72157624989559480/
Crux descent off subsummit:
As expected, the crux descent was worse than the ascent. Very loose ground - I was basically surfing down on a mount of scree and dirt. Only way to keep from getting out of control was to guide myself down along the rock face with my hands... using mostly break away handholds. I almost got stuck 2-3 times but managed to make it down safely. (It took a while though - the rest beat me down to the ridge despite starting from a greater distance away and having to regain some elevation on their traverse.)
Once together we decided to try an alternative descent path. On the subsummit we had noticed that that section of the ridge contained nice looking meadows on the slopes heading down to Maselpanik. Despite not knowing what was further below that (likely a cut block, and not a nice one like the one we had ascended), we decided to give it a go.
The said meadows from the subsummit:
Frank is content:
Butterfly made for nice product shot:
 
The meadows were indeed beautiful and allowed for quick travel. The forest below them made for similarly easy bushwacking - nice and open and not very steep.
Beautiful meadow:
Nice forest bushwack:
Then we got to the cut block. As feared, it was your typical regenerating cut block. Nasty bushwacking.
We crossed two old spur logging roads on our way down. It was kind of funny - only way we knew they were old roads was because the ground was flat for ~5m and the alder was so thick you couldn't see your arm infront of your face. Once across the roads the alder disappeared and we were back thrashing our way through the regenerating cut.
Long story short we reconnected with the road at the bottom of the cut block, having made much better time with that route. Unfortunately, the road at this point was much more overgrown than the section where we had left it. Thankfully it was more of an alder tunnel rather than pure alder - enough of a path down the middle that we were able to push through without much problem, and before long we reconnected with our route from the way up and closed off the loop.
Back at the creek crossing I took some video, hoping for misfortune.
Video - Mark crossing Maselpanik Creek: http://www.flickr.com/photos/realaworld/5004383217/in/set-72157624989559480/
Video - Alastair crossing Maselpanik Creek: http://www.flickr.com/photos/realaworld/5005001686/in/set-72157624989559480/
The FSR back to the truck was easily done. Along the way we discussed if we prefered the ascent or descent paths. Consensus was that, if we were doing it again, we would want to start off on our ascent path, get on top of the burn cut, and then traverse across through the old growth until we got to the meadows and then go up those. Looking at Google Earth, however, that might not be possible - there is a large gully feature between the two paths that might be impassable. I'm thinking the best bet might be to climb the burn cut, follow the old growth but right at the border with the nasty cut block below it and then at the appropriate spot turn straight uphill through the pleasant forest and intersect the meadows.
Google Earth 3d - ascent path (left) and descent path (right):
-Ryan
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Burnaby, BC
Canada
908 Posts |
Posted - 09/19/2010 : 10:20 PM
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| looks like a great trip! Looks like a tough trip though although you seem to specialize in those |
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Vancouver, BC
Canada
1114 Posts |
Posted - 09/20/2010 : 06:59 AM
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| How much time do you spend piecing together you reports because they're always top notch. Someone could just print it off to use as a guide. Nice trip. |
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671 Posts |
Posted - 09/20/2010 : 08:12 AM
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Ryan,
thanks for putting the TR, great job, we will have to get Whitworth next time |
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Grouse Grinding, GPS carrying, lawn chair packing, bike riding North Shore tech addict who stares at Crown Mountain from his office window all day
North Vancouver
Canada
1905 Posts |
Posted - 09/20/2010 : 8:36 PM
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Nice TR! Don't see too many reports from Finlayson! I love these two pics:
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Abbotsford, BC
Canada
1005 Posts |
Posted - 09/20/2010 : 10:42 PM
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| Its a nice peak and a good report. |
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Vancouver, BC
Canada
150 Posts |
Posted - 09/22/2010 : 4:18 PM
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| I completely agree with the above -- nice peak and good report. |
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Happy go lucky, plaid wearin, postholin, safeway gaitor sportin, old-school film shootin, giver of many regards
Abbotsford, B.C.
Canada
13478 Posts |
Posted - 09/22/2010 : 8:13 PM
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The photo, "Frank is Content" is my favourite. Great capture of doggy happiness.
Great report as usual, always full with the important details ..
K |
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North Vancouver
Canada
745 Posts |
Posted - 09/23/2010 : 7:46 PM
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| Great report Ryan. I must see that area first hand. |
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Van, BC
Canada
2800 Posts |
Posted - 09/23/2010 : 7:50 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by NS Explorer
Great report Ryan. I must see that area first hand.
Ya, I've spent no time at all in that area... must get on more peaks over there.
-Ryan
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Finlayson - 2010-09-18
