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Surrey, B.C.
Canada
198 Posts |
Posted - 09/05/2011 : 2:48 PM
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Conroy Forest Service Road is approximately 25kms from downtown Squamish. The Rock Climbers have established a parking lot and a campsite about 1km up this road. I parked there at about 9.30am on Sunday 28th September and started walking up the road towards Conroy Lake.  
This is what I found at about the 3km point. Up to this point the road is clear and quite passable. At about the 6km the alders have completely colonized the road, so that forward visibility is reduced to about zero. Dressed in running shoes, short pants, no compass or GPS, I was prepared for a leasurely stroll up a clear logging road. Not wanting to be a Search and Rescue episode, or worse a topic for Regional Discussion on Clubtread, I decided to turn back.   
The second attempt took place yesterday, 4th September. Armed with a compass, sketch map, machete, and decent boots, I set off at about 10 am. This road has been de-activated, but I have never seen one with so many cross ditches. Nearer to the top, there is one every few metres. Each of them has a little trickle of water which has encouraged the growth of willows, alders and cottonwoods. In addition, every culvert and bridge was made of logs, and these have been taken out of the ground and scattered randomly across the road. At the highest point on the road, after going roughly East, the road turns sharply South, near two stacks of abandoned lumber. There is also a view point to the right. Here you set a bearing of approximately North East and head for the low point in the ridge in front of you.  
This takes you through the blueberries and azaleas and into a forested wetland where the walking is very easy. 
After about 15 minutes the lake appears through the trees. The shoreline is very inaccessible. I could not see the cabin which is supposed to exist on the island. The mosquitoes were not very plentiful, but were very aggressive. It took me about four and a half hours to get here, so at about 2.35pm I headed back out without wetting a fishing line. Considering the effort it took to get here, an overnighter would have made much more sense.     .
Somewhere around this time the joy of conquest turned into pain and agony. I had just about exhausted myself on the way up, but hustling myself through the booby traps made no sense at all. I slipped off of a hidden log, (thankfully did not high centre the precious ones) fell into a cross ditch and split my lip, and then bruised my thigh badly on the end of a broken branch on a log. Not to mention the numerous scratches on my shins because I did not wear leggings. It is amazing how easy it is to walk off of the road when you do not see your slashings that you made on the way up.
There is no shortage of water, as the streams are all running.  
I have searched Clubtread and found only one reference to Conroy. This was posted by pmicheals in September of 2006. He does not talk about going to the lake, but he went on to the sub alpine meadows above the lake, where the road is clear. He does mention the numerous cross ditches, but he does not talk about the alders colonizing the road. 
This is a lesson which has not been well learned. I will do it again with the company of other like minded persons.
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Edited by - RollingR on 09/05/2011 4:07 PM
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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 - 09/05/2011 : 3:43 PM
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Cool, I've always wondered what that lake looks like! We drove quite high on the road system north of Conroy last year, I've wondered if there was a way over to thosee lakes.
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Squamish, BC
Canada
173 Posts |
Posted - 09/05/2011 : 7:22 PM
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| Nice! I climb there a lot (chek) never knew what was further up that road and have always wondered. Thanks for posting :) |
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Richmond, BC
Canada
2440 Posts |
Posted - 09/05/2011 : 8:47 PM
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quote:
This is a lesson which has not been well learned. I will do it again with the company of other like minded persons.
Cool I'm game to give it whirl this September or early October. I was scouting a route up clinker ridge with the thought of doing a loop at some point across table meadows and down Swift creek FSR.
Sad to hear that it has overgrown with Alders but that depends on which fork of the road you went in on. If your truck got to 6km you should have past a creek by those log piles which essentially are deactivated bridges and refuse. You should have also past a quarry at 3km and another just after 6km? at The creek runs pretty high in the spring. WE made it to 11km close to a bench that contours the west limit of Clinker ridge. I have a map that has the Forestry roads superimposed on it. Oddly at approximately 8-9 km there is a nice track and in some sections it almost looks like a well groomed trail bed. Incidently The road and highest cut block appears to intersect and cross the park boundary as far as I can see. I may be wrong. Area has good potential for BC Skiing if it wasn't for the cross ditching. To be quite honest it would make a nice park access route.
I think Dru has some background knowledge of this area but not sure. I'm not sure of any fish in there and my thoughts of that building you were looking for is possibly a pump house of some sort. |
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Richmond, BC
Canada
2440 Posts |
Posted - 09/05/2011 : 8:50 PM
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I would be interested to see if you could show your approximate route on a google map?
Here is a repost of that quad track bed which was in pretty good shape 5 years ago and probably hasn't changed much.
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Edited by - pmicheals on 09/05/2011 8:56 PM |
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Surrey, B.C.
Canada
198 Posts |
Posted - 09/05/2011 : 10:45 PM
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This is the approximate route that I followed. It is the original FSR. The stuck truck is not mine. It was there when I went up on 28th August, but was gone when I came down. I guess he did not know how to back up accurately, and he drove off the road. He must have gone to get help. This is the farthest point that can be driven, about 3km from the parking lot. If it is possible to walk straight up Conroy Creek and cut off that long switchback, considerable effort can be saved. My information comes from a VHS put together by Safari West in 1992. At that time the area had just been logged and the road was drivable. The quad track bed that you picture begins about another kilometer past the entry to the lake, and can be seen in perfect condition in Google Earth. Except for this coming weekend 10th September, you do have a date. I am self employed, so I need 48 hours or more to book my time clear. I am up to exploring and looking for loop circuits, but I must wet a fishing line at some point. |
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SouthWest, BC
Canada
26 Posts |
Posted - 09/07/2011 : 10:58 AM
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| I've skied up the road to that lake and then across the lake and East to the next lake and beyond into Garibaldi Park. I've also hiked to the lake from nearby cutblocks when I was up there working. The cabin that you heard about is on the island but it is nothing more than a few rotted logs forming 3 foot high walls of a cabin somebody started to build many years ago. There is also a sunken dingy close to shore along the North side. The lake is very shallow throughout and probably doesn't have any fish in it. The second lake has some nice meadows surrounding it to the South and West. |
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SouthWest, BC
Canada
26 Posts |
Posted - 09/07/2011 : 10:59 AM
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| whoops - double posted |
Edited by - matches on 09/07/2011 11:04 AM |
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SouthWest, BC
Canada
26 Posts |
Posted - 09/07/2011 : 11:00 AM
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| Whoops - triple posted |
Edited by - matches on 09/07/2011 11:05 AM |
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1 Posts |
Posted - 07/21/2012 : 5:30 PM
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| Hey, that's my truck! I got stuck driving up there last year... well, the road just crumbled away at least. Did you by any chance find any Ray Ban's further up the road? I lost them as I pushed up and eventually got turned around by the road from hell. Made it up later in September, but will never return - way too gnarly. |
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Conroy Lake,the challenge, the conquest
