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77 Posts |
Posted - 05/01/2012 : 10:12 AM
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Has anyone here been into Leader Lake? Access via Della Lake/Nine Peaks?
Thanks. |
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Qualicum Beach, BC
Canada
1308 Posts |
Posted - 05/01/2012 : 11:43 AM
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| Never heard of it. You don't mean Beauty Lake, do you? It is SE of Della Lake. |
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77 Posts |
Posted - 05/01/2012 : 2:17 PM
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No Leader Lake is directly south of Nine Peaks. We are looking at spending a week exploring the area at the end of July, eventually dropping down to Bedwell River. It looks like access to Leader lake would be through Bear Pass towards Ashwood Creek or by working your way down the south side of Nine Peaks.
Thanks. |
Edited by - Kingpin63 on 05/01/2012 4:08 PM |
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Quathiaski Cove, BC
Canada
73 Posts |
Posted - 05/31/2012 : 5:31 PM
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Great trip idea~!~
I haven't been to Leader Lake but looking at the map, if you were coming from Big Interior you might find a line from You Pass below Nine Peaks around to the drainage that feeds into the north end of the lake and then go out via Ashwood Creek to the west? Actually the ridge off the high point on the north side of Ashwood Creek looks like a lot better line than the base of the valley. Gain it with a short ascent from the Leader-Ashwodd Pass.
Climb Nine Peaks before dropping around from You Pass.
I think it's Leader Lake & Nine Peaks on the cover of Wallace Baikie's Strathcona history book, I'll have to double check that. |
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77 Posts |
Posted - 07/10/2012 : 07:34 AM
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So I attempted to reach Leader Lake this past weekend via the McBride Creek Valley. The Valley was added to Strathcona Park in 1995 and is designated wilderness conservation. No trails or flagged routes exist so it was an epic act of masochism. Leader Lake is approximately 12-kms (as a crow flies) from Great Central Lake.
The trip started with a mid afternoon dash the 37-kms down Great Central Lake. Once at the end it took awhile to even locate the mouth of McBride Creek amongst the stumps and spires. McBride Creek is about 300-metres south of the mouth of Drinkwater Creek (Della Falls Trail) and of similar volume. I was able to slowly motor the boat over 500m up the creek before pulling the motor and boat up into the bush.
 
The going was tough right from the start. The mix of heavy blowdown back in the coniferous and alder and devils club close to the creek had me zigzagging back and forth between wading up the creek and slowly plowing through the mess.
It took over two hours to travel the 2.5kms into McBride Lake. The lake had no shoreline. It felt like a mangrove swamp. I had to hack out an area with my BFK to set up my bivy and then escaped the suffocating bush by climbing a nearby bluff with a small falls. I was already questioning my plan, two more full days of that was frightening.
  
The next morning I was fed, caffeinated and packed by 8am and started working my way around the lake. It started out quite bluffy so I had to backtrack and climb about 100m up the bank and start traversing around. This was probably the hardest part of the day (except doing it again 9 hrs later) and took two hours just to get around the lake. Once on the upper Mcbride creek there were some sections that were just recently under snow so it offered some reprieve from the choking greenery.
 
After 6.5 hours I had travelled exactly 6.5kms.....painful!! I was three kms from Leader Lake but now in a steep canyon next to a raging drop pool creek. I eventually got choked out by the canyon and would have to backtrack and climb or find a way to cross the creek and take my chances over there. This is where the mental game finally beat me. Every forward step, every frustrated push through devils club/alder was a debt of pain incurred that would have to be paid back tomorrow on my way back. I just didn't have the jam left to start climbing, and the down climb on my way back worried me even more. I pulled the pin just 2.7-kms from Leader Lake and started back after a bunch of cursing.
I stumbled back into the same location of my previous nights bivy (if only I knew and could have left my pack!)at 7pm. It was a 13km and 11 hour bushwack that failed.
The whole trip I saw no sign of human presence. No trash, no flagging tape, nothing.
The whole purpose of this mission was to see if I wanted to attempt a circle route from the Della Falls Trail - Della Lake - You Pass - McBride Valley. It is most likely achievable given one long day down the McBride Valley but the valley beat me this time out.
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Edited by - Kingpin63 on 07/10/2012 6:04 PM |
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111 Posts |
Posted - 07/10/2012 : 07:48 AM
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| Gotta love the 1km/hr pace through the thick bush without a trail. Sounds like a pretty good mission. Too bad the route wasn't a little less ridiculous, I would have liked to have seen photos of the lake. |
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77 Posts |
Posted - 07/10/2012 : 07:57 AM
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| Thanks Lonny. It was pretty disappointing because I have become a bit obsessed with the lake. I think when my girlfriend is available we'll try it via Della Lake/You Pass by exiting down towards Bedwell as originally planned. I don't mind bushwacking when there is an exit in sight but doing it as an in/out trip proved too much for me. |
Edited by - Kingpin63 on 07/10/2012 5:47 PM |
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Hope, BC
Canada
7100 Posts |
Posted - 07/10/2012 : 08:21 AM
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Nice report, got to love scenery like this:
God bless the BFK for a variety of reasons :). |
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Qualicum Beach, BC
Canada
1308 Posts |
Posted - 07/11/2012 : 5:44 PM
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| On a trip to Nine Peaks in 2003, at Bear Pass (You Pass), the col between Big Interior & Nine Peaks, we met two guys that had hiked in from the Bedwell River and up You Creek. They had then climbed up to the pass to camp. They were debating on heading down Della Falls, or back down through McBride Creek & Lake (also Leader Lk). I looked down from where we were, to several hundred meters to the valley bottom and said, "My hat's off to you for your excellent bushwhacking skills. I could never do that." Then I told them we were climbing Nine Peaks and asked them if they were planning to do so as well. One guy replied, "No that's way too hard for us". Hmm... I guess some of us are ridge rats and others are bushmasters... to each their own! |
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Leader Lake
