Coquitlam Mtn, May 22-23, 2019
Equipment: Overnight pack with tent, bag, stove, food, ice axe (useful!), crampons (not used),
snowshoes (dead weight), gps (useful!)
≈ 45lbs (felt like a feather at start, felt like 100lb of lead by the finish!)
The good: Summiting a mountain I've been eyeing for decades.
The bad: Scratches from the brutal bushwhacking, bears everywhere in the valley bottom (sort of good and bad-- certainly a healthy population!).
The ugly: How I felt during the 1km section of steep side-hill forested traverse back to the lower Burke roads/trails in the falling light. If you were anywhere near, you'd have heard streams of curses.
Verdict: Pushed to my limit, I don't think I'll be back here again. But immensely satisfying in a "character building" sort of way!
Day One-
11am start on 4km of easy trails/old roads from the gun club gate -->
Overgrown old skid roads begin after an hour -->
End of the road yields to difficult side-hilling that took almost 2hrs to move 1km forward -->
even more overgrown road --> MASSIVE black bear (pictured) where remnants of old road joins up with still active road-->
Logging road "bear highway" walk that eventually ends and becomes deactivated, but still easily walkable. -->
Clanging my pole against rocks and shouting a warning periodically in the event of more bears-->
And... another Ursus sighted just off the road in the woods about 20 feet away; stealthy and quiet for such a large animal -->
Camp set up next to former road crossing of Or Creek -->
(then as I dozed at dusk a bear lumbers through camp no further than 25 ft away --> clap, clap, "HELLO BEAR!" --> Gazes at me --> scampers into bush).
Sleep interrupted by bear sentry duty and imaginings of further noise in vicinity; but it's probably just the nearby creek constantly pouring jaggedly over a myriad of stones and boulders. Is it good that it's muffling other potential noises?
Overgrown "road"
Low-flow but high (60 feet at least) unnamed waterfall along side-hilling section
Typical side-hilling terrain
On the overgrown "road" again
Roadside attraction
Rather large and ain't moving on my account
Unzoomed shot of same
End of the actual road
First glimpse of the objective's southeastern flanks
Camp spot on the "Bear Highway"
Or Creek
-----
Day Two-
A necessary 6:30am crossing of knee-deep creek, a good way to wake up! -->
1.5km plod up abundantly cross-ditched logging road -->
Hard left turn into sheer bush at head of logging road --> Elevation gain steepens, no snow yet :( -->
Copious thickets of Devil's club and variety of other thorned plants and alders pointing downward as if designed to impede and repel any upward advance, this goes on for 300m of painful vertical gain -->
Mature forested ridge attained! Snowpack starts just past 1100m elevation, going gets somewhat easier but with steep sections -->
Plunging and anchoring ice axe at times to pull weary body up and ever closer to summit -->
Traverse around false summit was fairly benign despite looking sketchy in all photos I've seen of it -->
The final push to the summit consisted of more bush and less snow than expected -->
Summited around Noon and hung around for the better part of 40 minutes, soaked in spectacular views, albeit hazy to the south and cloudy to the east -->
Going back down to the logging road under the summit was fast and, besides the bush at lower elevations, fun! -->
Return to camp around 3pm, begin to pack up for the trek back to the car --> 4pm left camp -->
Logging road highway repeated, no bears --> Old overgrown road repeated, uneventful -->
Side-hilling section in reverse was worse as I battled to get through it in daylight, foot rarely finding purchase on a steep floor consisting of ambiguously deep layers of forest detritus and constant slimy obstacles of deadfall to overcome or circumvent -->
Huffing, puffing and resting every 100m or less, finally reached the established lower Burke trails just as legs begin to cramp and the final light leaves the forest -->
headlamped/slow-walked back to car!
Having just crossed the creek
Road leading up the west side of the upper Or Ck Valley
Typical terrain on Coquitlam's lower slopes. Snow cover would have been preferable!
Above the worst of the bush now and about to hit snow.
Views begin to open above 1100m.
Summit looms above
Beginning the bypass traverse of the sub-summit
The final push ahead to the summit
Looking back at the steep-looking but perfectly reasonable sub-summit traverse.
Looking east towards Widgeon and beyond.
The summit area!
View north towards Gabbro and connecting ridges
Mamquam
Southeast towards the summits and bumps of Burke Ridge
West towards Coquitlam Lake, Eagle Ridge and beyond
NW towards Sedgwick, Sky Pilot, Garibaldi, etc
Looking overtop Eagle Ridge towards a steep looking Seymour group's eastern aspect.
That "fairly happy to be there" look
Fallen flag on the summit cairn, tangle-tied down to rocks under metres of snow, so not righted.
Summit pano vid: https://youtu.be/KpmCHm9CVQs
Having descended to the road, a look back at what I just came out of!
Now mid-afternoon and about to cross the creek back to camp
Beginning the trek back. One last glimpse at Coquitlam Mtn.
A pleasant brook alongside the road.
Back to the highly unpleasant side-hilling portion. On the return it took me 2.5 hrs to get through 1km of this.
That high waterfall in fading light
And most of the rest consisted of the headlamp slog back to the car!
It was actually pretty fun, although fairly high on the masochism scale.
