Headed for the Mountains
Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: Calgary, AB, Canada.
Posts: 158
Over thirty years ago I did one of my favorite map trips in that area. A map trip is one of those excursions where I chose a route based on topographical map information alone.
We started at the Astoria trailhead and backpacked up, into, and over Verdant Pass, my first visit to that area, to camp in meadows near a lake south of Chevron Mountain. Next day we travelled south past another lake then side hilled west between 6500 and 7000 above the Whirlpool Valley to descend into a forest camp in the valley running SW from the head of Eremite Valley. Next day took us up this valley, past another lake, to a pass south of Thunderbolt Peak to a meadow camp near the head of Eremite Valley with views of the Ramparts. Next day we backtracked a bit to make a tricky up and over through a pass SSW of Thunderbolt Peak to reach Campus Creek and a camp in the meadows west of Campus Pass. In this area we saw a herd of close to twenty caribou. Our last day saw us go through Campus Pass, along the west side of Beryl Lake and Buttress Lake and so back to Verdant Pass and out to the road.
The Campus Pass meadows are some of the prettiest I have seen. While there I did some solo scrambling to summit some of the bumps to the south.