Summit Master
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Chilliwack, BC, Canada.
Interest: Women
Posts: 7,511
| Page 1 of 2 | 1 | 2 |
|
|
LinkBack | Thread Tools |
Mount Slesse Debris Field Oct 27 2007
For weeks I've been watching the weather and hoping for a good day to go up to the TCA debris field on Mount Slesse. Yesterday it became a reality. I got the call I'd been hoping for from Aqua Terra. He had time to go, and not just him, Spunky was coming as well, and the weather was "OK" to do it. This was my trip #2 to the cirque, I was there 364 days prior to the day.
We met at the vedder bridge at around 9am, from there I drove my truck they drove their car to the riverside recreation area. They parked and hopped in with me in my truck to drive up to the trailhead. Along the way up the sun appeared distant and hazy the skies filled with light sirrus clouds, I was hoping the sun was going to burn through the clouds.
Once reaching the trailhead, we noticed a couple other vehicles parked there, we parked in front of them, and began our trek.
Mt Slesse Trailhead:
We then hiked down & reached the Nesakwatch creek, once there we decided not to take the regular log bridge, and instead took a downed log to get across. The regular log bridge was not only broken but had a tangled mess of logs and roots on the end of it.
Old Bridge:
Log we crossed on:
Nesakwatch Creek:
Going up the first grunt was just as fun as always, great soft forested trail, soft on the feet, some areas muddy. (Wished I brought my gaitors. next time!). Upon finally reaching the top of the first hill the sun started poking out from sky at us giving us hope.
Along the way up we admired the great views of Mount Rexford:
After zig zagging up the mountain we finally reached the sign:
Minutes later we ended up at the memorial plaque with the spectacular view of Mount Slesse. Looking into the bowl was a little upsetting to me to see snow in the cirque where we were headed, but there wasn't a great deal of surface snow, and that didn't stop us.
View from Memorial Plaque:
View of Crash Impact spot from the memorial plaque:
We slowly followed the route down the into the cirque as it is quite steap, many many overgrown dried out prickle bushes, and many many logs strewn upon the area as if they were a handfull of toothpicks just thrown there. We went up and over and long them logs to reach the lower edge of the cirque. We stuck to the left side and went in a clockwise motion making progress deeper into the cirque.
One of the first parts we found was one large heavy piece of the landing gear:
Up slightly further we passed the semi frozen waterfall:
From then on started finding more and more aircraft debris scattered througout the cirque in different areas. Occasionally as we were hiking we would hear ice chunks breaking / falling and we'd look around for observe up above.
Path we took:
Soon we started finding more and more parts, and I recorded video and photographed a good majority of our findings took numbers and so on. One of my goals was to try and find both engines and properly identify them, we were only able to find one engine of the 2 that currently are known to reside in the cirque. The engine we found I believe was the #2 engine:
Just a few of the Miscellaneous Parts We found (Many not published here):
Is this an old football tread on the shoe?
(likely from someones luggage)
Shortly after checking out the engines we had a lunch break 3/4 up into the cirque, I brought my hiking stove as did Aqua Terra. It was great taking the stoves along to heat up food & Coffee.
Asian Squat:
Right around then the dog Gin was looking agressive like something was in the woods, it started pacing side to side with its eyes glued over on the wooded area trying to see something.It kept doing that back and forth and we knew it sensed something. Funny because we had already had discussed bear knives. Obviously mine is just a black bear knife on the left and Aqua Terra's Grizzly Bear Knife on the right:
(Black Bear Vs Grizzly)
No worries nothing came out of the bush at us, but it made us look over occasionally.
After we did our break, we kept on hiking up past the chutes which had delivered most of the aircraft debris down into the cirque. Lots of activity up in that area, you could see most of the rocks and earth seamed like it was rolled over / rototilled by rockslides, and avalanches.
Once we reached the upper end (west end) of the cirque we decided to come back along the northern and middle area of the cirque to see what other debris was left behind, considering we came up originally the south side.
View of the huge glacier on Mount Slesse up close:
Along the north side of the cirque found some debris, but not as much as we did on the way up on the southern side of the cirque. Where the other engine was, I believe is now covered with snow and ice from avalanches, it MAY never be found again (unless we missed it). I had a map of the debris field with parts listed, to try and help find the other engine to no avail.
In the middle of the cirque appeared to have fresh boulders and fresh boulder paths, one area looked as though boulders bounced right over the bushes matting them down. Aqua Terra pointed out what appeared to be a large rock missing from the mountain recently:
Zoomed:
Some of the small boulders:
A view of the middle of the cirque:
Looking back:
Coming back wasn't too bad until coming back up the hill at the memorial plaque, we were travelling against the prickly brush. It was great to hear I wasn't the only one huffing and puffing up that hill Spunky was too lol, Boris was in the lead.
And a final farewell to the memorial on our way back at around 4pm:
God bless the 59 passengers and 3 crew who lost their lives in a north star accident on Mt. Slesse Dec. 9th 1956
We finally reached the vehicle at around 5pm, perfect timing. It was great to have both Aqua Terra & Spunky to come along on this adventure, they were overly qualified to do the job and were great company. Oh and the dogs were great company too, can't forget them!
Gin & Poohbear
Anyone who does not know much about this tragedy in 1956 feel free to watch the online video located here and learn about it:
(Realplayer Only)
http://www.cbc.ca/bc/features/sacred...credslesse.ram
In the end I had 300 photos, 67 videos
4.5 Gigs used in my camera.
We met at the vedder bridge at around 9am, from there I drove my truck they drove their car to the riverside recreation area. They parked and hopped in with me in my truck to drive up to the trailhead. Along the way up the sun appeared distant and hazy the skies filled with light sirrus clouds, I was hoping the sun was going to burn through the clouds.
Once reaching the trailhead, we noticed a couple other vehicles parked there, we parked in front of them, and began our trek.
Mt Slesse Trailhead:
We then hiked down & reached the Nesakwatch creek, once there we decided not to take the regular log bridge, and instead took a downed log to get across. The regular log bridge was not only broken but had a tangled mess of logs and roots on the end of it.
Old Bridge:
Log we crossed on:
Nesakwatch Creek:
Going up the first grunt was just as fun as always, great soft forested trail, soft on the feet, some areas muddy. (Wished I brought my gaitors. next time!). Upon finally reaching the top of the first hill the sun started poking out from sky at us giving us hope.
Along the way up we admired the great views of Mount Rexford:
After zig zagging up the mountain we finally reached the sign:
Minutes later we ended up at the memorial plaque with the spectacular view of Mount Slesse. Looking into the bowl was a little upsetting to me to see snow in the cirque where we were headed, but there wasn't a great deal of surface snow, and that didn't stop us.
View from Memorial Plaque:
View of Crash Impact spot from the memorial plaque:
We slowly followed the route down the into the cirque as it is quite steap, many many overgrown dried out prickle bushes, and many many logs strewn upon the area as if they were a handfull of toothpicks just thrown there. We went up and over and long them logs to reach the lower edge of the cirque. We stuck to the left side and went in a clockwise motion making progress deeper into the cirque.
One of the first parts we found was one large heavy piece of the landing gear:
Up slightly further we passed the semi frozen waterfall:
From then on started finding more and more aircraft debris scattered througout the cirque in different areas. Occasionally as we were hiking we would hear ice chunks breaking / falling and we'd look around for observe up above.
Path we took:
Soon we started finding more and more parts, and I recorded video and photographed a good majority of our findings took numbers and so on. One of my goals was to try and find both engines and properly identify them, we were only able to find one engine of the 2 that currently are known to reside in the cirque. The engine we found I believe was the #2 engine:
Just a few of the Miscellaneous Parts We found (Many not published here):
Is this an old football tread on the shoe?
(likely from someones luggage)
Shortly after checking out the engines we had a lunch break 3/4 up into the cirque, I brought my hiking stove as did Aqua Terra. It was great taking the stoves along to heat up food & Coffee.
Asian Squat:
Right around then the dog Gin was looking agressive like something was in the woods, it started pacing side to side with its eyes glued over on the wooded area trying to see something.It kept doing that back and forth and we knew it sensed something. Funny because we had already had discussed bear knives. Obviously mine is just a black bear knife on the left and Aqua Terra's Grizzly Bear Knife on the right:
(Black Bear Vs Grizzly)
No worries nothing came out of the bush at us, but it made us look over occasionally.
After we did our break, we kept on hiking up past the chutes which had delivered most of the aircraft debris down into the cirque. Lots of activity up in that area, you could see most of the rocks and earth seamed like it was rolled over / rototilled by rockslides, and avalanches.
Once we reached the upper end (west end) of the cirque we decided to come back along the northern and middle area of the cirque to see what other debris was left behind, considering we came up originally the south side.
View of the huge glacier on Mount Slesse up close:
Along the north side of the cirque found some debris, but not as much as we did on the way up on the southern side of the cirque. Where the other engine was, I believe is now covered with snow and ice from avalanches, it MAY never be found again (unless we missed it). I had a map of the debris field with parts listed, to try and help find the other engine to no avail.
In the middle of the cirque appeared to have fresh boulders and fresh boulder paths, one area looked as though boulders bounced right over the bushes matting them down. Aqua Terra pointed out what appeared to be a large rock missing from the mountain recently:
Zoomed:
Some of the small boulders:
A view of the middle of the cirque:
Looking back:
Coming back wasn't too bad until coming back up the hill at the memorial plaque, we were travelling against the prickly brush. It was great to hear I wasn't the only one huffing and puffing up that hill Spunky was too lol, Boris was in the lead.
And a final farewell to the memorial on our way back at around 4pm:
God bless the 59 passengers and 3 crew who lost their lives in a north star accident on Mt. Slesse Dec. 9th 1956
We finally reached the vehicle at around 5pm, perfect timing. It was great to have both Aqua Terra & Spunky to come along on this adventure, they were overly qualified to do the job and were great company. Oh and the dogs were great company too, can't forget them!
Gin & Poohbear
Anyone who does not know much about this tragedy in 1956 feel free to watch the online video located here and learn about it:
(Realplayer Only)
http://www.cbc.ca/bc/features/sacred...credslesse.ram
In the end I had 300 photos, 67 videos
4.5 Gigs used in my camera.
| Sponsored Links | |||
|
Advertisement |
|
||
Summit Master
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Vancouver, BC, .
Posts: 5,613
Nice TR!
I was at the memorial plaque recently, but one of these days I'm going to get up to that cirque.
I was at the memorial plaque recently, but one of these days I'm going to get up to that cirque.
Summit Master
Join Date: Nov 2002
Location: Forest Gnome Cabin, , Canada.
Interest: Outdoor stuff...especially scrambling,trailrunning,mountain biking,kayaking,and hiking, and of course photography
Posts: 13,876
Aces,nice work, the football cleat tread would likely have belonged to Gordon Sturtridge, a member of the Saskatchewan Roughriders who was returning home on the flight from the CFL All Star Game in Vancouver's Empire Stadium. The youth football league, aka the GSL, is named after him. That is an incredible find, you should consider sending the photo to the CFL Hall of Fame !
| Sponsored Links | |||
|
Advertisement |
|
||
Summit Master
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Chilliwack, BC, Canada.
Interest: Women
Posts: 7,511
Thanks Mick & Wilderness Seeker!
I am awaiting some peoples opinions to find out if it is in fact a football type tread, I've searched most were cleat type circular style, but SOME were straight as well...
If it is in fact a football tread then I will be amazed and do feel good about finding it... If only someone could verify! Seeing as most debris of any clothing or items are unidentifyable it does point to possible few peoples it could be. There was actually a total of 5 football stars onboard so it could be one of them.
Indeed an incredible find if it is a football tread.
I am awaiting some peoples opinions to find out if it is in fact a football type tread, I've searched most were cleat type circular style, but SOME were straight as well...
If it is in fact a football tread then I will be amazed and do feel good about finding it... If only someone could verify! Seeing as most debris of any clothing or items are unidentifyable it does point to possible few peoples it could be. There was actually a total of 5 football stars onboard so it could be one of them.
Indeed an incredible find if it is a football tread.
High on the Mountain Top
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: , , .
Posts: 1,356
Nice TR![8D]
Thanks
Thanks
Summit Master
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Popkum, BC, Canada.
Interest: Hiking, biking, kayaking, swimming, tai chi, meditation.
Posts: 6,097
That was a very interesting read Chris, great job! It's great to see PoohBear on the trails Spunky & AT
.
Happy trails,
Lynn
.Happy trails,
Lynn
Summit Master
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Chilliwack, BC, Canada.
Interest: Women
Posts: 7,511
Thanks for your feedback folks!
What I didn't mention and have video and photos of, is a blue material more durable than regular cloth clothing found not far from the shoe. It was like a dense cotton, almost as dense and strong as denim but cotton. I am curious if it was part of a winnipeg bluebomber jersey... Most football players keep their gear all together, and for that material to withstand extreme environment is incredible.
All this is speculation until I find out more with the shoe, but it does raise my eyebrow as to who's it could be. It could turn out to be some sort of military boot (but i doubt it). It looks like its made for traction, and possibly sporty.
My guestimates are not far fetched, and possible. If anyone knows football well please take a look, if I get the reply confirming it is in fact a football shoe, I may get in touch with the CFL.
I appreciate the compliments on the TR!
What I didn't mention and have video and photos of, is a blue material more durable than regular cloth clothing found not far from the shoe. It was like a dense cotton, almost as dense and strong as denim but cotton. I am curious if it was part of a winnipeg bluebomber jersey... Most football players keep their gear all together, and for that material to withstand extreme environment is incredible.
All this is speculation until I find out more with the shoe, but it does raise my eyebrow as to who's it could be. It could turn out to be some sort of military boot (but i doubt it). It looks like its made for traction, and possibly sporty.
My guestimates are not far fetched, and possible. If anyone knows football well please take a look, if I get the reply confirming it is in fact a football shoe, I may get in touch with the CFL.
I appreciate the compliments on the TR!
Summit Master
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Mission, BC, Canada.
Interest: TO GET OUTSIDE! Hiking, backpacking, canoeing, bushwacking, scrambling
Posts: 4,933
It was a fun day 
! Kinda like a being in a treasure hunt. I felt like a kid, lol.
Thanks for inviting us out there Aces! [8D]
We're having computer problems so we haven't downloaded the pics. Hopefully this week.
! Kinda like a being in a treasure hunt. I felt like a kid, lol. Thanks for inviting us out there Aces! [8D]
We're having computer problems so we haven't downloaded the pics. Hopefully this week.
Headed for the Mountains
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.
Interest: hiking, climbing, photography
Posts: 392
Neato - even though this is a rather morbid one, I really like coming across old stuff when out in the woods.
Join Date: Mar 2007
Posts: 456
Great shots of all the debris. Very interesting report Chris!
High on the Mountain Top
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: BC, Canada.
Posts: 1,137
Hey AT what's with the baseball cap? Have you lost your trademark hat? Nice to hear the knives stayed blood free 
.
.
Off the Beaten Path
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Maple Ridge, BC, Canada.
Posts: 744
Quote:
quote:mine is just a black bear knife on the left and Aqua Terra's Grizzly Bear Knife on the right:
All kidding aside, I hope bears don't know the difference. I mean, if you'll meet a Grizzly on your path, AcesHigh, would it recognize that you 'only' have the shorter black bear knife?
All kidding aside again, I enjoyed your TR. I set out for Slesse Memorial last summer once, but we kinda got lost and spent the day scrambling gullies for fun instead. I will make it back there some day, though, but that Nesakwatch road is a bit of a deterrent without 4WD.
Banned
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Chwk, , Canada.
Posts: 5,318
Quote:
quote:Originally posted by AcesHigh
In the end I had 300 photos, 67 videos
4.5 Gigs used in my camera.
In the end I had 300 photos, 67 videos
4.5 Gigs used in my camera.
Great TR and photos. I'm surprised that the area is still relatively snow-free!
This IS one that I still intend on doing some day...obviously not this season though!
So how long did it take to reach the memorial...the cirque?
Summit Master
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: Chilliwack, BC, Canada.
Interest: Hiking, UL Backpacking, canoeing, snowshoeing
Posts: 7,377
Nice work and great finds guys!
Summit Master
Wasnt sure on what to do that weekend,and PB is limping a bit.
Took on Aces invite for some exploring with an impressive backdrop.
Was interesting trying to identify some things.That aircraft sure got shredded.Most piece would fit in a grocery basket.
Took on Aces invite for some exploring with an impressive backdrop.
Was interesting trying to identify some things.That aircraft sure got shredded.Most piece would fit in a grocery basket.
|
| Thread Tools | |
|
Show Printable Version Show Printable Version
Email this Page Email this Page
|
|
|
| Posting Rules | |
Your Privacy Choices