These are 3 (!) years old but they’ve been simmering on the back burner for a while, and while some of the details are hazy, the stories are still fresh in my mind. I find it useful to read about other peoples’ misadventures in the woods because it gives me a chance to run through “what would I do in that situation” without having to experience it first hand.

So, without further ado, I give a brief synopsis of a spate of odd hiking experiences gearhed and I had in the summer of 2012

Golden Ears – August?

This was a Wanderung hike organized by Clutzyhiker. The hike was maxed out but gearhed had hiked with him before and somehow managed to finagle a couple of extra spaces for us. I can’t remember my motivation for wanting to go on the hike; while Golden Ears was on my list of places to go someday, I didn’t feel like I was in good enough shape at the time. I probably just wanted some fresh air and exercise in a new place.

It was a pretty big group and I offered to sweep since I wasn’t too summit hungry anyways. This is something I usually do on Rob’s bigger trips so that the leader can focus on the way forward instead of dividing their attention forward and back. Afterwards Rob pointed out that I should have explained what a sweep does. Oops. Someone I knew from an old workplace, let’s call her E, wasn’t feeling too well so we went at a leisurely pace and brought up the rear.

Around this time we first encountered a lone hiker on the trail. Let’s call him Tom. E thought she knew him. He seemed friendly enough. Rob thought he was part of the group. This sense of familiarity contributed to some of the misadventure later in the day.

The slowish start meant that I had ample time to get into gear properly, and as the day wore on my energy levels improved. As we started breaking out of the forested trail and into the more open blueberry zone, I began to contemplate going for the summit. We encountered a bunch of young guys drinking beer and chopping down trees for their big campfire; normally I’d say something about that but I sized up the group and concluded more harm than good would come from it.

When we reached the emergency shelter, we found a number of the group had opted to wait there. Rob was with them; he was sort of waiting for us and sort of nursing a sprained ankle. E decided to stay at the hut and when I said I was interested in carrying on, Rob and I headed up. There was still some snow coverage though it was quite soft. Rob limping on snow goes about the same speed as me flat out. About half way between the shelter and the summit, we began encountering the stronger members of the group returning from the summit. Rob had hiked with quite a few of them before so it was like a big ‘ol reunion. We ran into Clutzyhiker and discussed who was leaving with whom; it was looking like we’d be the last ones out and Rob had driven so we agreed to some sort of afterhours note-on-dashboard and phone-in plan.

And half an hour later, there we were on the summit, on a beautiful clear day, against all my expectations. Feeling the pressure of the lateness of the day (it was maybe around 4:00) we took some pictures and basked very briefly. Rob noticed that Tom was still making his way up, and suggested we wait for him so he wouldn’t be alone up there. Nice Rob.

Tom was appreciative. He asked if he could have 10 minutes on the summit to take pictures, seemed reasonable, so we waited. Well, earlier in the day he’d said something which I thought was a joke at the time. He’d said all you need to do when hiking alone is ask everyone coming down if there was anyone behind them. If they said yes, great, carry on. If they said no, that’s when you turn around and hike down with them. It wasn’t till the next day when I digested everything that I remembered those comments.

So now a group of three, we headed down the mountain at a bit of a hurry. Not so fast as to get tired since it’s a long hike, we just moved efficiently. And everything was still friendly, we swapped stories with Tom about hikes we’d done, and other random trail chatter. Sunset was upon us and man, is that ever a long trail. It was starting to cool off and we were heading into the forest so we took a break to layer up and drink some water. This was just above Alder Flats.

Alder Flats had quite a few people camping there, an odd assortment of over-packed young folks and patchouli incense wafting through the woods…

The usable daylight ran out, and it was around this time that we made a couple of discoveries. 1) I only had one headlamp, instead of my usual two, and the batteries were nearly dead. 2) Once the lights went out, Tom was kinda crazy.

Rob and I are used to hiking in the dark. Sometimes we try to hike without headlamps, for practice. Basically, you slow down and don’t put full weight on your foot until you know you have solid footing. Look for gaps in the trees and hike by feel. We have a system. Introducing a third person into our system was a little problematic. Rob had a small extra light on his keychain which we gave to Tom to take the lead, with me in the middle. That wasn’t really working so then we switched places, me taking the lead with the light. My memory of the trail going into Alder Flats was that it was a wide, obvious highway. It *should* have been totally hikeable in the dark, but we either took a detour early, or kept losing the trail. To this day, I’m not sure which.

I remarked how much I missed the NSSAR level of trail-marking for night hikes . There were places where I had my nose to the ground trying to determine by level of crunched-up twigs whether we were in fact on a trail or not, as there wasn’t much undergrowth. I’m not sure how the other two felt at this point: confident, scared or bored? I was trying to be polite and diplomatic about group decision making but after the umpteenth time that the guys just randomly called out their doubts (Are you SURE this is the right way? Did you see that flagging tape back there? Or it might have been a Smarties box) I decided that if we all wanted to get home that night, it would be best to lay the smack down and told them to knock it off with all the verbalization; I promised to tell them if I thought we were off route. I felt like a bit of a jerk but there were no stated objections so we carried on at a good clip for the next while. The thing that was really bugging me was that we’d climbed into a washed-out creek bed with a handline to assist in the morning, and we just never crossed it on the return at night. This makes me think that we’d ended up on an older trail that bypassed the washout, but at the time it was totally throwing off my mental map of the area. Towards the end of the hike I was getting kind of squirelly but by then we were definitely on a major trail bed, so I took a back seat and kept putting one foot in front of the other…

Made it back to the parking lot, suggested to Tom that he invest in a flashlight, a space blanket and a toque, then got the heck out of there. We got to the gate around 11:30, after the official closing time, so the guy working at the gate took our licence plate and names, we texted Clutzyhiker and then headed home, since we’d missed the informal rendezvous at the pub afterwards.

Tbc…

That was a good mountain/trail story, it definitely sounds genuine.

Thanks for sharing, Golden Ears was the first real mountain I ever climbed, I was 12 years old the first time. I try and get up there at least once a year and I still find myself off route occasionally, usually on the way down when I'm tired and beat.

Scott

Good karma points, there!

Staying tuned for Part II

Always a pleasure to read an honest TR, I have climbed the Ears a number of times over the years and is one of my favorites to do.

The section that you described, just above Alder Flats up in the tree section before you reach the widen path(road) section and wooden steps being the last section before the road, is often lacking in flagging and many get off track there where it seems you had your difficulty.

Last time I came down that section, I heard a group of people obviously off trail, so I yelled out to them what are they up to and did they know they were off trail? They did not know they were off trail and I told them to follow my voice out which they did and then continued on trail. Children included.
I can`t imagine doing this in darkness, folks get off trail in broad daylight.

That section of trail is a new redone part, in years past,(to my best recollection) rather the turning sharp right and climbing up the steep bank and getting up to wooden stairs, the trail went further up the road, and then veered right to an old creek bed which was a very rough route which I guess they felt too dangerous and put in the new section.

Being mentally tired and beat is usually when bad things can happen (see pic) So going off route is a minor problem(unless you get lost) compared to breaking your fibula.

But all i all a really fun climb and always have to be aware and careful.

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Trip reports like this don't need photos as it was interesting enough to read .

I suppose the photos would be very very dark. A good tale...awaiting the next one!

agreed, great report!

Re: hiking in the dark. I keep both headlamp and flashlight (with spare batteries) in top of the pack & developed habit of regularly checking before I head out anywhere. I also hiked back from Aldar Flats back to parking in the dark few years ago -- not sure how I'd manage without light, so kudos on that!

I heard of instances when people used backlight of their smartphone as emergency substitute.

Our second misadventure of that fabled summer was a trip that gearhed organized to the West Lion on one of the meetup-based hiking groups. One fellow who was a member of the group signed up and brought his two friends (with advance permission) so now we were a group of five. Rob, the social butterfly, three exuberant Mexican guys, and me, surly as all **** because it was Saturday and I wanted to stay in bed.

This was one of the few times in my memory that I hit the trail and still wished I’d stayed home. Later I was having some blood pressure issues; I couldn’t have been good company that day!

Once we got up to the base of the West Lion, I found a bit of shade (it was a hot day) and plunked myself down. I’ve been spooked off climbing the West Lion two or three times now, because I didn’t want to climb into the notch without being able to see where the holds are and I’m not good at going backwards. One of the other guys also found a shady place to park and promptly fell asleep.

Not too long after Rob and the other two started out, we met four young folks, I’d guess early twenties and Northern European so I’ll randomly pick Finland as their country of origin. There were three guys and a girl. They were carrying helmets, harnesses and a bit of climbing gear. They stopped to chat with us briefly – they’d done their research and the objective seemed quite within their grasp.

From my perch, I could see that Rob and company were not taking the standard route, but Rob’s been there a few times, they didn't look overly exposed, and no one was crying. From the sound of it, the Finnish kids were at the base of the climb, either gearing up or waiting for Rob and company to clear the route.

Suddenly, two young guys wearing shorts, five-fingers shoes and carrying 500 mL water bottles came blasting over the top. I don’t know where they came from (other side of the West Lion?!) but they looked insanely fit and out to break some kind of speed record. Only problem was they weren’t paying attention to the other people on the mountain. They knocked over a pile of rocks, a few the size of watermelons, into the gulley that Rob and the guys were in. My stomach dropped and I alternated between looking in horror and finding some point on the distant horizon to focus on. Soon I could see that Rob and his two compatriots were moving around unharmed.

I heard some terse words from the Finns, “You should say something when you knock over rocks!” The guys just blasted forward, they blew past me about 10 minutes later. I thought, “Ye gods, that could have gone so much worse.” Well, maybe half an hour later the four Finnish kids re-appeared. The three guys were supporting the girl – it turns out that one of those big rocks had actually hit her arm The guys all worked together to lift her out of the notch. One of them stayed with her and the other two went back to bag the peak. They’d improvised their climbing gear into a sling and taped up the wound – nice to meet such super-capable people, and I wondered how many years they’d been climbing together.

While they were waiting for their friends to come back, I talked to them a bit. The girl was pretty pissed that she hadn’t been able to do the climb (!) and said one of the rocks just missed her head. We asked if they needed anything, and she said no, she just wanted something for the pain.

A few years before, Calixtomoon and I were hiking on Elk-Thurston and I’d had a nasty muscle pull just above my knee. We had to walk off Elk Mountain without me bending my left leg. On top of being patient and making some child-care arrangements (Cali was still pretty young at the time), she also had some T3’s which made the trip down much more bearable. Afterwards I thought, “Wow, what a great idea” and I asked my doctor for some T3’s for hiking first aid. He wrote me a prescription for 10 pills, and they’ve lived in my first aid kit since.

So when the young woman asked for something for the pain, I had the goods, but I had some misgivings about giving such a strong drug to someone who didn’t speak a lot of English and didn’t know what codeine was. I tried to explain it as well as I could, said it was used after surgery and so on. She assured me she didn’t have any allergies so I gave her two, suggesting she take one and then wait an hour before the second one. We offered to hike down with them or give them our hiking poles, but they politely declined. Later, as we were leaving the forest just as it got dark, we hadn’t seen or heard them at all and I wondered if we should have been a little more insistent about hiking down together.

Probably one the nastier accidents I’ve witnessed outside, and I’ve just reminded myself to renew my T3s.

The fourth misadventure (can’t remember the third!) was pretty mild, but at the time it felt like it capped off the season. All in all, we had a really nice day except the sound of gunfire.

The days were getting shorter so we set out on an exploration of the Robbie Reid access trail. For me, the more times I do a hike, the easier and faster it gets. I think navigating a new place either slows you down, or there’s a perceived slow down ‘cause you’re thinking more. The summit of Robbie Reid is probably out of my reach, but I’d like to try camping on the ridge, most likely tagging along on someone else’s summit bid, so this was a much-anticipated exploration trip.

Rob had tried to get to the trail via canoe a few years before and had what sounded like a comedy of errors involving an over-zealous movie set security guard and launching from a cliff…for a good time, ask him to tell the story.

So today we were going to try and find the overland route from Florence Lake Road instead. Between the BC Backroads mapbook and some carefully printed instructions from the internet, we managed to navigate to the trailhead without incident. This area is well used and we saw the bleary-eyed dregs of a couple of bush parties, fizzled out bonfires and everything.

The route starts off walking down a long, gated FSR to the level of Alouette Lake. We found the well-flagged and well-thought out trail easily enough. I vaguely remembered a work party involving some of my friends brushing out this trail – I wondered which were signs of their handiwork. We didn’t notice one of the re-routes and took the scenic bypass along the water’s edge, including a sketchy wooden ladder along the edge of a cliff. I had to channel some comic book hero resolve to get across. Somewhere there are pictures…

From here, it was a fine trail, easy to follow through pleasant, well protected old growth and beautiful, vibrant moss. Unique among trails, this one sees a lot more traffic midway where the overland route joins the traditional canoe-accessed trail. Just a beautiful trail, and then it gets famously steep, but still through a nice forest. We were hoping to get to some kind of feature that would make a natural turn-around point, so we continued climbing and climbing, to about ?1000m. It kept looking like we’d break out onto the ridge but after two or three false alarms, we accepted defeat.

Found the most convenient log with half a view through the trees, ate our sandwiches and maintained some discipline in sticking to our turnaround time, because this wouldn’t be a great place to get injured or caught after dark. It’s too steep and obscure.

The trail was in great shape for the most part but a few places were getting overgrown. On the way down I remembered the pruning shears in my pack and snipped some of the more obtrusive growth.

On the way down, the sound of gunfire either intensified, or we noticed it more. It had been in the background on the way up and we’d assumed it was just people out shooting the proverbial tincans off of fences, but paid more attention now that we were headed towards it. Visions of coming back to a truck with no windows were creeping in. Then we realized it sounded like semi-automatic gunfire was mixed in, and didn’t know what to think. That seemed a little too brazen for a Sunday afternoon not to be official.

Got back to the truck, which was fine except the slow leak in one tire had spread to two tires. Prepared for the first tire, Rob had an air compressor which promptly died, so he used a spare bicycle pump to fill up the tires enough till we got to a gas station.

That was enough adventure for one summer :P

Thanks for the reports. I swear I've read the Golden Ears report a long time ago.

Interesting outings, and I agree carrying pain meds is a smart choice, glad I had mine when I did my ankle in. Funny the things you learn from your adventures, so long as you live through them.

MOW, I enjoyed your stories...we need more of this

Youch!

I think I know the section above Alder Flats you're referring to; we got diverted there on the way up! On the way down it was below Alder Flats that we had route-finding issues.