Adventure in the Coast Range, September 2-4, 2000
What: The North Face of Whitecap MountainWhy: Dave and I had been inspired by Don Serl's slideshow during the Seattle Mountain Slide Festival. What was revealed? That the Coast Range has more big alpine ice climbs than even the Canadian Rockies! Large moderate ice faces, best done in late season (for maximum fun), beckoned us north.
How: Our only source of beta was Don Serl himself, who provided this tidbit: they had approached via Whitecap creek when they did it, but that the logging roads they used had since deteriorated. Fairley's guide briefly mentioned that an approach might be possible via Whitecap creek. The only info on the peak itself was that the standard way up was the scree slog on the south side, which is an excellent ski descent. The Coast Mountains ski book mentioned Whitecap as a long day trip from McGillvray Pass, approached from the opposite side of the range. We decided to chance it with Whitecap creek, as it would be difficult to reach the north face from the McGillVray Pass (to the south), and we didn't know how long the walk in to the Pass was. The downside to Whitecap was: logging roads in questionable condition, and - no trail through the lowland brush.
Where: Far up north (by Seattle standards). Five or six hours up to Lillooet, and then on the dirt "highway" to the "population centers" of Shalalth or Seton Portage, then up "deteriorated logging roads".
To the northland we go!
My brother's house in Squamish was used as a Friday night stepping stone for the great wilds, and we continued on our way early Saturday morning. It was late morning by the time we were driving up the somewhat scary road along the Bridge River, then up to Mission Pass. There were two choices: driving right up from Seton Portage on a logging road that supposedly required fording a river to access, or leaving from the first hairpin turn below Mission Pass, on a rough 2WD road that intersected the Whitecap creek logging road. We chose the latter.
"Hiiiiiiidy ho, boys!" The way up Whitecap Creek, before the old road became "overgrown"
The road was obvious, and in fairly good condition. It had recently been driven, and trees had been cleared. It was then that we realized we should have brought a saw in case we got "treed in". After much descent, weaving under power lines, we began the ascent up Whitecap creek. We were stopped where the road crossed the river on a rusty old bridge of metal planks. A brief reconnaissance beyond this on foot made us decide to park at the bridge. Elevation 3000ft. To this point, the road is totally driveable by a 2 wheel drive, with high clearance (many large boulders on the road). Our intended base camp was several miles up valley, just above 6000ft. Whitecap Mountain itself is around 9500ft.
Whitecap valley, looking west. The righthand branch continues several kilometers up to the basin below the north face. The left branch leads out of the picture to the basin below the east face. The massif in the center is a 7500ft spur, about 3km east of the main peak (9500ft)
We packed up and continued up the old road. There were thimbleberries in abundance, and every kind of mushroom you could imagine. Next time, bring a mushroom book.
The road grew steadily brushier as we hiked up the gentle valley. Alder enclosed it more and more tightly, until we were "swimming" up the road, its only visible trace deep underneath the dense alder was the two tire tracks, each wide enough for two feet. Despite this, progress was good, and we had traveled almost 2.5 miles in an hour and a half. We eventually crossed to the other side of the valley, where the logged terrain looked more open. This was brushy meadow hiking, a bit more pleasant than the alder. Occasionally, we followed blue ribbons linked together with string, probably some relic of the logging operations (but they looked recent - perhaps someone is flagging a trail up this valley?). There were big fat juicy huckleberries everywhere.
The area was scenic and peaceful, but we were aware of the remoteness of our location - far from any real kind of civilization. Any kind of rescue would be a long time coming, if at all. No trail in here. Certainly no cell-phone service. We had a radio, but it was mostly psychological. Who would be there to pick up our signal in this deep valley? We wondered how long ago it had been since any people had been up this way.
A sea of Devil's Club
Our continued progress brought us out of the last bit of clearcut, into dense valley bottom vegetation. In a matter of moments, our options were cut short - we were surrounded by evil devils club! It seemed to go on forever, but we had a brilliant strategy: hike out of the valley bottom, onto the drier side walls, where the devil's club was sure to be non-existant. First though, this required getting out of the sea of club. The ice tools came out for the first (and only) time, to do battle with the spiny plants. We walked on fallen logs when we could, but the evil brush seemed to continue forever. Dave whacked away with his ice tool. I tried using more delicate methods, a ballet of carefully stepping on the trunks of the plants to attempt to lay them flat.
After much sweat and mental anguish, the spiny brush was replaced by steep slide alder kind of stuff. It was horrendous pushing our way through walls of fallen trees and dense brush, a balancing act far above the forest floor, getting poked by branches in every orifice.
River walking
At this point, I spotted a nice section of clean forest floor. Easy walking! Only 10 feet long, but - easy walking! I climbed down into it and Dave followed. Then I heard Dave exclaim "ooooo - disgusting!" at about the same time I saw a bear paw on the ground in front of me. I turned around. Dave was pointing to some pieces of animal skin lying on the ground. I showed him the dismembered bear paw and half of arm lying in front of me (and picked it up with Dave's ice tool by stabbing the flaps of skin still attached, to look at it more closely). Then we noticed a skull half burried in the dirt. It must have been funny to watch our faces, as our minds slowly put the two clues together: 1) animal pieces and 2) smooth forest floor. bear den! Not just any bear den, but the den of a bear-eating bear! Needless to say, We high-tailed it out of there! The right to bear arms has a different meaning in Canada! We headed downhill, as the sidehill traversing was way too full of mental anguish. We arrived next to the river, and decided to call it quits for the day. Our elevation was 4000ft, about where we were 2 hours ago! There was an area open enough for a tent though, and we were too tired to continue battling the brush for today.
After some food, and some banging in pitons in a tree, we settled in for the night. It rained lightly for much of the night, but the sun was shining the next morning.
Phil takes a break.
After getting a view of the valley branch we had wanted to take, and seeing what looked like miles and miles of brush, we decided to take an alternate, steeper, more direct branch that would put us below the east face. The lower half of this headwall was also a brushfield, but there was a stream coursing down through it - might it provide a way up? The top half looked like mature forest, and though it was cliffy, it might provide relatively easy passage.
We followed the brush alongside the stream, and then eventually in the stream. The way was easy! (relatively speaking) Obviously much bigger in spring, the late-season stream had extensive stony banks on which to walk. This turned into large water-polished talus higher up, punctuated by several stream crossings, depending which side looked good. We made reasonable progress through the otherwise impenetrable slide alder/devil's club. Occasional forays into the brush were required at vertical steps in the stream.
Heading through the brush on the side of the stream.
However, realizing that we had 2000 vertical feet of this stuff before it (hopefully) tapered off, we lost enthusiasm. The north face was definitely out, and a summit attempt by any route was looking less and less likely, and so then, what was the point of even continuing? We could hike out to the road today, and do something else tomorrow. A short bit below where the valley headwall steepened, we decided to turn around.
The adventure was not over, at least for me. I slipped and got my feet wet several times on the descent, and once got stung by a wasp. Once down in the valley bottom, we took a different way back - near the stream. There was still devil's club to deal with, but it was actually not that bad - way better than the sidehill traversing we had done on the way in. Maybe we had just gotten better at dealing with the spiny plants. We followed game trails, made no doubt by - the bear-eating bear. We saw some of this guys footprints - 8 inches wide!
We eventually reached the clearcut area, and followed the slight traces of old logging roads in the slide alder. Tilt your head down, and start plowing through, making swimming motions to clear the branches from your face. It was a serious arm workout.
Dave gets intimate with devil's club.
Just as I started to get into the rhythm of this - more stings! The wasps seemed to be all over me, and there was no where to go, just dense dense brush everywhere. I plowed through it as fast as I could, screaming and yelling. Dave wondered what the hell was up, until he made out the word "wasp" in my rantings. Said he'd never seen someone bushwhack so fast! I stopped after 15 or so feet, but still felt stings, so I continued on in desperation, finally tripping and landing on the ground deep inside the brush - the wasps were gone. It felt like I had been attacked by a swarm, but in reality, there were only about 5 stings, on my arm, back and eyelid. I was also bruised from the highspeed bushwacking.
We continued out "more carefully", although there's really nothing you can do about this. It was a relief to get back onto roads we could actually walk on without the intense arm workout. Again, we were amazed at the variety of mushrooms on the road. Dave had an "experience" with some funny-shaped ones. By 4 o'clock we were back at the truck. The drive back to Lillooet was uneventful except for the occasional large tanker truck barreling down the dirt road at high speed, and the oncoming cars in the wrong "lane".
A narrow logging road near Cerise Creek.
The plan for the next day was to do a one day climb of the considerably less-remote Mt Matier or Mt Joffre. We drove in to Cerise Creek on a good, but narrow, logging road. It rained all night, and into the next morning. We were wet. The peaks were socked in. We bailed, and drove down the Fraser Canyon back to Seattle.