Werner, ready to go, in the East Canyon parking lot.
Wednesday September 21, 2016 Day One
On Wednesday, September 21st, 2016, we made a dash for it. Our plan was to make a second attempt on the Golden Ears. We had failed miserably a year ago, when we had not even made it to the emergency shelter on Panorama Ridge below the peak. We had blamed our late start in the morning and bad weather. This time we were determined to get up early the day of our assault on the peak. The weather issue was harder to solve, but we did what we could.
I was flying to Vancouver to join my son on Wednesday, and the plan had been to leave for the Golden Ears on Thursday. That would have meant that we would make our attempt on the peak on Friday. The weather forecast for Friday was somewhat mixed however, whereas no rain was forecast for the Thursday. We therefore made a rapid change in plans, and now we were driving out to Golden Ears Provincial Park just east of Vancouver on Wednesday afternoon. I got off the airplane from Calgary, had lunch, did some final backpack arranging, the then we were on our way.
There were some delays. Getting everything organized in our packs took some time. There were also some other small issues. After we had driven a block or two, I could not recall putting my head lamp in my pack, so we quickly went back to the house. I could not see it anywhere, so I assumed it was in my pack and we were on our way again. In addition, getting through the maze of roads between Burnaby and Golden Ears Park took longer than expected, with a few wrong turns. Eventually, however, we reached the East Canyon parking lot, and were on the trail around 5 PM. It was a later start than anticipated, but it was not that far to our planned campsite for the night, Alder Flats, so we were not too worried.
It was 5.9 kilometers to our destination for the day, Alder Flats. Not long after the Gold Creek Bridge, the trail narrowed and became more rugged. We were in the deep forest now, and were grateful that the many marshy areas were for the most part bridged with non-slip small metal bridges. The same was true of the many creeks that the trail crossed. Like our last time on this trail, a peculiar sign caught our eye as we crossed a large creek about 15 minutes from the campground. It stated authoritatively “Last drinking water”, yet we crossed several more fine looking creeks before we reached our destination. The sign did not make any sense.
We made steady progress, but with our late start, it was dusk when we finally reached the camp ground. Here we attended to a number of necessary camp chores. First, we set up our tent in order to be assured of shelter for the night. Then we found a suitable tree with a branch at the right height and hung up all our food in “rat sack”. This is a wire mesh bag that I had bought in Arizona for protection against rodents while hiking in the Grand Canyon. Unfortunately it is not bear proof, and bears are the main concern in British Columbia. By now it was dark, and we used our head lamps to walk down the trail for about five minutes to a suitable creek to filter water. We had decided to filter enough for our whole expedition, and when we returned to camp we had over twelve liters with us.
Our final task was to have dinner. We warmed up some Uncle Ben’s rice and had this with some huge chicken legs. For desert we had my wife’s zucchini loaf. By the time our rat sack was back up in the tree, and we had settled into our sleeping bags, it was almost midnight. Our unexpected late night did not bode well for an early morning the next day; the day of our assault on the Golden Ears. If we did not get up early enough, we would be doing this trip again the next year.
Before we went into our tent for the night, we had our first encounter with one of the strange hikers who used this trail. It was quite dark, and a solitary young man, who did not seem to have a head lamp, came by from higher up the mountain. At his request we directed him to where the trail down the mountain left the campground. He had another 6 or 7 kilometers to go in the darkness before he would reach the parking lot.
Gold Creek was a formidable barrier, but the bridge made the crossing easy. This was a new bridge, scarcely a year old, with an interesting curve.
Getting ready for breakfast on our big day.
Thursday, Sept 22nd Day two.
The next morning I awoke at 6:30 AM, and it was time to get on the move. We had a cold breakfast, and were on our way to conquer our peak. The weather was promising, and everything depended on a relatively early start. Nevertheless is was about 8:35 AM before we were on our way past the outhouse and up the trail.
The trail now turned and entered a steep forest. Our first task was to take a huge step onto a strange rubble-filled stair case. We had completed the first section of the trail, and now were moving on to the second.
In less than a kilometer, we came out of the forest to a lookout where we had a nice view of the valley. We would be doing a broad arc around the head of the valley to the Golden Ears.
After another 1.8 kilometers we came to another fine lookout which had an ancient cedar stump left by the loggers of long ago. There was also a nice plank nearby to sit on so that the stones could easily be removed from one’s shoes.
