Neil
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After a winter of hiking the 46 I was looking forward to a bushwhack and with the reports of bullet-proof crust and the end of spruce traps I figured Saturday would be a perfect time to close out the Macintyre range. From the Loj to Algonquin via Indian Pass Brook took 6 hours last May 5 so Iroquois looked like a good choice for getting to the winter 46er supper on time.
The drainage you cross directly in front of the Indian Pass LT makes a 90 degree turn at Scot’s Clearing and makes a straight run south-east directly to the Iroquois-Boundary Peak col. (Acme Mapper.) To the ascending hiker’s right (SW) there is a ridge whose crest is about 200 yards from the gully. The ridge is not wide and there is another gully on its other side.
Gérald and I began the bushwhack at Scot’s Clearing after a 2-hour approach along the Indian Pass Trail. We followed alongside the creek for a bit but when the sides got steep we made a right-angle turn and climbed a steep slope to reach the crest of the ridge. The crust and the pitch combined to make us work pretty hard to get up the slope and it would have been better to have gone a little further past Scott’s Clearing and ascended the toe of the ridge but that was no big deal.
Up on the ridge the woods were wide open ((due to poor water retention?) and already we had decent views back to Street and Lost Pond Peak as well as across to this feature. The crust was as good as reported and we were able to move along steadily without feeling the work. The views through the trees kept on expanding and we caught vague glimpses of the Macintyre summits, which looked like a whole different world and hopelessly out of reach from our vantage point. Across to our left this 4000-foot knob came into view and guided us as we relentlessly gained elevation through woods that remained very bushwhacker friendly well past 3000 feet of elevation. I kept waiting for thick and difficult woods but we never found them and they never found us. The views of Iroquois were becoming progressively adrenalin-o-genic and we began to discuss our various route choices. We could angle left into the gully, stick to our 150 degree magnetic straight course or drift around to the right and go up a very cool looking route. All roads led to Rome and after exploring to the right we crossed back over the crest and traversed not completely into the gully but along a curving line that put us between the gully and the summit “cone”. As we curved around nearly due east under the summit Gérald’s altimeter put us a good 6-700 feet below the summit. His altimeter (the only feature his right-out-of-the –box gps was good for just then) was in feet, my USGS map was in meters and neither of us knew for sure the elevation (4800 feet) of our goal.
The views of Algonquin in the distance and the Boundarys in our faces were awesome. The weather was sort of grey and grim and the wind was picking up. The snow varied constantly between crust so hard we didn’t leave tracks to a good foot of ball-bearing powder. The woods progressively opened up and finally we were on nothing but snow that probably covered a layer of cripplebush. It got quite steep and Gerald had to back-track nervously out of a little ice gully that would have necessitated a switch to crampons. While I waited just below him I swapped poles for axe and with some effort, facing into the slope doing alternating snowshoe kicks and deep plants with the axe’s shaft made a traverse towards gentler slopes. One particular little gully required about 100 repeats of a self-belay modified chin-up exercise, kick two steps, self-belay, kick two steps and at the top I felt nice and warm. I also felt like I had achieved a state of mental and physical nirvana and was one with the mountain. Some people spend their lifetimes in study, dietary self-deprivation and meditation in order to manipulate their brain physiology in such a way as to get that same feeling and here all I had had to do was an easy 4 hour hike.
I stopped to take some pictures of Gerald who came up from below me and he went into summit fever overdrive and made a bee-line for what looked like the top. The terrain in whatever direction or for what distance you looked was awe-inspiring and over one’s shoulder the views down the gully and across to Algonquin, behind to Street and Nye were absolutely incredible.
The pitch eased off for the final approach and then we were on top in a cold, bitter wind that encouraged us to mosey on down to lower ground. On the summit I had checked the time and the bushwhack from Scott’s clearing had only taken 3 hours. We headed over to Algonquin and en route discussed the various options that my map presented us with. We could head directly out to the Loj, bushwack directly to Wright via the Algonquin-Wright col and then bushwhack over a rocky sub-peak of Wright and down to Marcy Dam or we could head over the cone and leave the path a little lower down and explore the 4000 foot knob that lies to the west of Algonquin. From that knob we could still do the Wright Marcy dam thing but that was looking doubtful with the party starting at 5pm.
It was a chilly wind that made me put my ski goggles on and my left hand, which was numb from doing a repair job on my hiking pole’s flick-lock mechanism, burned in exquisite pain as the haul up Algonquin stirred my circulation again. On the summit of Algonquin we chatted with 2 of our countrymen before deciding to go for the 4000 foot knob. As we rapidly dropped (skidded and skipped) roughly 600 feet we passed about 12 different people who were heading up. Just before the trail enters the woods we made a hard left turn after wondering out loud what the woods would be like. The drop WNW to the col entails 600 feet of elly loss and in the thickest vegetation of the day it seemed to take a while. The bushwhacking was actually fairly easy and the snow was totally supportive of our goals and objectives. Looking back up towards Wright and feeling the efforts of Iroquois we realized that adding on the Wright-Marcy Dam segment would require some sort of internal force that was and that shall forever remain unknown to both of us.
The 600-foot drop had a few steep pitches and the hard crust with 2 inches of powder caused us to slide awkwardly like novice skiers. My inner thigh muscles got a workout. We hit the col at its highest point and probably 80% of the route down was made through open corridors. From there it was a hop, skip and jump to the 4078 foot summit. We were on a high peak looking up at the majestic sweep of the rarely climbed SE Macintyre flank and across to Wallface, the Santanonis and barely-discernable-in-the-clouds Emmons slide over the top of Lost Pond Peak.
From Iroquois to there it had taken us 2 hours. We dropped packs, changed clothing, took pictures and I decided this would be a good time to try out my brand new 60SCX Garmin gps. I had last had a sat fix in Montreal so I was surprised at how incredibly quickly I saw the black arrowhead situating us on top of the highly detailed 1:24K map. The route we chose off would be due north to the Indian Pass trail 2 kilometres away. The woods were open the entire way. The upper half was more of the same hard crust under 2 inches of powder and we got another inner thigh and trunk stabilizer muscle workout until the pitch relented. After that it got sunny and we strolled downhill through an ever sparse hardwood forest until we hit the trail 2 kilometers from Heart Lake. I was very impressed with the new GPS and the 1:24K map.
One difficulty I had was in trying to place a new waypoint under the white arrow while panning the map. When in pan mode I would press “Mark” and every time I got a new wp under our current position. I couldn’t find a “place wp near map pointer” command like on my old gps when hitting “mark way point” while in pan mode.
We got to the dinner at 6PM and social hour was in full swing.
PICTURES
The drainage you cross directly in front of the Indian Pass LT makes a 90 degree turn at Scot’s Clearing and makes a straight run south-east directly to the Iroquois-Boundary Peak col. (Acme Mapper.) To the ascending hiker’s right (SW) there is a ridge whose crest is about 200 yards from the gully. The ridge is not wide and there is another gully on its other side.
Gérald and I began the bushwhack at Scot’s Clearing after a 2-hour approach along the Indian Pass Trail. We followed alongside the creek for a bit but when the sides got steep we made a right-angle turn and climbed a steep slope to reach the crest of the ridge. The crust and the pitch combined to make us work pretty hard to get up the slope and it would have been better to have gone a little further past Scott’s Clearing and ascended the toe of the ridge but that was no big deal.
Up on the ridge the woods were wide open ((due to poor water retention?) and already we had decent views back to Street and Lost Pond Peak as well as across to this feature. The crust was as good as reported and we were able to move along steadily without feeling the work. The views through the trees kept on expanding and we caught vague glimpses of the Macintyre summits, which looked like a whole different world and hopelessly out of reach from our vantage point. Across to our left this 4000-foot knob came into view and guided us as we relentlessly gained elevation through woods that remained very bushwhacker friendly well past 3000 feet of elevation. I kept waiting for thick and difficult woods but we never found them and they never found us. The views of Iroquois were becoming progressively adrenalin-o-genic and we began to discuss our various route choices. We could angle left into the gully, stick to our 150 degree magnetic straight course or drift around to the right and go up a very cool looking route. All roads led to Rome and after exploring to the right we crossed back over the crest and traversed not completely into the gully but along a curving line that put us between the gully and the summit “cone”. As we curved around nearly due east under the summit Gérald’s altimeter put us a good 6-700 feet below the summit. His altimeter (the only feature his right-out-of-the –box gps was good for just then) was in feet, my USGS map was in meters and neither of us knew for sure the elevation (4800 feet) of our goal.
The views of Algonquin in the distance and the Boundarys in our faces were awesome. The weather was sort of grey and grim and the wind was picking up. The snow varied constantly between crust so hard we didn’t leave tracks to a good foot of ball-bearing powder. The woods progressively opened up and finally we were on nothing but snow that probably covered a layer of cripplebush. It got quite steep and Gerald had to back-track nervously out of a little ice gully that would have necessitated a switch to crampons. While I waited just below him I swapped poles for axe and with some effort, facing into the slope doing alternating snowshoe kicks and deep plants with the axe’s shaft made a traverse towards gentler slopes. One particular little gully required about 100 repeats of a self-belay modified chin-up exercise, kick two steps, self-belay, kick two steps and at the top I felt nice and warm. I also felt like I had achieved a state of mental and physical nirvana and was one with the mountain. Some people spend their lifetimes in study, dietary self-deprivation and meditation in order to manipulate their brain physiology in such a way as to get that same feeling and here all I had had to do was an easy 4 hour hike.
I stopped to take some pictures of Gerald who came up from below me and he went into summit fever overdrive and made a bee-line for what looked like the top. The terrain in whatever direction or for what distance you looked was awe-inspiring and over one’s shoulder the views down the gully and across to Algonquin, behind to Street and Nye were absolutely incredible.
The pitch eased off for the final approach and then we were on top in a cold, bitter wind that encouraged us to mosey on down to lower ground. On the summit I had checked the time and the bushwhack from Scott’s clearing had only taken 3 hours. We headed over to Algonquin and en route discussed the various options that my map presented us with. We could head directly out to the Loj, bushwack directly to Wright via the Algonquin-Wright col and then bushwhack over a rocky sub-peak of Wright and down to Marcy Dam or we could head over the cone and leave the path a little lower down and explore the 4000 foot knob that lies to the west of Algonquin. From that knob we could still do the Wright Marcy dam thing but that was looking doubtful with the party starting at 5pm.
It was a chilly wind that made me put my ski goggles on and my left hand, which was numb from doing a repair job on my hiking pole’s flick-lock mechanism, burned in exquisite pain as the haul up Algonquin stirred my circulation again. On the summit of Algonquin we chatted with 2 of our countrymen before deciding to go for the 4000 foot knob. As we rapidly dropped (skidded and skipped) roughly 600 feet we passed about 12 different people who were heading up. Just before the trail enters the woods we made a hard left turn after wondering out loud what the woods would be like. The drop WNW to the col entails 600 feet of elly loss and in the thickest vegetation of the day it seemed to take a while. The bushwhacking was actually fairly easy and the snow was totally supportive of our goals and objectives. Looking back up towards Wright and feeling the efforts of Iroquois we realized that adding on the Wright-Marcy Dam segment would require some sort of internal force that was and that shall forever remain unknown to both of us.
The 600-foot drop had a few steep pitches and the hard crust with 2 inches of powder caused us to slide awkwardly like novice skiers. My inner thigh muscles got a workout. We hit the col at its highest point and probably 80% of the route down was made through open corridors. From there it was a hop, skip and jump to the 4078 foot summit. We were on a high peak looking up at the majestic sweep of the rarely climbed SE Macintyre flank and across to Wallface, the Santanonis and barely-discernable-in-the-clouds Emmons slide over the top of Lost Pond Peak.
From Iroquois to there it had taken us 2 hours. We dropped packs, changed clothing, took pictures and I decided this would be a good time to try out my brand new 60SCX Garmin gps. I had last had a sat fix in Montreal so I was surprised at how incredibly quickly I saw the black arrowhead situating us on top of the highly detailed 1:24K map. The route we chose off would be due north to the Indian Pass trail 2 kilometres away. The woods were open the entire way. The upper half was more of the same hard crust under 2 inches of powder and we got another inner thigh and trunk stabilizer muscle workout until the pitch relented. After that it got sunny and we strolled downhill through an ever sparse hardwood forest until we hit the trail 2 kilometers from Heart Lake. I was very impressed with the new GPS and the 1:24K map.
One difficulty I had was in trying to place a new waypoint under the white arrow while panning the map. When in pan mode I would press “Mark” and every time I got a new wp under our current position. I couldn’t find a “place wp near map pointer” command like on my old gps when hitting “mark way point” while in pan mode.
We got to the dinner at 6PM and social hour was in full swing.
PICTURES
