The local Ridge Meadows Hiking Club has done a wonderful job of flagged the trail that leads off of the East Canyon Trail up to an Eastern and Western Lookout about 100m elevation from the peak of Mt Nutt South.
A lot of the work is done early with this hike so carb up! The lower section moves through a messy second growth forest in an area that was ravaged by the forestry industry in the 50's, but as you get up on the ridge line you enter old growth and the steepness slacks off a little bit making it a gradual incline to the twin lookouts... from here you continue to ascend to a point before the south peak where you need to dip down 50+ meters and re-ascend to reach the south peak. We decided to stop here as this dip and our turnaround time kept us from continuing to the actual south peak.
Conditions: lots of switchbacks and some rougher trail to get to the lookout facing south over Alouette Lake. the snow starts here and quickly becomes icy and super hard (this is the layer that has been causing all the avalanche warnings since our two February deep freezes) We had our micro-spikes on for 30-40 minutes then flipped over to snowshoes from then on.There are some steeper sections before the east and west lookouts that would have been risky a few weeks ago, but the snow on top of the frozen layer seems settled...
*MAKE YOUR OWN OBSERVATIONS and assessments please, do not take my word for it as conditions can change overnight!*
We had about 20-30cm of fresh snow on the upper sections of this hike and it’s a great cardio workout with average grade of 24%! I would suggest you try this when the gate times are longer as we ran out of time and we were hustling! (I believe Golden Ears gate times change on April 1st to summer hours extended to 11pm )
Have fun out there, stay safe and maybe I will see you on the trails!
Regards, Rex.