We tried to find out a new winter route to Brew Lake on the east face where the Summer route is. In fact we followed half way the Summer one and bushwacked the rest. Our attempt wasn't successful but I think the route is promising and if we had better snow conditions and colder temperature (few degrees below zero), we would have a good chance to reach the lake, shelter, or perhaps both. We did in total 10.5Km in almost 9 hours. That's about 1.1Km/hour which is quite slow.
We tried first to park in Brandywine Falls parking lot but it was closed for the Olympics and police didn't allow us to park any where close. We turned back and headed to Brew Creek Lodge and we parked there. To our surprise, there is a trail that goes to the railway which cuts the distance by 1Km. I recommend this parking lots than Brandywine Falls. However, Brew Creek Lodge is a private property and the security guard asked us to park outside the lodge, on the logging road which is about 50m away. Not a big deal.
We followed the Summer route to half way between picture 17 & 18, then decided to leave the trail and bushwack looking for gentler slopes. The terrain is tricky and there are many mini cliffs. We reached height of 1120m at 2:20m. We had still to cross another steep slope to get to the lake. We decided to head back as I thought we needed at least 2 hours to go to the lake and return back to our spot, which would be too late for this type of terrain.
Our route might be further optimized (especially in good snow conditions) as you can see from the GPS track and may provide an alternative to the standard winter route via Roe Creek on the West Face. But it is definitely a harder option andcontinue reading » requires consistent routefinding.
P.S. Hover above the blue balloons to see the latitude, longitude, altitude, and distance of the pictures. You can also drag the picture to the side to have a better view of the map. « less
Feb 07, 2010
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