11.04.2010
I knew little about Mount Mercer and wanted to explore if it would be a worthwhile peak. Jeff and Sandhu responded to my callout. It was a Wanderung callout.
Our approach was via Foley Creek FSR. It is a logging road but the surface is generally hard with few loose surface sections and postholes. We parked at the intersection of Thurston FSR. Our altitude was 300m. We discovered later that Thurston FSR was quite drivable for another 3Km especially if the car has high clearance. We also discovered that this FSR goes all the way to the Mercer ridge at 1530m. The logging road gets less distinct in the last 2Km and it is also open to really nice views to Mcguire, Baker, Border, Macfarlane, and Slesse. We opted against bushwacking and leaving the logging road for the snow conditions and slide risk. It was a hot day and the area had received about 1m of snow quite recently.
We summitted after about 4:30 hours. The views were excellent. The snow was also king-quality. We stayed for a long while but I had some concerns about the increasing heat and risk of slides.
Total trip took 8:20 hours. I find the peak is underrated and think it is better than the other side of the ridge Elk-Thurston. This trip could be also done with a combination of hiking and biking.
This area seems to be versatile and used by different group. We met dirt bikers and also bear hunters! on our way back at lower elevation.
P.S. You can move around the pictures to have better views of the map. Hoover about the blue pins to see its distance, altitude, lat, and lon. You can also drag them away if they are on your way. The GPS track included also the logging road track that we followed.
8453 x gelesen 1 gefällt das GPS
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