Brandywine - Fee Hiking Loop in Autumn (转载)

We are always looking for something new to do that is not a big drive from Vancouver. This trip is ideal. It is a loop where you come right back to your car via a totally different route. The road approach can be done with any car, even a front wheel drive. Brandywine Mountain itself is a frequent day trip these days, with 4 or 5 parties every weekend, many of whom must access the trail from the upper Brandywine spur. But once you get beyond Brandywine, you are on your own. A loop around the west side of Mount Fee used to be quite common as part of the "Powder Cap" ski traverse, before the snowmobiles made the area unbearable for self-propelled travelers in winter. But in the fall, you'll meet no machines.

From Vancouver, we drove up highway 99, and turned off onto the Brandwine FSR. We drove past the snowmobile rental facility, with rows of snowmobiles waiting for winter, and up the hill. We parked both cars in a small parking spot just past the junction with the Brandywine meadows spur at 2600'. This spot is just before (east of) the start of the old Brandwine trail. We then hiked up the road to the beginning of the Brandwine trail. The trail was in good shape and we hiked quickly up through the woods, and quickly reached the upper clear cut. We had lunch on a big rock beside the trail.

After lunch we continued on the trail, across the dry Brandwine meadows and started the long climb up to Brandwine mountain. Just before the summit of Brandwine, we dumped our packs and scrambled up the easy gulleys to the summit. The route up Brandwine is straightforward, one gains the southeast ridge at 6700' just above the sharp part on the map, (see waypoints), then continue up the ridge to the flat area west of the summit, just above 7000'. Here we dropped our packs and scrambled eastward up the last 300' to the summit.

After descending the summit back to our packs, we then headed west down the ridge. Rather than go out onto the steep little pocket glacier to the north, we came dwon the nose and ran into a steep little polished slab section. Wolf and Laurent had no trouble, but myself, Betsy and Linda spent a bit of time fussing around, before passed our packs ahead of us so we could climb without a pack. Greg bypassed the whole thing by going much lower, then climbing back up. We camped just below this steep section, on the surface of a dried up tarn, with another tarn nearby with water. None of this shows up on the 1:50,000 map, but the waypoint I took was with a GPS and is accurate.)

Next morning, we got up early, temperate was -3C and we were underway before 9:00 AM. We had some spectacular shots of Mount Fee in the early morning light. See Mount Fee in Morning. We then headed west, down to cross over the north ridge of Mount Fee and get on the west side of it. Along this part of the route we had fantastic views of the bare volcanic towers of the Mount Caley complex. Once on the west side of Fee, we countinued south. After 2 km we came to a tiny lake shown on the 1:50,000 map at 6300 feet'. Here we had lunch. The lake was not frozen. From here we also saw a new lake forming at the toe of the glacier - global warming.

After lunch, we climbed up the edge of the glacier and went right around the end of the south ridge. Here we had some very spectacular angles on the main summit of Mount Fee, all of which looked impossible to climb. Once we had crossed over the south ridge of Fee, we went southeast, and got onto the southern edge of the long rocky ridge which divides the south fork of Brandywine creek from the valley of the twin center fork. See waypoints.

The first part of the ridge was highly enjoyable, with big views back to Fee, and also views south into the unknown drainage north of Brew. On three occasions we saw groups of 3 or 5 mountain goats running across the slopes. Then we started to get into the bush on top of the ridge. This section is shown as being above treeline on the map, but not so in reality. At first there was low bushes (bear bush) one section even had been cut with small loppers. Then it got thicker. The party temporarily divided, with Wolf Greg and Linda trying to head north down a "bear trail", and Laurent, Betsy, Gwen and I trying to stay on the ridge. Eventually we convinced the bear trail guys to come back up to the ridge, and we went off the sharp end of the "nose" of the ridge. The upper part of the descent of the nose was in very steep old growth with open slopes underneath. Then at somewhere between 4000' and 4500' we descended north into the clearcut, to avoid bluffs. The top part of the clearcut was incredibly steep, and required some route finding. Coming out of the old growth,we had to "rappel" down the steep slope hanging onto slide alder. Once in the clearcut there was considerable devil's club, and footing was uncertain. The party was scattered all over the place.

After the longest time, thrashing thru the dense bush, we reached the old logging road at 3500'. This was the old spur on the south side of Brandywine creek, which I will refer to as the "jungle spur". It was completely overgrown, but at least the footing was good as we pushed our way through the dense alders. (see waypoints). The jungle spur was not shown on the old 1:50,000 map I had. After going some ways east, we hit a "Critical Corner" where the road curved sharply and headed south. At this point we had much discussion.

Our objective was to hit the newer (gated) hydro road which we could clearly see from above, which would take us directly back to the main road. (not shown on any of our maps). We hoped the jungle spur would hit the end of the hydro road.

One option at the critical corner was to bushwack directly east, and hopefully hit the hydro road. The other option was to follow our old road south. We decided to follow the old road. Only Laurent had a map that showed the jungle spur. At this point in the twilight, nobody studied the maps very closely, and we didn't know that our "jungle spur" was actually on our map. If we had, we would have known exactly what to expect.

So we were following the road not knowing where it would go. We repeated the old slogan "On any logging road, "down" means "out", because loaded logging trucks can't climb hills. As you can see from a map, or the waypoints, we went south for the longest way (half a km) then swung through a band of old growth to go east. Just after heading east, we reached an old bridge in the middle of the jungle. (see Jungle bridge waypoint). Although the bridge was a huge bridge about 10m above the stream, the deck was completely overgrown, and you couldn't even tell you were on the bridge, except for the creek appearing below us on downhill side.

After the bridge, then the road started climbing gradually, (obviously logging trucks can climb mild grades). Now we continually reassured ourselves that it must intersect the old "Brew Spur", long since retired. This would provide a bridge across Brandywine river and back to the car.

The forest was dark. People were tired. The road was still overgrown. But we continued east. Eventually we hit a point where someone had done extensive cutting of the alder on the road, leaving them lying on the road. This was a good sign to us, because it meant the road really went somewhere. Finally, we intersected the old Brew Spur. Now it was dark. Once on the Brew Spur, the road was more chewed up, (good indication of a bridge), and finally we reached the bridge over Brandywine itself. After the bridge, we climbed the short hill back to the Brandywine road. Two runners were sent to get the cars (Laurent and Betsy), and the rest of us settled in for what we thought would be a long wait in the dark. But within 15 minutes, we heard the cars coming down the road. It turned out we were much closer than we thought. So our trip was over!

Review and route improvements: In hindsight, once you mark the trail onto your map, (and the old road), you can see it would be 4 km shorter to have driven the cars further than we did, all the way to the old Brew trailhead. Then after doing the loop, you should leave the overgrown road at the "Critical corner" (see waypoints) and bushwack directly northeast, cross Brandywine creek, and climb only 150' back to the road where the cars were parked.

In hindsight, the hydro road is a red hering. The hydro road runs a long way east before crossing Brandwine anyway, so we would have ended up above the cars. And the bushwacking to find the end of it would have taken time.