Brew Hut

Late Friday night, we decided to pay a visit to the new VOC hut near Mount Brew. Various Bivouac/VOC members had constructed a new trail, so we had to check it out. I still remember constructing the first Brew Hut in 1982, (which was crushed by snow creep in the first winter). And I had been to the second hut several times, so it only seemed right that I should visit the third hut. As you may know, the Mount Brew area is a fairly gentle plateau like ridge that sticks eastward from the Mount Fee and Cypress Peak area, which is the end of the "Powder Cap" traverse.

I want to make this description as useful as possible, so I'll put in all the driving instructions and road references.

We drove up highway 99 from Vancouver and turned west onto the Chance Creek FSR. This road was completely clear of snow, and we were soon at the junction where we turned north on the Roe Creek Road. We hit shallow snow at 2200' which never got more than 15 cm deep, and was no problem for Greg's luxurious 4WD Isuzu Trooper. After a while we came to the intersection with a branch road going east. We were confused thinking it might be the Branch 200 that we wanted. But a quick check with the GPS told us it was not the correct road. After another 5-10 minutes of so we reached the proper intersection with Branch 200 at 936m (3070 feet).

There was one set of tire tracks ahead of us. We drove for a short distance up the steep Branch 200. This section had fairly deep cross ditches, and we dragged the trailer hitch on every crossing. Soon we reached the impassable ditch which was mentioned in the previous road bulletins. Here we found the Jeep Cherokee already parked, and we parked just below it.

There wasn't enough snow to start skiing right away, so we put our skis on our packs and hiked up the road, past the first switchback, and then reached the trailhead, marked by dozens of yellow ribbons. (which prompted some singing of "Tie a yellow ribbon round the old oak tree..." from the time of Richard Nixon.

The trail heads back eastward through the clearcut until it reaches the dark old growth. The clearcut is now grown in with cedar trees about 4 m high. Once in the old growth, it was occasionally difficult to find the next yellow ribbon, provoking an observation that yellow is not the ultimate color. The snow was packed like concrete. Only occasionally would you break through. Soon we were at the first creek, where the trail abruptly turns 90 degrees and goes up the fall line. Greg and I momentarily lost the trail here. But soon enough we found it and arrived below the prominent cliff bands. Here we followed the trail eastward again, till it wrapped around the cliffs and went north, up the big creek drainage. This is the big creek on the 1:50,000 that is due south of Brew Lake. The trail just follows the west side of this creek. In this section of trail, I had a bit more problem punching through, which prompted me to put my skis on and off several times. We soon met the two BCMC members who came in the Jeep. They had MSR snowshoes, which were ideal for this terrain, costing about 100-200 dollars.

Eventually the trail leaves the creek, and goes west up a steep little slope and emerges above treeline. Everybody then put their skis on, and soon we were zooming along. It was so foggy you couldn't see much, but there was an increasingly deep cover of fresh powder. These meadows are immediately south of Brew Lake. From here the route went on the west side of the lake, and heads west. The final climb to the cabin is up a short hill and through a notch, and then the cabin is immediately east of us.

After dutifully reading and signing the log book and inspecting the library, we skied a few short slopes beside the cabin, then headed down. The skiing was really great, with 15 cm of fresh powder covering a bombproof base layer. Very soon we were back in the trees, where everybody took their skis off. The walking was very good, and we were back at the car well before dark.

Silvia and I headed up the Roe Creek Ski route to the Brew hut for an overnight trip. Since we had never been up there before, we followed the waypoints from the VOC Wiki website. Robin and his group passed us on the trail and since Robin has already posted a great trip report I wont say much here. After the yellow flagging ended, we had the tracks from Robin's group to follow. The route they chose worked out very well so I added some waypoints to the Wiki page waypoints to make a more complete set for traveling in poor visibility conditions.

lulululu
上次我带队走的是summer route，这是当时Alex的GPS记录的信息，我们只到了Ｂ点，雪深坡陡，到了talus后已经看不到任何标记，当时我们朝着湖的方向找路走，我猜想我们最后一小段走的是和trail平行的路线。两个local  hiker手持GPS跟着我们的足迹最后也因时间问题不得不放弃。冬季走这条夏季路线怕有雪崩的危险，我们下次要走安全的冬季路线。

googoo
好好好！应该走冬季的线路。

归去来兮
要去要去, lulu赶快召集啊, 又可以overnight啦, 还可以烧火,好玩!

ALEXYIM
[quote]googoo
好好好！应该走冬季的线路。

Have a look at the 1:50000 NTS topo map or the BC basemap website (maps.gov.bc.ca -> BC basemap), they both indicate the position of the roads, although the R-200 spur that the trail leaves from is not shown on the NTS map. I don't know exactly how good the flagging is over the whole route, so you'd best be ready to do some navigating on your own; I'd suggest bringing along the trail description and the GPS waypoints from the website. Good luck with your adventure, and please post your findings either here, or on the VOC wiki page for the trail.

The start of the road is about 1km south of the rubble creek bridge on highway 99. It's the only road with a bridge over the cheakamus river. There are a lot of branches, here's what I can remember from the 2 times I've been up there (mileages are estimates):

1. cross the bridge, the tracks and turn left, and follow the road up a hill. This part is called Chance Creek FSR
2. at 1.5km is the base area for the cat skiing operation at a switchback, go left.
3. Pass a couple of minor spurs on the right. I don't think they go anywhere really. There is a major junction at about 3km, this is the start of Roe Creek FSR. Take the right fork. All distances beyond this point are measure from here and there are a new set of km markers for this road that start at this junction.
4. +0.3km A minor branch off roe creek goes, right, ignore it. This was blocked by a fallen log on feb 6th.
5. +0.5km A more serious branch road goes left. Go right (up a hill?). Stay right from here until the bridge over roe creek at about km 3.
6. just past the bridge turn left. The right fork is R-100 and it ends after only 0.5km.
7. continue straight through a muddy log sort
8. At 3.8km or so is the end of 2wd and a good place to park. 4x4HC begins if it isn't too snowed in to drive. The road get pretty gnarly and bushy above here, and there isn't a good place to turn around for another 1.5km.
9. At km 5.3 is a branch on the right (R-200). Follow this one steeply uphill to the trailhead, which is just above the first switchback, about 1km up R-200.

Bulletins:
2005.12.05 Jos Van der Burg Driveable to near 7 km: We were able to drive to near 7 km up the road, about 20 min. from the end on foot. Had to carry the skis for a couple hundred meters through the last of the forest and across Roe creek.From there smooth skiing to Cypress Peak. 6.5 Hour round trip. *1

2005.11.26 Robin Tivy

Road has 10 cm snow: We drove the road in Greg's Isuzu Trooper, as far as the turnoff to R200 at 3070 feet (936m). There was a thin snow cover, but any 4WD could make it. See Trip Report *3

2005.11.20 Matt Gunn Drove to Roe Creek Bridge: There is snow on the Roe Creek Road starting just past the junction with Chance Creek Road. a couple 4wd vehicles drove to the Roe Creek Bridge at 2260 ft. We could have drive another kilometer with chains.

Bulletins

2005.11.26 Robin Tivy Road driveable to washout at 3250': We were able to drive all the way to the washout at 3250 feet in Greg's 4WD Isuzu Trooper. There was very little snow on road, but the waterbar ditches would stop a 2WD.

Originally posted by sgRant
We were up this route on Saturday, and I wanted to say the new route is longer, but safer than the old one.  Thanks to the extensive brush clearing, it also means less thrashing.  Most of the new route is a very gentle climb, except for a couple of short steep climbs in the woods.  Without gps waypoints, don't expect to be able to find the cabin in a whiteout.  

Summer use of the route through the woods will need some fine-tuning to get around wet areas, but once the snow fills in, this will be an excellent ski route.  Yesterday, the skiing wasn't worth it until the subaline, but it was excellent from there.  

The cabin itself is a very impressive job.  Great work, VOC!  Ran into Roland today on Seymore, and talked with him about it.

Originally posted by sgRant
[quote]Originally posted by sandy
How long to get in?

It's 2.5km from the end of 2wd to the trailhead. The 2.5km is measured by GPS, so it's pretty accurate. Based on current reports, you should be able to get close to that point provided you don't get stopped by a slippery hill. If it snows down to a low elevation, you are looking at about 7.5km of road skiing / walking to get to the trailhead from the snowcat shed.