|
|
发表于 2007-7-27 15:49:41
|
显示全部楼层
Swift Creek Route to Mount Garibaldi by Robin Tivy
Swift Creek Route to Mount Garibaldi (Swift Creek-Brohm Ridge-Warren Glacier) by Robin Tivy
February 10, 2001
This report describes a 2 day trip up the Swift Creek road, onto Brohm ridge, then camp. Next day we skied up onto the Garibaldi Neve and climbed "The Tent" and then skied back down "Old Growth Creek" to regain the Swift Creek road, and then back to the highway. Old Growth Creek is the name I give to the unnamed southern fork of Culliton Creek.
With the weather clearing slightly on Friday after a cold snowfall, everybody was inspired to get out for the weekend. Rather than the usual 5 hours each way from Vancouver to somewhere way up the Duffy Lake Road to Lillooet, the idea came up to go somewhere close, and spend the 4 hours driving time saved by ski-ing instead. The original plan was to go up Cullitan Creek and further investigate what I will call "Old Growth Creek" just north of Brohm Ridge. We had discovered this delightful place on a day trip two years ago. At that time we had reached it on an overgrown logging road on the S. side of Culliton Creek. However at the last minute a phone call to Paul Kubik turned up a more pleasant shortcut - a logging road in good condition which goes up Swift Creek.
The starting point was a stub of the old highway which branches east off highway 99 just past the Cheakamus River lookout. Fresh snow was falling heavily, and we abandoned the 2wd Toyota Corolla on the first hill at about 1200 feet of elevation. There was just enough snow to put on skis right away. Shortly thereafter we passed a couple of buildings where two trucks were parked - some sort of artistic woodworking operation. By 11:08 AM, we had reached 49:52.3-123:07.7. Here the road levels out and goes through a pass. We continued on the road across a large clearcut. At 12:11 we reached the furthest point east on the road at 49:52.68-123:06.4. From here you have a choice - either to switchback to the west, or continue straight ahead into the trees. This is the point we returned to the next day via the creek. On the way up, we chose to take the switchback.
At 13:57 we reached the top of the clearcut (49:52.4-123:05.9) and continued climbing in the remaining mature forest. At 15:32 we emerged into the open (49:51.88-123:04.8) with the weather cold and clearing. As expected, there were snowmobile tracks everywhere, but the snowmobiles had mostly retreated for the day.
Now the terrain got interesting. We worked our way along the north slopes of Brohm Ridge, looking for a camp spot beyond snowmobile territory. We kept eyeing a nice flat spot just at tree line at the head of "old growth" creek (about 49:52-123:02). However, it turned out that you can't quite get down there coming from the west - there is always one little steep section that prevents your descent. This forced us up past the white 2 story cabin with french doors and a big stone chimney. It still had 3 snowmobiles parked outside it, two of which left just as we approached. The woman who lives there was very friendly and told Tanya all about what a groovy place it is - has been there since 1970, and her dad bought it in 1980, and if the Brohm Ridge development goes ahead she could live up there and do snowmobile tours. Apparently the snowmobiles don't cause her to worry - she gets frequent visitors at all hours from the snowmobile club - apparently the main worry is UFO's. Too bad she doesn't get into ski-ing.
Anyway, we camped a short time later, on a shelf right above an enormous cliff.
Sunday morning I looked out of the tent and it was completely clear, with bands of deep purple, then yellow and red on the horizon. The sun rose precisely at 7:30, just as my GPS said it would at that exact lat-long and date. It was like looking at a German train schedule. With Dave's MSR classic XGK drowning out our Whisperlight, we soon had breakfast, lots of water, and were up and away. We took down the tents and headed east, the plan being to get well across the park boundary and hopefully beyond the range of the snowmobiles that would be up later in the day. We dumped everything except daypacks at a temporary snowwall Dave made, and then climbed upward onto the Warren Glacier. To get onto the Glacier involves a tricky and interesting traverse threading ones way through spectacular crevasses and icefalls. By 12:12 we were at the critical point on the crossover 49:51.77-123:00.02, with the North Face of Mount Garibaldi looming above us. This was a side of the mountain I had never seen before, and perhaps the most spectacular. (Since I don't yet have a digital camera, you won't see the pictures to go with this article for a month or so.) Anyway, onwards and upwards we climbed, till we were up on the high level flats of the Warren Glacier, looking up at the neve climbing route on Garibaldi. here we had lunch.
We had originally considered climbing Mount Garibaldi, but after lunch we decided to settle on The Tent instead. (The bergshrund looked a bit larger than normal on Garibaldi). So up to the Garibaldi-Tent col, where we dumped our skis and climbed on foot up to the summit of the Tent. Here we were treated to yet another spectacular view of Garibaldi - this time the east face.
From the summit, it was fantastic ski-ing all the way down the Warren Glacier. Soon we were back at our packs. A couple of snowmobiles had invaded the park in our absence, but fortunately had come and gone by the time we got there, still leaving some glorious powder.
Now came my favourite part of the trip. After picking up our packs, we descended where no machine could follow, into the steep upper section of Old Growth Creek. The ski-ing was fantastic, and everybody had big grins on their faces as we swished from side to side in the open gulley of the creek. Eventually, we got to a point where we started to see open sections of the creek, but in spite of the low snow year, we were always able to find snow bridges. In the mid-section, we climbed slightly above the creek on the east, and came down an open and parallel tributary creek. Finally after several hours of interesting skiing, we arrived at the point where the brushed out road climbs out of the creek and back to the switchback previously mentioned at 49:52.7-123:06.4. Here we put on our headlights, in the grand old style, and were soon ski-ing down the road. There are numerous shallow water bars to be crossed, almost all of which can be done quickly without removing skis. We would just swish up to the bar sideways, then topple across the bar in one continuous motion, and keep ski-ing.
As soon as we were on the road, we saw the tracks of Paul Kubik, someone else, and many dog prints. "White man went this way - many dogs". Eventually we saw tire tracks higher up on the road, and all the boot and dog prints vanished into thin air. This led to my conclusion that the woman in the cabin was right after all about the UFO's.
waypoints:
49°51' 18.0"-123°09' 06.0"=Swift Creek crosses Highway 99 (park)
49°52' 42.0"-123°06' 24.0"=Switchback and road descends to Old Growth creek
49°52' 00.0"-123°05' 54.0"=Top of Clearcut
49°51' 30.0"-123°03' 36.0"=Camp on edge of Cliff
49°51' 00.0"-123°00' 00.0"=Summit of The Tent |
|
IP卡
狗仔卡
发表于 2007-7-26 21:57:13
显身卡
楼主
发表于 2007-7-27 09:33:58
