Saturday, September 1, 2001

2001: WVC Alumni trip in the Pasayten Wilderness


Thanks to Ethan for his impressive recollection of the details of our backpacking route during our 24 day alumni trip in the Pasayten Wilderness in the Okanagan National Forrest.  For the first 2 weeks or so, we worked on trails and then we did a backpacking trip.
We travelled in a clockwise direction on this route, more or less: approximate map.
route-map
Ethan’s description:
Our [work] camp was right next to the Middle Fork Pasayten River.  We were working in the valley.)
We hiked up to Ferguson Lake for a day trip.
Later for our big hike we went up to camp by Fred’s Lake and Lake Doris at the end of the first day.  We hiked to the east on the second day, on a very old trail, along the slopes of Osceola Peak until we reached that basin to the north of Blackcap.  That's where we stayed for a couple days...
We went up to one of Blackcap's summits for our mountain climb, and we went cross country up and over the ridge to the north - to the east of Mount Carru I think - on that glissading trip.  Then we went over the ridge to the east ... rappelling down the east wall of the ridge...  stumbling down the slopes until we reached a stream where we made camp in the dark.  I believe this was the far west most branch of Monument Creek... flowing in the basin that extends to the east from the ridge connecting Blackcap and Monument.
The second to last day we started early, went cross-country over those two ridges to the south of where we were camped, had a late lunch next to Lake of the Woods, then found a trail and continued on south - going over the pass to the west of Pistol Peaks, then continuing south on the top of that ridge, the one between Eureka Creek and Lost River.  We had planned to get all the way to the confluence of the rivers that day, but we had to stop a mile to the north because it was so late and the trail kept getting worse and worse [We went to sleep without a water source].  On the last day we hiked down to Lost River, had a relaxing morning then trekked the few miles out south along the river, on flat, nice trail, to the trailhead.



Here are some pictures that totally could have been taken during our trip, although they’re just snatched from the web:
groupimagesdoris




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