Pasque Mountain

Fri. 29 June:  Pasque Mountain Horseshoe

Porridge!  The secret to hiking success!  I can’t prove it, but I have discovered over the years that a large bowl of oatmeal before a long trek in the hills can sustain you all day long.  So it proved today.  But only just.  For this was one tough hike, full of challenges. The greatest challenges today were route-finding, snow drifts, and endurance.

I had hiked Pasque Mountain before – almost exactly twenty years ago, with RH.  That day proved to be particularly arduous as we strayed off the trail and had to create our own unique, steep route to the summit and back.  This time I was determined to find the right path.  Also today, I planned to make a huge circuit, starting at the trailhead beside the forestry trunk road, and eventually ending up at Wilkinson summit, some four kilometres further south.  This required a bike to be left in the trees right opposite the Plateau Mountain access road.

The secret to Pasque Mountain is an old access road which winds its way all the way to the north summit ridge.  But this elusive road is separated from the trailhead by an elaborate series of meadows and creeks.  After the recent rains, my feet were immediately wet from plodding through damp boggy ground and trails running with water.  Two creek crossings and about two kilometres later, I lucked out and found the access road – which over the years has been gradually returning to nature.  This road climbs steeply onto a lower forested ridge, which allowed my first views of the long summit ridge high above.  There’s a lovely section where the route keeps high above a forested valley, climbing towards the ridge above. 

Then I hit the snow.  There had been record snowfalls last winter, and even today, at the end of June, the road was choked in snow.  Luckily it had melted enough so that I could sneak along the edges, until I found myself out of the trees and up onto the open mountainside.  The road zig-zagged steeply up to the north end of the ridge.

Here were spectacular views of the Front Range mountains to the west.  My route would take me southwards, along the length of the Pasque Mountain ridge, to the north peak, and then along the narrow high ridgeline to the summit at 8,343 ft.  Snow was still drifted, often spectacularly, along the eastern side of the ridge.

The north summit has a sturdy cairn with a wooden stick poking up from it, like a lightning rod - a reminder of the dangers of hanging around here on stormy days.  From the north summit to the peak itself, one follows a narrow, but easily walkable ridge.  That is, apart from one “step”, where for a minute I found myself bridging a deep hole in the rocks, my hands on one side and my feet on the other.  With one heave, I swung myself across to safety.

Pasque Mountain peak itself is not spectacular.  There is no cairn, just an Ordnance Survey marker.  But just a little to the side was a wooden post marking the grave (I suppose) of Belle, the dearly loved friend of some fairly recent visitor to this lonely peak.  I assume it was someone’s dog, but there is no reference I could find on the internet.

Here I stood at the furthest extremity of my hike, a very long way from anywhere.  My route would then turn east, to follow the “central” part of the horseshoe, across several undulating hills.  But it wasn’t that simple.  After a long descent off the summit to the first col, and a climb up the first of these hills, I found another rocky ridge, whose eastern side was choked by snowdrifts.  To reach the next col and the hill beyond, I had to negotiate my way off the ridge, and down through the trees.  In places, the snow was still several feet deep and drifted in among the trees.  I made it across, more by luck than judgment, as there were enough areas where the snow had melted that I could navigate around the deepest drifts.  After my third hill, I came to the summit of what I thought was the eastern arm of the horseshoe.  I was wrong.

Far below me was a bare col, with the eastern arm of the mountain soaring upwards to the east.  From my vantage point on this third summit, I had grand views down into Upper Wilkinson Creek.  Here I was standing on the line where spectacular drifts still lined the ridge.  It was not too difficult to drop steeply down to the col.

Luckily there is an escape route here.  I chose to take it.  The map shows a trail leading from this point down into Wilkinson Creek below, and swinging right, around the hillsides, all the way to Wilkinson summit on the forestry road, a distance of 6.8 kilometres.  It seemed a lot longer. 

But here was my greatest slice of luck.  There is a clear path running diagonally down the steep bare hillsides off the col towards the valley below.  I crossed two gigantic avalanche paths along the way, still filled with snow and broken fir trees.  At this point the trail suddenly vanished.  So I continued down to the creek and followed some wet meadows for a while.  Crossing the creek, I figured the trail was somewhere in the trees to the right.  By complete good fortune I found it.  It was a random discovery, and I can imagine that less than one out of ten people would ever find it.  Without the trail, I would have been destined to a terrible bushwhack down through endless thick forests and perhaps even potential failure.  With the trail, I was safe, as long as I was patient.  For it seemed a very long way down off that mountainside, in thick forest.  This looked to be a newly cut trail of recently felled trees, and some fresh blazing on the tree trunks.

After what seemed to be an eternity, I came to a vague junction in the trees.  I decided to turn left down the steep hillsides, and finally I was rewarded by coming out into a meadow, on the far side of which ran the old forestry road.  A short step through the forest brought me out onto the forestry road itself, just south of Wilkinson summit.  There had been a couple of short, light showers, but now the clouds were thinning out to reveal blue skies.

I pulled my bike out of the woods and enjoyed a fast four kilometre descent of the north side of Wilkinson Pass, back to the car.  Being the start of the long weekend, there were quite a few vehicles on the gravel road, most of them pulling trailers, and kicking up dust. 

I had made it safely.  Way up on the summit I had felt some cramp in my legs, and lower down the trail I was starting to run out of energy.  But thanks to my hearty morning bowl of porridge, I had pulled off yet another magnificent success.  Writing these notes two days later, my legs are still stiff, and I had come perhaps too close to my limits for comfort.  Perhaps next time I will need to use a larger bowl at breakfast-time?

Statistics
Pasque Mountain
Fri. 29 June
Total Dist.	16.6 km (hike) +   4.0 km (bike) = 20.6 km
Height Gain	3,070 ft.
Max. Elev.	8,343 ft.
Time	9 hrs. 4 mins.

Other Stats.
Start hike:      9.23 am Ridge:          11.43 am N. summit:   12.38 pm Peak:             1.06 pm Saddle:          3.04 pm Hwy (bike):     5.51 pm Ret. to car:     6.27 pm	Temp: + 13C to + 16C.  Much colder on ridge. Cloud, some wind, warm, a few isolated sunny breaks.