100K Club -- cjb & Team Cat -- Mount Outram
(lightly reformatted and annotated trip report originally posted to clubtread.com)

I posted this trip [solicited participants online] for "either Tuesday or Wednesday," based on the smiling cartoon sun on the Weather Channel's Vancouver webpage. Signed up [clubtread.com members] Q & DBlair, and received lots of email from curious folks asking what was up with this "weekday hiking" thing, any chance of rescheduling to, say, Saturday morning at 6am...

Wednesday at 6am the sun was nowhere in sight, hidden behind a layer of thick grey cloud. Q collected me from the bookstore and we booted out to Surrey to collect DBlair. The trip organizer then provided Q with bad directions to the Park 'n Ride where Dennis was waiting (foreshadowing!). At one point it looked like we were stuck heading back into Vancouver on the Port Mann bridge, but we managed to hold it together and finally picked up Dennis.

Out Highway 1 to the Manning Marmot [see below]. The lurking highway cops didn't see Q's little Honda, just a lot of anime-style speed lines.

Lifting clouds. Higher grey above. Light drizzle. We suited up and started up the washroom loop under dripping trees. Up to the Engineer's Road, ten minutes along to where the Outram trail forks off, then up, up, up. The trail is billed as super-steep but is actually pretty reasonable, cut at a Parks grade, with generous switchbacks. It climbs steeply to avoid bluffs, then cuts back into the Seventeen Mile Creek valley. Across Seventeen Mile Creek, and then steeply up back east, into meadows full of purple lupins, pinkish-purple thistles, lots of plants I couldn't identify, and lots of mushrooms I could. Q indulged in macro botanical photography. The clouds slowly lifted, revealing occasional glimpses of the Silvertip Group to the southwest.

Up to Seventeen Mile Creek's headwaters. Rolling meadows, Outram looming above, coming in and out of the clouds. A pretty little tarn, a BC Parks sign requesting campstoves only, and a fire ring right beside the sign.

"These guys weren't hardcore. If they really were, they would have used the sign as kindling."

Up the scree. Mr. Marmot let us get close enough to take some good shots before wandering away over the rocks.

Higher and higher. At some point the convenient red paint and flagging disappears. We fumble up endless scree through the clouds, cross a snowfield, veer back and forth, and finally pop up on the summit ridge. Approximately 5 hours up.

Just as we are congratulating ourselves, [clubtread.com resident speed demon] SimonC pops out of the clouds with the peak relay can [clubtread.com game involving moving a plastic container containing a camera, chocolate bars, and a written log from obscure peak to obscure peak] and a stopwatch that says he's just climbed the same trail as us in two hours and twenty-some minutes.

We pop up onto the south summit, then work our way across the exposed gap to the slightly higher north summit for foggy hero shots with Rose the lucky stuffed cat. Visibility = < 10m.

As we re-descend the gap between summits, a hummingbird zips up out of Ghost Passenger (the east couloir, first ascent [brother] dru), hovers above us, and then disappears down the west face.

Down the scree in the fog.

"Do you guys know where we're going?" asks Q.

"Search me," says the trip organizer.

"Nope," says DBlair.

"No," says SimonC.

The scree steepens. A massive gully looms beside us, one we certainly didn't run into on the way up. Maybe we are not where we think we are.

Down again. The clouds lift, revealing a slope that steepens into green cliffs. No sign of Mr. Marmot, nor the tarns.

We've descended too far to the west. We sidehill across the slope and up onto a forested rib, on the other side of which are the tarns, the trail, and red-ribboned trees.

Down to the meadows, where we make short work of Q's Dare Fruit Gums and practice peak identification. The sun comes out. The trip leader falls asleep. Isolillock Mountain's double-headed summit pops out of the clouds to the west.

Down through the meadows, the clouds still rising, the flowers open now in the full sun. Down and down and down to Seventeen Mile Creek.

A little grey frog bounds across the trail as we stop to adjust ourselves on the other side of the creek.

Down again. A BC Parks sign appears on a tree. "4.5 km." What the hell? How can we still be this far from the cars?

Down and down and down. Toenails protest. Knees protest. Poisonous mushrooms are ID'ed during enforced recovery breaks.

Down once more. The Engineer's Road pops into view. Another twenty minutes and we are laughing in the parking lot, changing in the parking lot, kissing the Manning Marmot [huge, 6' carved and painted wooden marmot marking the entrance to Manning Park, once pilfered by the UBC Engineers].

A stranded hitchhiker is rescued near Herrling Island. [Car out of gas]

SimonC: "Can we go to dinner now, or is there anyone else you'd like to save?"

To dinner at Rosedale's Wildcat Grill with dru. Dinner is slightly complicated by the trip leader's placing the restaurant on the wrong side of the river.

Despite these tribulations, Team Wednesday plans a second trip for next week.

Thanks everyone; a great day out in the mountains.

...and to everyone reading this far...

While napping in the meadow just below Mr. Marmot's den, I accidentally left a men's XL North Face shirt with orange and black checks behind [see photograph below]. It was only $4 at Value Village, but I'd grown attached to it. I will happily pay a booty bounty to anyone who can reunite me with it. 12-pack of tasty microbrew sound about right?



- posted by cjb @ 6:15 PM