Anodyne: “Howe Sound Two-Fer” (Double ascent of Mount Brunswick, Mount Harvey)

Sunday, July 23, 2006

“Howe Sound Two-Fer” (Double ascent of Mount Brunswick, Mount Harvey)
Trip report posted to clubtread.com
20 July 2006
Participants: [clubtread members] Alex Best, cjb, PiB, Q, [honorary mascot] Rose T. Cat

Bored with repetitively climbing Grouse Mountain from sea level, I posted an ascent of Mount Harvey from sea level, and quickly assembled a team of fit overachievers who proposed to scrub the boring “paved suburban hill” portion of the trip, substituting an ambitious plot to knock off two major Howe Sound summits within a few hours of one other. Plus, [clubtread members] mazegirl and her pals had just completed a variation of this route, and the JPEGs and GPS track in their trip report looked really tasty. So the two-summit plan was a go.

Obstacle one was negotiating the West End’s maze of parking restrictions and one-way streets to collect PiB. Obstacle two was a lack of transmission fluid in cjb’s rickety Subaru Legacy, and the funny burning smell eddying out from under the hood. Then there was the equally funny smell eddying out from Alex’s pockets….We negotiated the Cap Road interchange with the Upper Levels, and trundled off to the Lions Trail parking lot in upper Lions Bay.Twenty minutes of hiking up the steep approach road got us to a fork in the trail, where we promptly took a wrong turn and headed up above Magnesia Creek to a huge locked gate. Bzzt! Back down the hill and up the right road, signed, we now notice, with a huge (4’ long) arrow made of rocks.

More switchbacks on the logging road. It’s hot in the trees. We take another fork, cross Magnesia Creek, and begin to switchback steadily up the slopes of Brunswick Mountain through an old clearcut choked with alder. At a viewpoint above the clearcut we stop to introduce ourselves to the local bugs. Suntan lotion is applied. Pic’n’mix is consumed. Alex pulls cloves of raw garlic from his pockets and rubs them all over his exposed skin, as a “scientific experiment” in bug avoidance.

The well-marked trail now streaks directly up the side of Mount Brunswick through a fragrant old-growth forest. It’s hard to appreciate the forest’s beauty with sweat rolling steadily down into your eyes and a cloud of bugs around your head. We estimate the grade at “25% and a bit,” eg., vertical tree climbing. Soon the angle eases into a gorgeous old growth forest dappled with sunlight. Silvery trunks and cool green moss. Alex camcords the proceedings for posterity. As if on cue, the bugs present themselves for posterity, too.

We quickly reach a junction with the Howe Sound Crest Trail. Left for Hat Mountain, right for Magnesia Meadows. Straight up for Mount Brunswick. We suck up the grade and climb steeply out of the trees, up an endless scree ridge, and emerge on a saddle between the west peak and east ridge. Up the east ridge around snow remnants, rock fingers, pale blue mountain lupins and bugs. We scramble the narrow but solid ridge around the remains of a helipad, second-class a rocky step, and pop up onto the summit. Lunchtime! Picture time! Frustration with the new Government of Canada maps, which turn out to be poor quality print-on-demand specials, speckled with digital noise, whose contour lines run together in a big brown stew.

Honorary mascot Rose T. Cat is deployed for summit shots. More garlic, more pic’n’mix, more fruit gums. We debate a “direct” route down to Magnesia Meadows. Common sense overrules the more adventurous among us and we head down the same way we came, till we arrive back at the Howe Sound Crest Trail junction, and turn south, steadily contouring into Magnesia Meadows. This stretch of trail is virtually flat and magnificently scenic, traversing stretches of old growth forest and avalanche swathes, with views opening out to Howe Sound and Mount Harvey’s impressive north face. An hour or so later, which includes crossing some easy snowslopes, we reach the Magnesia Meadows shelter (a rickety red A-frame, open on both sides) and break for lunch at a little lake just south of the shelter. cjb rescues a drowning bee from the lake. PiB strikes Aphrodite poses on a rock out in the water. Alex decides to take a “refreshing dip,” but quickly hops out, confronted by glacial realities. And Q is endlessly amused by her charges.

Refreshed, we make out way to the base of Mount Harvey’s narrow NE ridge and 2nd and 3rd class it up to the summit. Lots of pulling on roots and scrubby trees for balance! The bugs, sensing our attention is properly focused elsewhere, zoom in for the kill. This fairly well-marked route, while not requiring a rope or technical rock climbing skills, is very steep; I would not want to descend it with a pack or in anything other than full daylight. It’s very similar to the descent off the North Needle: an “easy” ridge bracketed on either side by deeply sketchy terrain (bluffs, bushes concealing major drops, loose rock & etc.)

An hour or so on Mount Harvey’s summit, including more hero shots and a conversation with two guys who come charging up the NE ridge behind us, and then down the southern ridgeline through the forest of silvery deadfall just below the summit, followed by the extremely steep and painful descent to the logging road in Lions Bay. cjb’s bad left knee and battered toes have their own opinion of this descent, which leaves him 10-15 minutes behind everyone else. Slow but steady….

Down the logging road at twilight, back to the car at 9 sharp, for a 12-hour, two-summit day, total elevation gain of 1765m. Off to the Troller Pub in Horseshoe Bay for cold ones. A terrific group of people, great terrain, and super weather! No downside to this trip at all. Thanks, everyone!

- posted by cjb @ 10:26 AM

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