Neil
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- Apr 26, 2004
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Well, what a pleasant surprise these two mountains turned out to be.
It was a calm, foggy and rainy morning. Motabobo, Julie (Timmus)and I got underway at 7:45. There wasn’t a ripple on King’s Flow and clouds hung suspended on the mountain sides. We put snowshoes on right away but after about 20 minutes there was no more snow so off they came. Motabobo was in charge of navigation and he did an excellent job. (I know because I kept checking my map and compass just to make sure
) It took about an hour to reach our stepping off point and the crossing of Puffer Pond Brook was fairly easy. The woods were open and, today, very wet. In fact, it rained all day long, never stopping, not even for 5 minutes.
By about 2500 feet there was enough snow to put our snowshoes back on. We barely sank into except for in a few places and there we really sank in – up to a foot often and occasionally we went really deep if there was hidden blowdown or flowing water. It remained open pretty well the entire way. The occasional thicket was easily circumvented.
The topography led us up to a gentle ridge that runs north-south and from there we turned SE for the final couple of hundred yards to the summit which is a broad and open area. From there we headed down directly to the west end of Puffer Pond and that route was steep and quick at first and soon became less steep and much quicker. The snow line was lower down on this part of the mountain and we removed our snowshoes nearer to the brook. The raindrops on the Pond’s surface made us realized that it was raining harder than we thought.
There is a nice new Lean-to at Puffer pond and we were glad to sit out of the rain and have some lunch before heading up the trail a kilometre NNW to a height of land. From there we proceeded ENE up a gentle ridge and again put the snowshoes on. It was quite open although there was more blowdown and dead branches on the ground. We only plowed through one short thick section and the rest of the very pretty route was open. Nevertheless, all three of us were soaking wet from head to toe. I was wearing vapour barrier liner socks and the water trickled down my legs and seeped into them through the tops.
We arrived at the south end of the summit ridge and had a very enjoyable walk along it to the top. It was a very rugged place and the east side dropped off quite precipitously. Too bad we had no views.
It was 2:45 and we briefly discussed doing Bullhead North but I wanted to get back home in time for a good night’s sleep after having woken up at 2:30 the night before. We backtracked along our snowshoe trail until we arrived at the spot where we had put on our snowshoes and by following a north facing slope were able to keep them on for a lot more elevation loss. This was at the expense of having to make a hard left turn and side slope lower down in order to arrive at a 3-way trail junction. (Puffer Pond, Kings Flow, John Pond) From the junction it was a slow and soggy business hiking out along a very wet trail. We got back to the car at 5:15, 9 ½ hours after heading out.
Doing a hike like this alone in the rain would have been a dismal affair but with the excellent company of Julie and Motabobo (AKA Jean-Sebastien) it was good fun with lots of laughs and joking around.
It was a calm, foggy and rainy morning. Motabobo, Julie (Timmus)and I got underway at 7:45. There wasn’t a ripple on King’s Flow and clouds hung suspended on the mountain sides. We put snowshoes on right away but after about 20 minutes there was no more snow so off they came. Motabobo was in charge of navigation and he did an excellent job. (I know because I kept checking my map and compass just to make sure
) It took about an hour to reach our stepping off point and the crossing of Puffer Pond Brook was fairly easy. The woods were open and, today, very wet. In fact, it rained all day long, never stopping, not even for 5 minutes.By about 2500 feet there was enough snow to put our snowshoes back on. We barely sank into except for in a few places and there we really sank in – up to a foot often and occasionally we went really deep if there was hidden blowdown or flowing water. It remained open pretty well the entire way. The occasional thicket was easily circumvented.
The topography led us up to a gentle ridge that runs north-south and from there we turned SE for the final couple of hundred yards to the summit which is a broad and open area. From there we headed down directly to the west end of Puffer Pond and that route was steep and quick at first and soon became less steep and much quicker. The snow line was lower down on this part of the mountain and we removed our snowshoes nearer to the brook. The raindrops on the Pond’s surface made us realized that it was raining harder than we thought.
There is a nice new Lean-to at Puffer pond and we were glad to sit out of the rain and have some lunch before heading up the trail a kilometre NNW to a height of land. From there we proceeded ENE up a gentle ridge and again put the snowshoes on. It was quite open although there was more blowdown and dead branches on the ground. We only plowed through one short thick section and the rest of the very pretty route was open. Nevertheless, all three of us were soaking wet from head to toe. I was wearing vapour barrier liner socks and the water trickled down my legs and seeped into them through the tops.
We arrived at the south end of the summit ridge and had a very enjoyable walk along it to the top. It was a very rugged place and the east side dropped off quite precipitously. Too bad we had no views.
It was 2:45 and we briefly discussed doing Bullhead North but I wanted to get back home in time for a good night’s sleep after having woken up at 2:30 the night before. We backtracked along our snowshoe trail until we arrived at the spot where we had put on our snowshoes and by following a north facing slope were able to keep them on for a lot more elevation loss. This was at the expense of having to make a hard left turn and side slope lower down in order to arrive at a 3-way trail junction. (Puffer Pond, Kings Flow, John Pond) From the junction it was a slow and soggy business hiking out along a very wet trail. We got back to the car at 5:15, 9 ½ hours after heading out.
Doing a hike like this alone in the rain would have been a dismal affair but with the excellent company of Julie and Motabobo (AKA Jean-Sebastien) it was good fun with lots of laughs and joking around.
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