Neil
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- Apr 26, 2004
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What’s better than a day in the Dacks? A long day in the Dacks.
After exchanging greetings and well wishes with AlG at the Allen TH at 5:30 Glen (Grasshopper), Alistair, Tom (Randomscooter) and myself got underway at 6 from Upper Works and were soon crossing Henderson Lake. It was dark but the moon cast a faint glow from behind a veil of clouds. Out on the lake the wind had a bight to it and, wasting no time, we crunched over to the protection of the shore. Nessmuk, Prino and I had been in there 2 months previously in an attempt to climb Henderson that saw us turn around after a meagre 1000 feet of elevation gain. On today’s attempt I was the one who was supposed to have the mountain wired (what pressure!) so I led the way and succeeded in leading us right past the correct fork in the stream. I figured that out while following the human grasshopper and checking the gps. I think the route was nicer anyway and we quickly got back on track.
Ascending the drainage turned out to be one of the nicest hikes any of us could remember having done for a while. Beautiful ice clad cliffs on our right and broad open corridors that seemed to carry us upwards made for some rapid and pleasant elevation gain. Instead of following our intended route we went with what was most enjoyable and came out to extensive blowdown fields from which we got views and more views. We also got our bearings, made a 90 degree turn and headed for the summit. The weather was cold, sunny and windy, we could feel the temperature dropping all day long in fact. The snow was wedding cake white and we crossed blowdown field after blowdown field. Tom can smell ‘em, I’m sure. After a brief stay on top I began to shiver. Tom went back down to Henderson Lake and he’ll fill us in on what he found as he descended our intended ascent route. The rest of us went down to Bradley Pond and after a fairly easy upper half the lower half was pretty thick. It didn’t seem to matter how we detoured around, we always ended up bent over and pushing branches out of our faces. We came out right at the Lean-to (at 9:30) and found 3 guys getting organized to go for their hike. (It seems that winter camping doesn’t lead to early starts. Hell, we’d already done one mountain and had headed off to do another one while they were still getting going.)
At the cliffs beyond Bradley Pond we stopped in the bright sunshine and Glen fired up his stove and made hot water. The 30 minute break was nice and marked the end of part one of our day.
The trip up Panther Brook was nothing special other than the lovely sunshine on the fresh snow. We “broke” trail through 2 inches of new fluff and just beyond Times Square savoured the views of Mighty Santa, Panther and Couchie. Looking back onto Henderson was pretty cool.
On our way to Santa we lost the herd path and did some more bushwhacking for half a klick before picking it up again. The final approach across the false summit ridge was a rare and special treat. It was cold and windy but the sun and new snow were particularly beautiful. Glen and I donned warm clothing, goggles and face masks just before the ridge but the masks and goggles were not really needed.
From the summit to times square we decided to stay on the herd path instead of following our tracks and we lost and found it about 10 times. We brushed out our bushwhack path so hopefully no one will take that route.
Panther was next so we dropped packs at so-called Herald Square and beat it up and down. No views beyond Couchie. Our final objective was Couchie and…..
you guessed it. It was now 3 PM and we felt like we’d done enough so we hiked out to the Santanoni TH at 5:30.
All in all this was one bear of a great day. Combining one of the lower 54 with a 46er on the same hike was pretty nifty, especially with the lake approach to Henderson.Pictures.
After exchanging greetings and well wishes with AlG at the Allen TH at 5:30 Glen (Grasshopper), Alistair, Tom (Randomscooter) and myself got underway at 6 from Upper Works and were soon crossing Henderson Lake. It was dark but the moon cast a faint glow from behind a veil of clouds. Out on the lake the wind had a bight to it and, wasting no time, we crunched over to the protection of the shore. Nessmuk, Prino and I had been in there 2 months previously in an attempt to climb Henderson that saw us turn around after a meagre 1000 feet of elevation gain. On today’s attempt I was the one who was supposed to have the mountain wired (what pressure!) so I led the way and succeeded in leading us right past the correct fork in the stream. I figured that out while following the human grasshopper and checking the gps. I think the route was nicer anyway and we quickly got back on track.
Ascending the drainage turned out to be one of the nicest hikes any of us could remember having done for a while. Beautiful ice clad cliffs on our right and broad open corridors that seemed to carry us upwards made for some rapid and pleasant elevation gain. Instead of following our intended route we went with what was most enjoyable and came out to extensive blowdown fields from which we got views and more views. We also got our bearings, made a 90 degree turn and headed for the summit. The weather was cold, sunny and windy, we could feel the temperature dropping all day long in fact. The snow was wedding cake white and we crossed blowdown field after blowdown field. Tom can smell ‘em, I’m sure. After a brief stay on top I began to shiver. Tom went back down to Henderson Lake and he’ll fill us in on what he found as he descended our intended ascent route. The rest of us went down to Bradley Pond and after a fairly easy upper half the lower half was pretty thick. It didn’t seem to matter how we detoured around, we always ended up bent over and pushing branches out of our faces. We came out right at the Lean-to (at 9:30) and found 3 guys getting organized to go for their hike. (It seems that winter camping doesn’t lead to early starts. Hell, we’d already done one mountain and had headed off to do another one while they were still getting going.)
At the cliffs beyond Bradley Pond we stopped in the bright sunshine and Glen fired up his stove and made hot water. The 30 minute break was nice and marked the end of part one of our day.
The trip up Panther Brook was nothing special other than the lovely sunshine on the fresh snow. We “broke” trail through 2 inches of new fluff and just beyond Times Square savoured the views of Mighty Santa, Panther and Couchie. Looking back onto Henderson was pretty cool.
On our way to Santa we lost the herd path and did some more bushwhacking for half a klick before picking it up again. The final approach across the false summit ridge was a rare and special treat. It was cold and windy but the sun and new snow were particularly beautiful. Glen and I donned warm clothing, goggles and face masks just before the ridge but the masks and goggles were not really needed.
From the summit to times square we decided to stay on the herd path instead of following our tracks and we lost and found it about 10 times. We brushed out our bushwhack path so hopefully no one will take that route.
Panther was next so we dropped packs at so-called Herald Square and beat it up and down. No views beyond Couchie. Our final objective was Couchie and…..
you guessed it. It was now 3 PM and we felt like we’d done enough so we hiked out to the Santanoni TH at 5:30.
All in all this was one bear of a great day. Combining one of the lower 54 with a 46er on the same hike was pretty nifty, especially with the lake approach to Henderson.Pictures.
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It was good to see you and Alistair again. Thanks for breaking the trail to Santa; I'll be up there next week (what, no spruce traps?!). 
