peak_bgr
New member
This is a long overdue TR that I promised to do. So I hope it was worth the wait. It was an excellent weekend staying in a warm-no wait sweltering cabin located on the East River Club. We are quite fortunate to know a very generous member of the club that opened up a weekend for us at the main cabin. After a nice hike along the access road of a couple miles we were offered a snowmobile ride to the interior to finish off our "hike". Everyone else had a normal ride in, facing forward, holding on. Me, NO, I was pulling a sled, the snowmobilers recommended I ride facing backwards holding onto the bars of the sled. REEEEALY bad idea. The issue was not knowing where the dips in the road are or the hills, or the bumps. I had a white knuckle death grip on the seat. Come to find out the guy said he can't drive the snowmobile to slow for to long or it overheats-lucky me.
I survived, didn't fall off and we were at the cabin which was already being heated by part of our group, which also shared the snowmobile experience earlier in the day. A couple people went off toward Allen that late morning, Brian H. and Tony. Tony came back early and Brian H. was MIA for a while. Of course so was Brian Y, he was suppose to be on the way in and now it was getting dark. How we do report this? Um, yes....we're missing a Brian and a Brian. No, to confusing. So we sent our snowmobile friends out to get them, both were eventually delivered to the cabin, safe and sound. It was now a two drink evening.
A bunch of us slept in the loft, window wide open, to cut the 110 degree heat to a balmy 100 degrees, we woke to a great breakfast and high hopes to a great route to North River Mountain. Brian and I thought we would have a little fun with Christine, so we decided to head off in the wrong direction along the wrong road to see if the would notice. We knew they would be watching, and sure enough she comes out hooting and hollering, wrong direction!! We kind of ignored the fact and continued around the corner and intersected the right route. 10 minutes later Christines right on our tail making sure we didn't get lost. Who us, we always find the top, we just sometimes tend to go off the wrong side of the mountain. Our route up was spectacular. We were on over 2 feet of hard base with only about 3 inches of powder, even I couldn't break through. I walked over spruces through them over 6 inch snow bridges with no issues what so ever. The woods were 95% open, the other 5% was sporadic and short that it didn't even matter. We followed drainage for a long section and kept jumping from small valley to small valley and from ridge line to ridge line. The summit is very small in winter, but being above the trees the views are amazing, could have been a little clearer but no complaints from this peanut gallery.
It was now time for Brian Y. and I to head over to Rist and check out a new peak. Actually the peak isn't new, it's been there for thousands of years-it was a new one for us to discover. We ran into some small issues-the open woods just below the summit was pushing us to far to the right so we ended up having to go back up hill a 100 feet or more to catch the ridge. The ridge is very thick going down off from NR and very, very steep but there was no way to avoid it. So we tucked our heads and pushed through. In the col it became as well call it, Indian Lake open. The woods are amazing we could have gotten to the summit of Rist from here without touching a tree, if we were so inclined. There are a few smaller bumps along the ridge which we avoided to the right and it was a mild climb. Just below Rist we were very surprised to see fresh bear tracks the size of my hand meandering all over the shoulder of Rist-never did see the bear. The summit is small, with no views, but just below the summit are a couple small ledges with outstanding views toward Boreas Pond.
We descended more toward the road below the cabin as a descent route we came out below the cabin in about two hours time through extremely open woods, and had a very easy walk along the road. No snowmobiles this time.
That night was food and drink and many stories-Maddi, Sean, Tony, and Christine played a little card and ladies cleaned house-not literally-I mean at cards. Sean and Christine did most all the cooking, I did most of eating as usual and everyone enjoyed a relaxing evening, before retiring to the sauna. Sunday was to be another hiking day for Brian and I, we planned on Allen, but fell short on ambition. So we packed up and headed out early satisfied by what we did over the weekend.
I survived, didn't fall off and we were at the cabin which was already being heated by part of our group, which also shared the snowmobile experience earlier in the day. A couple people went off toward Allen that late morning, Brian H. and Tony. Tony came back early and Brian H. was MIA for a while. Of course so was Brian Y, he was suppose to be on the way in and now it was getting dark. How we do report this? Um, yes....we're missing a Brian and a Brian. No, to confusing. So we sent our snowmobile friends out to get them, both were eventually delivered to the cabin, safe and sound. It was now a two drink evening.
A bunch of us slept in the loft, window wide open, to cut the 110 degree heat to a balmy 100 degrees, we woke to a great breakfast and high hopes to a great route to North River Mountain. Brian and I thought we would have a little fun with Christine, so we decided to head off in the wrong direction along the wrong road to see if the would notice. We knew they would be watching, and sure enough she comes out hooting and hollering, wrong direction!! We kind of ignored the fact and continued around the corner and intersected the right route. 10 minutes later Christines right on our tail making sure we didn't get lost. Who us, we always find the top, we just sometimes tend to go off the wrong side of the mountain. Our route up was spectacular. We were on over 2 feet of hard base with only about 3 inches of powder, even I couldn't break through. I walked over spruces through them over 6 inch snow bridges with no issues what so ever. The woods were 95% open, the other 5% was sporadic and short that it didn't even matter. We followed drainage for a long section and kept jumping from small valley to small valley and from ridge line to ridge line. The summit is very small in winter, but being above the trees the views are amazing, could have been a little clearer but no complaints from this peanut gallery.
It was now time for Brian Y. and I to head over to Rist and check out a new peak. Actually the peak isn't new, it's been there for thousands of years-it was a new one for us to discover. We ran into some small issues-the open woods just below the summit was pushing us to far to the right so we ended up having to go back up hill a 100 feet or more to catch the ridge. The ridge is very thick going down off from NR and very, very steep but there was no way to avoid it. So we tucked our heads and pushed through. In the col it became as well call it, Indian Lake open. The woods are amazing we could have gotten to the summit of Rist from here without touching a tree, if we were so inclined. There are a few smaller bumps along the ridge which we avoided to the right and it was a mild climb. Just below Rist we were very surprised to see fresh bear tracks the size of my hand meandering all over the shoulder of Rist-never did see the bear. The summit is small, with no views, but just below the summit are a couple small ledges with outstanding views toward Boreas Pond.
We descended more toward the road below the cabin as a descent route we came out below the cabin in about two hours time through extremely open woods, and had a very easy walk along the road. No snowmobiles this time.
That night was food and drink and many stories-Maddi, Sean, Tony, and Christine played a little card and ladies cleaned house-not literally-I mean at cards. Sean and Christine did most all the cooking, I did most of eating as usual and everyone enjoyed a relaxing evening, before retiring to the sauna. Sunday was to be another hiking day for Brian and I, we planned on Allen, but fell short on ambition. So we packed up and headed out early satisfied by what we did over the weekend.
