Beattie Peaks

June 10 and 11

There are many firsts recorded in history. The first person to the south pole, the first person to ascend Everest, and so on. But few of us will ever get to be first at anything or even associate with someone who has. As it turns out this is not true for me.

The last time Jim had visited the Beattie Peaks was in 1986. When he did he followed a trail that he had cut with the help of a couple of volunteers and some Boy Scouts. In fact the purpose of our trip to this area was to determine if that trail still exists.

In the fall of 1982 Jim took on the task of clearing a trail so that he and his sons and some Boy Scouts could hike up the mountain to the peaks. So he recruited the assistance of a couple of guys and some Boy Scouts. With chainsaws logs and trees were cleared away to make a trail.

On Wednesday June 10, 2009 we found a trail marked with survey ribbon. This trail was clearly on an old cut line. It is straight for about 400 metres and then makes an abrupt turn to the south. At this point Jim was not sure that the trail that we were following was the same as the one that he had scouted decades before. But once we made the turn we began to see old tree cuts. By the time we had hiked the next 3.2 km Jim was convinced that the existing trail did follow his old trail from the cut line on. An observation that he made was when they first cut the trail there was no visible wear on the surface of the ground. Now there is a clear indentation where the foot traffic has wore a path into the forest floor. An indication that many pairs of feet have since traveled this trail.

Our hike was about 3.2 km with a maximum elevation of 4384 ft. Our total ascent was 1544 ft. We camped beside a small pond designated as 'Dry Lake' on the map in the forestry tower further up the trail. Our camp was at 4324 ft.

When Jim organized that work party to clear a path into the Beattie Peaks little did he know that decades later the same trail would still be in use on a regular basis. Certainly to the world at large this is a small first but still it is a first and it was such a pleasant experience to walk that trail.

The next day, Thursday, we continued our hike up the mountain. We had only hiked about 3/4 of a hour when the trail came onto the more open subalpine area. There is now a forestry fire watch tower that had not been there when Jim last hiked the mountain. By the log in the forestry tower the trail gets regular use. From the log it appears that we were the first to hike that trail this year. We were pushing the season a bit as we had to traverse a significant amount of packed snow. There were lots of subapline and alpine flowers to observe and we even got a glimpse of a Ptarmigan. We also came across a nice set of antlers that some caribou had shed. We hiked until 2 pm and then decided to return to camp without reaching the first peak. Our total hike that day was 14.8 km and it took us about 9 and 1/2 hours in total. Maximum elevation was 6016 ft. Our total ascent was 3119 ft.

The next day, Friday, we hiked the 3 km back to the vehicle.