Capturing the Art of Nature
Agassiz and Woodside
Quick hiking was needed to complete two summits on a single day.
Category
Serendipitous Discoveries
Summits on the Air
2016
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Qualms one may have had about doing multiple summits in one day were put to rest early on as we set off for our adventure. We had picked three summits that had short hikes with the last expected to be a drive up to the summit with a short walk. Mt. Agassiz was to be our first summit for the day. It was the longest of the hikes and one we had done before. Next would be Mt. Woodside followed by McKee Peak. From each we would operate our radios to active the summit in the Summits on the air (SOTA) program. We were looking forward to bagging all three and getting a first activation for McKee.
We left the house shortly after 8am and were soon racing along Lougheed Highway in the wake of a truck carrying a tractor. It was moving at a fair clip so we weren’t tempted to pass it. We did finally get past the truck as we started up the section on Mt. Woodside where the road gained a lane for the climb. No sooner had we passed him then we turned off onto the forestry road. A quick stop to lock in the 4x4 mode and we were off for the ridgeline. My next concern was whether the gate we encountered last time would be open or locked. So as each kilometer ticked by and the road continued to look heavily used by forestry vehicles I got more and more certain we may have an issue. But we soon reached a broad area on the far side of the gate and having not seen it I surmised that it had been removed! So nice for a change. We continued on, passing some active logging areas and soon we were parking in the old spot we used last time.
We soon had our gear on and picking our way along the forest floor following the track on the gps I made on our previous hike. It helped keep us heading in the right direction. As we got closer to the summit I noticed a faint trail with the occasional flag. It seems that the summit is starting to get a bit of interest though the path is very slight at this point. We followed it in a few places. I wasn’t sure where it comes out on the road as the flagging wasn’t heading to our starting point. We made the summit in decent time though we were a bit behind schedule. We had both forgotten just how steep this hike was in places, fortunately it was under a kilometer in length. We passed by the summit for the open viewpoint a short distance away. It is a bare spot above a steep cliff face and offers a lovely view of the Fraser Valley. After peeling off our packs, Ralph and I started setting up our antennas. I had my simple 2m yagi on the air soon and started calling out for contacts. Ralph soon was making CW (Morse code) contacts across the continent. I eventually managed 4 but it was a bit of a struggle. But 4 is all I needed and soon Ralph had more than enough in his log and we were packing up the gear for the slog back to the truck.
The return went without incident though we veered off trail in a few places but before too long we were back to the truck and taking a good rest while we ate some lunch and contemplated why we were doing this. Well, all is fine if we were done but now we had to set off for Woodside. We back tracked several kilometers along the road to the fork that leads to the decommissioned Telus repeater near the summit of Woodside. Now this spur was little travelled and quite rough and the trees were encroaching on the road. We had to pull in our mirrors and remove the truck antennas to get through. After pushing aside numerous trees we reached the old repeater building and there we found a spot to park. The old building was in poor shape as the roof was peeling away, the old tower was still standing tall but most of the equipment was missing. We got our gear on and looked at our GPS’s to determine the way to the summit and then pushed through some thick tree branches to start the journey to the summit.
Our first direction soon was stopped by a steep drop over a rock face, we made our way along it and found a section with a gradual drop to the ravine below. There we were faced with another steep climb up the far side. After crawling under a fallen tree we picked a spot to climb the slope and soon were on the ridge above. Looking towards the summit we saw another rock face! We walked closer to it and found a way to get over it which didn’t tax our abilities too much. This left us on the summit ridge. It was a nice wide section occupied by a new small replacement repeater. This one was powered by a pair of solar panels.
Walking past the repeater I found a nice spot with a view of the Harrison River and the Fraser valley. Here I set up my Yagi and put out a few calls. Ralph meanwhile was having a few more problems. There were no tall trees for him to use. Eventually the pole he carried up served as a center mast and the two wires stretched out from it, one to a tree the other to a shrub. He was now on the air. And by the end of our short stay he had logged 21 contacts. A new best for him on a summit. The furthest contacts were in Quebec and Florida.
Done with activating the second summit we packed up the gear and started down the first rock face, over the ridge and down the steep slope to the waiting tree which we crawled under a second time. Then it was up the slope and through thick branches to arrive at the truck. A second summit successfully activated. We took a few moments to rest and then we went and explored the old repeater building before starting back down the road. It was after 4pm and I had learned that the third peak wouldn’t be an easy drive-to as a gate blocked access. The gate was around 1.5km below the summit and we were tired and not at all interested in a long hike even if it was along a road. So we decided to call it a day and we set off for home. It was a fun adventure and we both enjoyed the chance to get two more summits activated this year. We will save the third one for later in the season