Capturing the Art of Nature
Mamquam Again
We gave the weather 6 weeks to melt the snow that blocked us in April and now we were ready to try again. Though we were still blocked by snow we did get to the small waterfall I wanted to revisit.
Category
Serendipitous Discoveries
2013
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I find the upper Mamquam valley an intriguing place to explore. The shape of the valley gives it a very lush and secluded feel to it and even though it seems so distant it is actually not that far off the pavement. It was for this reason I wanted to revisit the far end of the river system and rekindle my feel for the area. So Ethan and I set off for the valley at our usual time, early enough to have most of the good light in the hills but not early enough to require serious dedication. We made good time and soon were starting up the Mamquam FSR
The last time we came the road frequency was in constant use and so this trip I felt we should call out our locations as a proper courtesy to the others. There were a few other drivers on the road further up and we were able to monitor their progress to the power project. We made no stops along the road and we were soon beside the staging area for the project. I noticed that the lines were now strung on the towers we drove along last trip. Otherwise things looked as they had earlier.
We quickly passed the project and continued along the now much less travelled FSR. The road seemed in better condition than last trip, I guess the trees had greened up and gotten a bit more upright as they regained their strength. Soon we passed the furthest point of our previous trip with no snow in sight and so we continued along at a good clip. Eventually we came up to a group of campers whose vehicles were blocking our way. They mentioned that there was snow blocking access not much further along but we decided to continue in and see what we could.
It was a good thing we went on as the road was clear for quite some distance and we made to it a small pond and waterfall I had enjoyed the first time I was here. We stopped and gathered photos before continuing up the road. Not all that much further we did come to the snow and so we reluctantly turned back. We had passed two side roads in coming this far and so I felt we should give them a go. The first started down the south side of the upper Mamquam River. We didn’t go too far in as the road was getting quite overgrown and I didn’t feel like pushing it as the next side road gained some elevation and I quite enjoyed the views from it. So we returned to the mainline and drove to the next branch.
We started making some good elevation gain on the north side of the upper Mamquam. It being a south facing slope the snow was melted up to the 1130 meter point. But then we did get stopped by the snow and still short of the section I was hoping to see. I guess I will just need to come again quite soon. We backtracked down a few curves and started along another branch. This one maintained a rather level track up the valley. We soon came by a monument to a lost hiker who it would seem had been lost up here and his body never found. We drove a bit past the marker but soon came by snow and so we returned to the monument and there we ate some lunch.
Done with eating and enjoying the view of the valley, we back-tracked to the mainline and started on our way out. When we arrived at the camp spot, the atv’s and occupants were missing. They must have passed us while we were up the slope eating lunch. Further back to the start there was another fork which I hoped to explore as a possible alternate way out. So we continued on our way along the new road but soon we were driving through thick brush and I was not at all hopeful that this road would allow us to pass through. Sure enough it closed in some more and we eventually snapped off the whip on our commercial radio’s antenna! We stopped to fix that and once back to almost normal we decided to give up on this side road. It seems that we had finished viewing the accessible side roads and so we started on our way out. I wanted to check out the Stawamus/Indian valley to see if it was indeed blocked and so when we arrived at that fork we set off for the distance.
We made it within a kilometer of where there had been a strong fence stopping further access. That was annoying as we had got so close but neither of us felt like walking in and so we settled for a few photos of the tad-pole pond before we left for the highway. I guess I will just need to try it again mid-way through the summer.