(Written by Giulia Attocchi) There is not more promising name for an excursion, isn’t it? And indeed it was a great trip!
14 dudes, gathered on august 3rd for a semi-beginner friendly hike. We started from the logging road, heading the Brandywine meadow. It was a fairly good warming up, crossing the forest and the wasps nest on the trail. As soon as we got above the tree line, the fog dissolved and we could appreciate the fantastic view over the glacier on Brandywine Mountain, and the Dusk on the other side of Whistler. We stopped at Brandywine meadow to wait for 4 people, who brought two cars at the end of our trail.
Once the group was re-composed, we started go up, really up, following cairns and marks up to the ridge of the mountain. Now I am running out of adjectives to describe the view, but the pictures tells much more.
From there on, the marks became quite loose, and therefore we navigated with map, GPS and compass. It went relatively good, until the point that we could actually see a thunderstorm coming, and we were just about to cross a quite steep snowfield…
Nobody really wanted to be up in the crest, plenty of metal equipment on us and thunders on the horizon. So we cross snow, where someone (myself included) decided to exercise involuntary self arrest with the ice axe, which, by all means, was great and speeded up the crossing.
We soon realized that we couldn’t make to the campsite planned, given the time, tiredness and weather. Luckily, the storm turned in the opposite direction, and we could see a triple/quadruple rainbow! Amazed by the view, and the flat terrain encountered, we decided to stay there for the night.
Sunday morning was promising, a long way to go to the Brew hut (which will be about 13 hours hike), but the sun is shining and no clouds in the horizon. Eventually, we arrived at the base of mount Fee, where the bravest took a bath at the feet of the glacier…brrr.
We are on the right track, but the way became quite sketchy and steep, so it took sometime before we reached the ridge.
Around the corner, we realized that it would have taken too long time to reach the ridge, hike all the way to the pass, and then up again to peak Keg. The decision to cross the valley was easily made, without knowing that we would do more bushwhacking (and not ambush – these 2 words can be easily mistaken by non-English native speakers like me) than actual walk.
Finally we passed the valley and started going up again, following not well defined marks, map and gps.
It quite late, and finally we could see the Brew hut! Yuppie!!! At least that was my reaction and big kick to walk a bit faster. From the point where we could see the hut and the hut, it was still up and down, not extremely easy after 2 intensive days!
But we made it, and it was absolutely rewarding to be up there, seen a beautiful sky not light polluted, with many shooting stars (or “suspicious” shooting starts, at least some people said “I think I have just seen one!”) and a lightening of a storm in the distance. Since it was an alcoholic traverse, there was alcohol, but that should not be in an official report.
The day after went smooth, easy downhill trail, with mosquitos company, they actually never abandoned us.
Overall a very nice first excursion with the VOC, a very good choice of the trail and good teamwork cooperation! A special thanks to Marie-Eve who organized it, and to the experienced members who led the way and helped the rest of the group.
Organizer: Marie-Eve Myrand-Lapierre
Participants: Marie-Eve Myrand-Lapierre, Ross Campbell, Ben Heaps, Cora Skaien, Sam Viavant, Amir Maleki Zamenjani, Magda Price, Sherry Gu, Levi Graham, Henry Bang, Babak mazhari, Lia Dengler, Daan van Stigt and Giulia Attocchi
This sounds and looks amazing!