Scrambling Near Semaphore Lakes (plus some tangents)

I went on a little overnight trip to the Semaphore Lakes area this past weekend.

The first interesting moment of the trip happened before I even got to the trailhead. A ways up the Hurley FSR, I saw a small magenta and green car driving in the opposite direction. At first I thought it was somebody with ugly color tastes, but as it drove past I saw that it was a vehicle from one of those traveling maid services. Specifically, Life Maid Easy. This encounter was bamboozling and I spent the rest of the drive to the trailhead wondering what the heck some maids were doing out there. If someone has a plausible or humorous explanation for this, drop it in the comments.

The maids in my rearview

There were no signs for the trailhead but it was obvious I had arrived because there were a ton of vehicles parked there. I found a space and faffed minimally. Most of the faffing was spent making a homemade Toby’s sandwich for lunch on my rear bumper. Toby’s is one of those very specific regional food products that you have never heard of unless you grew up within the small geographic radius where it is sold in grocery stores. Toby’s is a sort of hippie condiment that originated fittingly in Oregon, where I grew up. It’s a tofu based dip/spread that is said to resemble  egg salad. I don’t like egg salad but I think Toby’s is delicious, and I’ve been eating a lot of a bootlegged version of it lately. The reason for this is that for the past few months I have been puzzled and frustrated by suddenly having to take a shit pretty much every time I have gone running. After one too many mid run detours to outhouses in Pacific Spirit Park I decided to talk to a doctor and figure out what was going on. The doctor said I should try cutting back on fiber, specifically on the amount of oatmeal I eat (which is a lot). Since I eat oatmeal for breakfast six out of seven days a week, and also not infrequently for lunch and/or dinner, I had to find some substitutes for a substantial part of my diet, and figured maybe I would try to make some Toby’s since it is delicious and healthy and versatile. I found this recipe on the internet, which is a dead ringer for the real thing. I highly recommend trying it.

Anyway. I dispatched the Toby’s sandwich and then I dispatched the short but steep trail up to Semaphore Lakes. Finding a perfect camping spot on a little gravel hill on the shore of the third lake, I set up my tent, filled my day pack with a book and water and some snacks, and rambled up the little ridge/hill east of the lakes. There was a nice view and a breeze, so I spent the rest of the afternoon reading on some slabs. By the time I moseyed back down later in the afternoon, the day trippers had all cleared out. Before eating dinner, I rambled over to the big waterfall that spills down the cliffs west of the lakes. This wasn’t some diddly little babbling brook–the thing was really gushing. I hiked up next to the creek below the waterfall looking for places to cross, but there weren’t any obvious spots. Even where the channel was braided, the braids were too big to step or jump over and the water was really moving fast, so stepping in would be treacherous. But I was content to just hike next to it and watch all that water surging down. It blows my mind that despite the creek flowing so high, the glaciers above were still massive and not all melted.

Dinner was ramen, and then it was time for bed. Sometime during the night I started hearing plop plop plop in my dream, and I woke up to throw the fly on the tent. I don’t think the rain lasted very long because the fly was dry when I woke up a little before 6 in the morning. There was a bunch of mist flowing through the basin and it made for gorgeous and serene breakfast views. I left camp a little after 7:15 to go scramble Locomotive Mountain, the peak farthest to the left viewed from the lakes. Hiking alone through the mist and first gentle rays of sun as I left behind the heather and scrappy trees and entered the alpine was ethereal. Since somebody has been hoarding the clubroom copy of the Gunn Scrambles book, I wasn’t able to check it out to get a description of the route, but it wasn’t necessary, there were cairns everywhere. There were only a couple sections of easy scrambling up a few benches on the way to attain the shoulder of the peak, and you could hike all the way up from there on a steep and dusty trail (I opted to scoot up the adjacent low angle slabs, because that was way more fun). I was on the summit a few minutes before 9am, and I had all the spectacular views to myself.

Viewz from Locomotive, looking northish

View down to the Lillooet River

Dropping off the other side of the peak, I followed the ridge that connects the five peaks making a horseshoe around the Semaphore Lakes Basin: Locomotive, Tender, Caboose, Faceless, and Face. There’s a loop connecting them all that I had read about while planning for the trip, but I decided that was not in the cards this time. While it doesn’t get more technical than Class 3 scrambling, my risk tolerance is much lower when I’m solo. I also knew there could be some route finding challenges around Faceless and Face Mountains in order to not accidentally end up on spicier terrain, and at the end I would also have to cross the huge creek I had checked out the day before. Even if I attempted the loop on this trip and nothing bad happened, I knew I would be stressed out the whole time about something bad potentially happening, and I don’t go to the mountains to be stressed. I shelved the full traverse this time, but it was good to check out the first chunk of the route and get an idea of my pacing for a future trip.

The cairns disappeared past the summit of Locomotive, but route finding was straightforward as I traveled down to the saddle between Locomotive and Tender, and up and over Tender to the saddle between Tender and Caboose. I was planning to climb Caboose before turning around but there were some clouds moving in between the peaks and I didn’t want to lose visibility. So it was back up and over Tender. Somewhere on the other side of Tender I ran into a flock of ptarmigan and chilled out watching them for a bit. Then up and over Locomotive once again. All the way down Locomotive there were intermittent clouds but with the cairns and simple terrain I wasn’t afraid of getting off track. At one point the trail passed between a pair of beautiful lakes that I made a note of as potential swimming destinations on the way up. This happily coincided with a break in the clouds and I took a refreshing dip.

Ptamigan buds

The lake where I went swimming (picture taken in the morning on the ascent)

Before too long I was back at camp. I lazed around reading for a little while longer, then packed up and hit the trail, arriving back at the trailhead around 4. I was disappointed to not see any out-of-place vehicles on the way down the Hurley but I had a good time regardless as I zoomed down listening to Counting Crows’ Flying Demos.