There are reasons why you might want to do a trip mid-week. Roads might be less crowded. Huts might be less crowded. Hot springs might be less crowded.
Carla missed the previous trip to Snowspider Cabin, but she read the trip report https://www.ubc-voc.com/2017/10/16/snowspider-hut-via-twin-one-fsr and told me to take her there. Unfortunately my most recent trips past Twin One Creek FSR indicated that the road had been deactivated with impassable ditches across it, so we weren’t going to be able to drive the 11 kms that we did on the previous trip. The revised plan was: Tuesday, park at the ditch, then carry our tent and two nights food up to the end of the road. Wednesday, leave the tent, use the GPS to bushwhack 3 kms to the hut. Spend the night at the hut. Thursday, go home.
We had to revise the plan because the cool weather did not arrive as predicted, so we moved the trip to Wed-Thu-Fri. We set off Wed morning. When we got to the start of the FSR we found to our delight that there were two huge digger machines parked there, and the impassable ditches were filled in. We drove 8 km up the road, where we were stopped by washouts. We left the tent and half the food in the Jeep and walked 3 km to where we had parked on the previous trip, and started bushwhacking. We followed our GPS track from the previous trip, but somehow the slide alder in the middle portion of the trip had become much nastier, and we were at the point of giving up and going home when we got to the upper meadows and everything became easy. It took us 5 hours to cover 3 kms. From the hut, Mt Snowspider looked very impressive.
We spent the night killing mosquitoes; an infinite supply of them arrived from somewhere, and it was mostly too hot to get into our sleeping bags. I got about 2 hours of sleep, and then it was time to retrace our route back through the green hell. Our return path was a bit easier, mostly because it was cooler, and we were going downhill. Back at the car, we realized that we were a day ahead of ourselves and we had all sorts of food, tents, etc, so what to do? Go to Skookumchuk Hot Spring! We arrived there around 2pm and spent a few hours catching up on sleep while waiting for it to get cooler, then into the pools. A Brazilian-Australian couple with a dog named Fred invited us to dinner but we decided to eat our left-over food instead. Then to bed. Despite it being the start of a long weekend, the campsite wasn’t very full, perhaps because no campfires were allowed.
Friday morning, after an excellent night’s sleep, we hit the pools with our coffee around 5 am and had them all to ourselves. The ride home was mostly uneventful; we had breakfast at Pemberton Mcdonalds, and we were back home by noon.
Conclusions: Too bushy, but GPS navigation is fun. Might try next time via Van Horlick FSR, just to see what’s up there.
THE SPIDERY HUT
You have read Roland’s version of our trip. Here is mine:
I thought things worked out rather well. We slipped our long weekend just ahead of the real one, cunningly avoiding the swarms of long weekend warriors. We tried to fit ourselves between the hot weather and the ‘showery’ weather. We packed light and wore the appropriate footwear, especially important for me on two creek crossings.
As Roland said, we were planning on hiking up the Twin One FSR but hoping that we wouldn’t have to. We lucked out – they filled in the impassable ditches at the start of the road. In fact, the earth moving machinery was even resting at the roadside ready for more work higher up.
Roland was able to drive the Jeep quite a ways up the road, which was pretty sweet. Roland’s sister claims that our Jeep leads a much more exciting life than hers because ours goes on so many VOC adventures. The road contained a surprising abundance of bear poop. It often came in two sizes: a large pile with a darling little pile next to it.
We trudged up the road and came to the point of departure from road to woods. Armed with a GPS, which was glued to Roland’s hand, we headed off into the wilderness. With Roland constantly monitoring the GPS, keeping us on his previous route, we worked our way through some nice forest and meadow but also fought our way through some God awful country full of really nasty slide alder. Finally made it to the hut.
The hut is special. There is a huge Canadian flag on a pole just outside the front door. The Snowspider hut is solidly built out of real logs, and so as not to violate the integrity of the logs the front door is hobbit-like with a wide gap at the bottom; the perfect runway for mosquitoes in, but not out, of the hut. The heater looked home made and is quite cute. Lots of firewood stacked up around the hut and a good supply inside waiting to be called into action when the weather turns. The hut is well endowed with wineglasses, coffee pot, mugs, pots, woks, dishes, carving knives, sunscreen, massage oil, pull out cutting board, three burner propane stove, sink, buckets, foamies, extra clothes, etc. Personally, I like to get away from the kitchen drudgery but if someone else wants to slave over a hot burner and clean up afterwards, I will not complain. It might even be a great venue for an Iron Chef event.
The hut is pretty solid. It held the heat of the day all night. Good views from the windows but no screens on them so opening the window was not advisable. Too many mosquitoes around.
Much easier hike out the next day. We tried to outsmart the slide alder and the creek crossings. For the most part we were fairly successful. When we got home, found out that you can 2WD up the Van Horlick FSR to within a kilometre of fairly easy hiking to the hut. May have to check that out sometime.
I found it way more interesting to try to figure out a good route rather than just following a trail. Visiting a hut that has been at the back of my mind for many years and then hitting the hot springs to finish off the ‘long weekend’ was good.
Nice to read your version Carla!