1978 was a very good year. I was self-employed, and enjoyed the great luxury of being able to go climbing whenever I pleased. Translate “whenever” to mean “when it wasn’t raining”. In the Coast Range of British Columbia, rain is always a factor. I had bought a Gore-Tex rain suit, but as some of you old-timers may recall, first-generation Gore-Tex left much to be desired, so the smart move was to head into the hills when the weather was good. In any case, in 1976 I had set a personal goal of climbing at least two peaks a week, with a total vertical gain of 2,000 meters per week. By dint of hard work, I had been able to achieve that, and had done so again in 1977. As 1978 dawned, I wanted to keep up the vigorous pace, but really wanted to throw in something special, and it seemed that chasing mountains that appeared unclimbed would fill the bill.
In February of 1978, Ross Lillie and I had done something memorable, the first ascent of Robertson Peak. That trip had given us an enticing glimpse into the largely-ignored area drained by Tretheway Creek. Tempting, very tempting indeed. I couldn’t get it out of my head, and as the months rolled by I found myself making plans to get up close and personal with all that Tretheway offered. Once summer was well under way, it was time to make my move.
My sister Karen and her boyfriend Art kindly offered to give me a ride. We left the town of Mission on July 6th, a Thursday, at 6:30 PM. It was a long, slow drive of three hours on the logging road up the west side of Harrison Lake. They dropped me off with my fully-loaded backpack at the start of the old Coon Creek logging road, at about 900′ elevation, then turned around and started the long drive back home. I didn’t go far that evening, only climbing up to 1,200′ and stopping for the night. I carried no tent, electing instead to use a Gore-Tex bivi bag with my down sleeping bag. The weather was clear and the bugs were out for blood.
My goal was to climb up to the ridge and follow it, climbing peaks along the east side of Tretheway Creek and going as far as I could. I’d see how it went, and make decisions based on whatever I encountered. It felt good to be self-contained, moving through the high country with no timetable – I just wanted to enjoy every minute of it. The maps I was using had 100-foot contours, but at that time Canada was well into the process of converting to metric. For the purposes of this story, I’m using feet instead of meters.
Day 2, Friday
I slept in, so by the time I got moving it was already 6:30 AM. Following the old road, I just kept climbing higher. For the most part, it was decent going, but there were a few spots where it was badly overgrown and more trouble than it was worth. Finally, the road ended and I entered a nice, mature forest at 3,600′ where I stopped for a well-earned rest. Moving on, I kept gaining elevation until at 4,900′ I stopped on the ridge at noon for some lunch. It was hard not to appreciate the views, and I found my attention going back to the peaks I could see to the west and southwest across Tretheway Creek. They were beautiful, with so much land above treeline – I found myself figuring out possible routes through them. However, the ridge I was on also offered plenty of challenges – I just hadn’t come to them yet.
The maps I was using were the old 1:50,000-scale topo maps – they were lousy, but back then I didn’t know anything else. It’s amazing how many cliffs don’t show up with 100-foot contours, and those maps got a lot of climbers into trouble.
The first summit I encountered on the ridge was Peak 5700′, which I climbed by its south ridge. It was 2:05 PM, and it had taken me seven and a half hours of climbing to get there. Fortunately, the days were long and I could climb until late in the evening. I left a cairn and register, then dropped back down to the col to the south of Peak 5700′ where I dropped my pack. From there, I climbed up the north ridge of Peak 6000′, a 900-foot gain from the col. Once again, it appeared that no-one had been there before me, so I left another cairn and register.
I dropped back down to my pack and got organized to continue. My next goal was a peak that didn’t contour to 6,100′, but was definitely higher than the one I had just climbed. I traversed over to its northeast ridge, then climbed it with my full pack. It was hot, sweaty work but not too brushy; in fact, quite aesthetically pleasing with a few nice moves. By the time I reached the summit, it was 5:00 PM. I hung out on top for an hour. Based on my best guess, I think this one was somewhere between 6,080 and 6,090 feet in elevation. Another cairn and register, then I left. In the many years since I climbed this peak, I see that some maps now call it “Coon Peak”
I started down the south ridge, but hadn’t dropped a hundred feet when I came to a near-vertical step of some 80-odd feet. There was no way I could see to get down it, so I had to go back up to the top, then re-trace my steps down the northeast ridge. I finally reached a point where I could exit, and made my way over to a basin to the south. Water, at long last! It was disconcerting how little water I was finding while following the height-of-land.
By 7:30 PM, I found a good camp-site. I dropped my pack and blitzed up a ridge to a rocky needle, which turned out to be a false summit. So, I traversed an easy ridge to the south end. The true summit was a bit of a boulder problem, and I built a tiny cairn on top of Peak 5700′ at 8:00 PM. The day was getting on, so I didn’t stick around, instead re-tracing my steps to camp.
What a place! The nearby peaks towered above me. There were unbroken views to Mt. Breakenridge and the Lillooet Range to the north of it. Mount Urquhart was in plain view. I could also see south to Grainger Peak and the big peaks on the Bremner-Trio divide.
I felt I should be able to cover a lot of ground on the morrow – the terrain looked gentler and friendlier. One thing did concern me, though – some very suspicious clouds to the west. They looked ominous. The forecast had said the weather would be good, but I guess I’d have to wait and see. I was camped on a big flat rock, a windy open place. It was amazing how numerous the bugs were even up here, but for the moment the wind was keeping them away. It had been a good day – including the 300′ I had climbed last night, my total climbing for the day had been 7,500 vertical feet, with 8 miles covered.
Day 3, Saturday
What a drag! It had clouded over during the night, and the visibility at dawn was changing rapidly. One moment, things would open up and I could see a long way; moments later, clouds would close in and I couldn’t see squat. After waiting a good long while, I decided to continue, and left my campsite forever at 8:45 AM.
I contoured to the south around Peak 5700, then promptly got socked in. Finally, I made it to a col at 4,900′. Water was becoming more of a problem than I had anticipated, and I badly needed to replenish. There was water running, I could plainly hear it, but it turned out to be hundreds of feet below, at a lake. What I ended up doing was to hold my bottle under drips from snow banks, and that helped a lot. I wasn’t carrying a stove, having elected to travel light, but there was snow in abundance. It was all of noon by the time I made it to the top of the next one, another Peak 5700. Once I built a cairn and left a register, it socked in again. I waited for another break in the mist, then carried on and made it to the top of Peak 5800 by 1:40 PM. There, I built another cairn.
The old Bremner Creek logged areas were clearly visible, but the roads were too hard to see, no doubt quite overgrown. By 2:40 PM, I had made it over to the north end of Peak 5900, at its base. After relaxing for a while, I headed on up and made it to the top by 4:05 PM – left a cairn there too. I see that in later years, this peak finally got a name, and it is now called Bremner Peak. Visibility was changing by the minute, but, from my vantage point on top of this peak, it looked like I was in for some trouble. The next peak along the ridge was another Peak 5900, farther south, but it was plain to see I couldn’t get there directly from here. In order to get reach it, I’d have to drop down a thousand feet on the east side. Or, try to go around the west side, but it was now so socked in that I couldn’t see anything, and that meant that making any good decision was impossible. So, I retreated north to my last resting place at 5,600′ – I found it, even though visibility had dropped to under a hundred feet.
I needed to make a decision, but, given the conditions, it’d have to wait until morning. If I were to continue my journey along the ridge, I’d have to reach the 5900′-5900′ col by either of the ways described above. If I didn’t do that, it’d be time to go home, and even that offered some choices. If I were feeling adventuresome, I could drop down into the Bremner Creek drainage and try to head back out the 6 miles or so to Harrison Lake by those very old roads. That’d be an adventure, and could be a miserable one if the roads were badly overgrown. A more sure thing would be to drop down to Tretheway Creek, where I knew for certain that the road could be easily followed and there’d be no surprises (or so I thought). Tretheway would be a bit shorter, certainly quicker, and, worst-case scenario, I could always walk out to the Spring Creek logging camp to try and arrange some kind of a ride from there.
As the evening progressed, I saw patches of blue sky from time to time, but not enough to really lift my spirits. I was really hoping it’d clear up during the night. At least my campsite was a good one – very flat, fairly sheltered and good views (weather permitting). Excellent granite was all around, which reminded me of the summit of Mt. Robie Reid. Endless bouldering possibilities. And bees – they were everywhere, probably relying on the super-abundant heather. It was cold, so by 7:45 PM, I had already crawled into my sleeping bag. It was gonna be a long night.
Day 4, Sunday
During the night, it rained. My down sleeping bag got very wet – I guess I should have done a better job of sealing the seams on that bivi bag. I woke up very early, and was moving by 6:00 AM. My sodden sleeping bag killed any momentum I had left, and I decided to bail. Tretheway Creek it was, and down I went. All the way to 4,200′ went well, nearly all on snow, but below that, there was more and more brush and lots of cliffs to avoid. No major problems, though. At about 2,500′ I hit a logged clearing, where I crossed a creek and did some very serious bushwhacking through old slash. I was making progress, though, and feeling pretty good about things, when all hell broke loose.
There I was, with a full pack complete with ice axe mounted on the outside, when I kicked my way right into a hornet’s nest. The slash was thick and I couldn’t see much at all, so that’s why I didn’t see it coming. In a second or two, hornets were everywhere, and they were really pissed off!! It was hard to flee through the overgrown logging trash, and once my ice axe got hung up on something, but I ran like hell. Eventually they stopped chasing me, but not before I’d been stung several times about the head and neck. Man, did that hurt!
I found an old bridge across Tretheway Creek, which allowed me to gain the main road which ran down the valley. My gear was completely soaked from the bushwhack, but hey, at least I was still moving and was on familiar ground. However, one small event happened on the march out. After having covered maybe a mile, I came around a bend in the road and was confronted by two hunters. They hadn’t seen me coming and immediately raised their rifles at me, perhaps thinking I was some kind of game. As you might imagine, I was in no mood to put up with that kind of crap. I cannot repeat here, Fair Readers, my exact words to them as I cussed them out for being so trigger-happy while reaching for my ice axe. Getting right up in their faces, I gave them a tongue-lashing and warned them to be more careful. They seemed embarrassed and apologized. It probably looked funny, this 140-pound guy covered in dirt and stings, laying into them.
It was all over but the shouting, and almost 9 miles later, I was down at the main road by Harrison Lake. I started walking south, and, within half an hour, three guys came by in a pickup. They drove me all the way out and dropped me off right at my home by 3:00 PM. Even though my trip had been cut short by bad weather, I had done what I set out to do – see some beautiful country and nab some new peaks, all of which appeared unclimbed. In spite of a few setbacks, I was already excitedly planning a return visit, to the enticing peaks on the other side of Tretheway Creek. They looked higher and snowier – who knows what I’d find there.
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