Big Slide Traverse

November 5, 2016

This was the 9th annual ACC November hike, with a goal of Big Slide and Yard mountains. Two groups of six arranged to make the trek, traversing between the Garden and South Meadows Road. Hilary led the westbound group (Hilary, Pat, Ray, Kevin, Marcel, and Felipe), while I led the eastbounders (Mike, Katja, David, Kim, Birte, and Shaughn). Our group's adventure started on South Meadow road. We drove into the gate and parked here at some pullouts in the woods. Unfortunately while parking in the dark, Pat's car scratched up against a big rock. The damage was not severe, but still probably costly. A quick glance at the trail signs indicated that we should have driven a little further up the road, but since we were now already parked, we decided to just start hiking from here. About 400m down the road we found a large empty parking lot and immediately proceeded down a well trodden path into a bunch of camping areas. We figured out quickly that this was not the trail, completing our second (and last) navigational blunder for the day. Once embarked upon, the Klondike trail was easy to follow but obviously not used a lot. I spent quite a bit of time clearing numerous fallen branches as we hiked up the gently rising path. It was drizzling a bit, and at about 3000' we started to see traces of snow. We took a break at Klondike lean-to under the roof to get out of the rain, and then continued on through Klondike Notch. This was a little bit dissapointing as the map seemed to indicate that we would be hiking through some sort of canyon like feature, but twas just a walk through some foggy and drizzly woods... the only indication that we had travelled through the pass being that the trail started descending down the other side. The climb up Yard was steep and a little bit more interesting with rock outcrops and the occasional boudery scramble. As we neared the top, the other group radioed to say that they were on top of Big Slide enjoying the view of the Great Foggy Range. We topped out on Yard and hunkered down on the trail for a sandwich. It was fairly windy and spitting rain so I donned my waterproofs and kept them on for most of the remainder of the day. The ridge over to Big Slide was slushy, muddy, and very wet. Upon meeting the westbound group we stopped for a bit to chat before continuing on to the summit, where we met quite a crowd of people. The rain had stopped and there was no wind here, so we joined the crowd for a while and ate the third lunch of the day. The view had not improved, but as we descended down the Brothers, we eventually got below the cloud ceiling and the views started appearing. The open rock of Brother #1 was particularily nice, and made up for the rest of the day. A final break was taken here on a lookout ledge prior to the final couple of kilometers down to the Garden. The group spread out as weariness set in, with Shaughn running ahead for a nap in the car, as I scuttled around the group in various positions, keeping tabs on everyone. After an 8 hour day, we were back at the hostel for a great supper.

Birte and Katharina crossing a creek along the Klondike trail.

Lunch number one.

Crossing another creek.

Interesting rocks on the way up Yard.

Summit of Yard, lunch number two.

Summit of Big Slide, lunch number 3.

Lookout along the Brother ridge, lunch number 4 (do these people ever stop eating?)

Approaching Brother #1.

Natural lean-to found along the Brother ridge.

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