Porter and Cascade

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November 18, 2018

After an epic day of wallowing in the snow during an attempt on Allen yesterday, I needed a consolation prize. Porter and Cascade were needed for my fall round, so they were it. Packed up a well frozen camp at Keene Farm and drove to the trailhead for a relaxed starting time just before 09:00. Hit the trail with three other groups in front of me. The trail was packed with very thin snow cover over the rocks, so I remained in boots for the first half of the climb, spiked up at around 900m elevation as it got a little icier and then decided to switch to snowshoes at the trail junction prior to heading out to Porter. The shoes were helpful here, especially on the downhills as I could snowshoe ski the powder beside the packed track. Hit the top of Porter after an hour and a half on the go. Was a beautiful clear day, but fairly cold and windy so I snapped a few pics and head back the way I came. Just before treeline on Cascade I switched back to spikes and layered up for the exposed summit, and a good thing that I did. It was full on winter frostbite conditions up there. I scampered to the summit, took a pic or too and then scampered back down. No chance of a relaxed summit lunch in the sunshine today! Stopped at the junction for a quick bite to eat and then descended the mountain in spikes. The smooth trail made for very fast travel. I found it easier to run down most of the steeper sections than walk, stopping only whenever I encountered others, which was very frequent since there was quite the horde climbing this mountain. Arrived back at the car at noon and drove back to Ottawa.

Snowy trail on the ridge over to Porter.


View from Porter summit.


Approaching Cascade summit.


Top of Cascade.



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