MacNaughton

September 22, 2012

Debbie and I got up just before 05:00 in the back of her camper truck and had a quick breakfast. We set out from the Loj under a starry clear sky with our headlamps on. By the time we had circled around Heart Lake it was light enough out to switch off the lamps and we sped along the Indian Pass trail. As we went it began to cloud over. Looking out at the MacIntyres, they were completely covered in fog. We got to Scott's clearing and set up camp. Now with lighter packs we flew up the trail towards Wallface ponds. At Lost MacNaughton Lake I got to see where we lost the trail a couple attempts prior. No wonder. The markers here are faded to white which would have blended in perfectly with the deep snow. This trip fortunately, there was no snow and following the trail was easy. A muddy trail it was though. Not quite as bad as the Santanoni range, but almost. Finally we reached Wallface Pond. I have always wanted to see this as apparently it is quite a pretty spot. Today however, it was so foggy we could barely see out twenty meters across the water. We circled around to the outlet and crossed the stream easily as the water level was very low. A cairn marked the start of the climb, and after pumping a liter of water we started up the herd path. The path quickly disappeared and the rest of the way was a bushwhack. Down low we passed through birch forest with beautiful green moss on the floor, while up higher was more and more spruce. The going was tough but we persevered and after an hour or so of squeezing through logs, spruce traps, and rotten detrius found ourselves on the center summit of MacNaughton. Along the ridge was a path which we followed to the west summit and the sign. The cold wind and fog prevented us from staying long, so we descended a bit to a sheltered clearing where we had some lunch. We bushwachked down, which was easier than going up, but several times we hit small cliffs which had to be skirted around. Eventually we found ourselves at the side of a lake. Since we could not see anything, some compass work was required to determine exactly which lake it was. Measuring the angle of the shoreline showed it to be Upper Wallface Pond, so we followed the edge around back to the trail. It now started raining and continued for the next couple of hours back to camp. We arrived at camp somewhat damp after a total of 8.5 hours of hiking. Brewed up some coffee and had a snack before retiring to the tent for the rest of the afternoon.

Starting out in the dark.