Seward Range

March 2, 2024

A second attempt at the main Seward Range with Paul after aborting last December due to bad weather. This time, nature decided to throw another curve ball at us... warm temperatures melting out most of the snow, destroying our chance to ski the approach as we had hoped. The Corey's Road gate was closed for mud season about two months early, which adds an additional ten kilometers of road walking to the trip. Since skis were infeasible, we decided to pack mountain bikes instead.

We struck out from the winter lot on our bikes with the road covered in ice, but some fresh snow on top actually made it grippy enough for riding. It was slow careful going, with the occasional white knuckle descent down the hills on the slippery surface, but after twenty five minutes we arrived at the trailhead and locked our bikes to the horse hitching post. We set off down an icy trail in spikes and almost immediately came across a large bag of spicy dill pickle chips sitting in the middle of the trail. Not wanting to let the wildlife get at it, we picked it up.

A unique approach to a winter hike.

The biggest rule of this trail is quite clear. We did not read the full page of fine print.

Not wanting to break the law, we abandon our steeds for the day here.

Another two hours of walking in and out of microspikes, we arrived at Caulkins Brook, made the crossing of sketchy ice with some care and sat down to our first break, fuelling up with some spicy dill pickle chips. These are actually fairly gross, but still kind of tasty in an odd sort of way. As we packed up to go, a group of three women caught up to us and were busy making their crossing as we started walking up the herd path. This was hard to follow in the open woods and new fallen snow which caused us to make a couple of meandering detours, but we always managed to find our way back to the maintained route. At about 900 meters the snow was deep enough for snowshoes and we remained in these all day along the top of the ridge.

Sketch crossing of Caulkins Brook.

Icy herd path down low.

Snowshoes up high.

The summit of Donaldson was a fogged in and very windy. We did not stay long and descended to a sheltered spot for a sandwich and some more pickle chips. The ridge had been broken out by a postholer who had come over Seward earlier in the day, which made our navigation easy now. Emmons was easily won, and we met two of the three women from earlier as we trekked back to Donaldson. They explained their third partner had gone off solo to Seward, and indeed we met her in the col between Donaldson and Seward. She warned us that there was a labyrinth of tracks in a few areas, as the postholer had occasionally gotten off track. We encountered these spaghetti trail areas and added a few more noodles to each before finding the normally accepted way up the mountain. The steep pitch was very icy which made climbing in snowshoes a bit exciting, but we both made it up easily enough.

Summit of Donaldson! Someone stole the sign.

A few minutes later on Emmons.

Descending Donaldson towards Seward.

The icy crux of Sewage.

The summit of Seward was pelting snow, and as we were now very tired, we decided to descend down the north ridge to avoid climbing Donaldson a third time. We snowshoe skied around the postholes when we could, dropping elevation quickly. At about 1100 meters, the snow turned into a drenching rain, and at 800 meters the famous Sewage range mud appeared so we ditched the snowshoes. A long slog out to Blueberry leanto where we stopped for a break where there was a fellow keeping doubly dry inside a tent inside the leanto. Friendly fellow though, we traded the remainder of the pickle chips with him for some M&Ms, and then head on our way.

Final peak as the weather turns.

Fortunately the rain stopped and we even dried out more or less as we walked the never ending trail back. Darkness fell just before reaching the bikes but we stubbornly refused to get out the head lamps before we got there, making the last couple hundred meters of icy trail in bare boots somewhat treacherous. The ride back was even more exciting than the ride in. For the most part the road was bare, but occasional sheets of ice made for some good slip sliding riding. Nevertheless it was much faster and oodles of more fun than walking this stretch. We finished the day after eleven and a half hours of travelling. Climbing the stairs at the Lake Placid brewery was painful, but well worth the celebratory burgers and brews.

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