03.09.2011
It was suppose to be a great day and I decided to do a long hike I haven't done before. So I chose Mount MacFarlane. I made a call out on Wanderung but it seems like people were either lazy or decided to go elsewhere therefore leaving me to solo it. Actually, it might be that it lucked out this way...
I arrived to the parking lot at 8:30 and found it 3/4 full. Getting my boots on and turning on the GPS for the record I started the hike at 8:45 at my comfortable pace without pushing hard. The weather was perfect: sunny and cool morning air to prevent you from sweating too much but not that cold that you'll need a layer over a t-shirt. So appears that the nastiest part of the scramble is almost at the beginning, before the first lake. You have to scramble a very steep slope covered by a dry dirt with few veggy belays but mostly you have to use dirt for support... I hate that. Nevertheless it went smoothly and as I reached the first lake in two hours I passed 3 groups of hikers who started earlier. I had a quick snack at the lake and proceeded to the Upper Pierce Lake. I almost got lost when I missed a turn and went on to the boulder field. Fortunately, I quickly realized that I suppose to go towards the waterfall mentioned in the book and I'm going in the opposite direction. As I traced back I found the right, in both senses of this word, turn quite easily and hiked up to the next lake. So after 3 hours 20 minutes I was already near the Upper Pierce Lake, nobody was thee yet and I started to worry that the hike is getting too short... The Upper Pierce lake was still 30-35% covered with ice and despite the bright sun it was not warm there. Here I took a 20 min break to have another snack and put a sun screen on since now I was on the open.
Then I started to scramble Mount MacFarlane itself. I noticed a trail going along the ridge easily but at the place where you need to climb a small wall I made a mistake and went left ending up traversing some sketchy crumbling rocks. Since I remembered reading that it shouldn't be that risky I just climbed up to the ridge and voilà: it's a trail going along the ridge. Fantastic views started to appear the more I went up culminating with pure awesomeness on the top. The rest of the trail was very easy and after a 4 hours and 10 minutes after the start I reached the destination. It was still 12:55 pm and I decided that going back right away would be a waste of a hike. So, I checked my GPS for another mountain which I can do at the same day. Mount Pierce looked doable, the only problem was that I had no description how to get there but it didn't look dangerous so I decided to give it a try. And a good thing was that I was on my own, so I didn't have any obligations to other people. :) Of course, firstly I had a lunch, took some rest and made pictures of all the surrounding mountains, which are truly gorgeous. The only sad part was that I didn't have my SLR camera with me...
After descending to the lake I found a faint trail going towards Pierce mountain. I saw it going over a hill and decided not to go there but to try passing by a small lake right near the foot of the mountain. I didn't know that the lake is surrounded by vertical cliffs from both sides and it is impossible. Upon learning that I went on traversing a ledge right above the right cliff. It would be all good if not for a dead tree that is standing there, going around which is a pain... literally. The rest was a piece of cake. There is no defined trail to Mount Pierce from the certain point. You just have to scramble a steep alpine meadow full of wild flowers. The alpine meadows on Mount Pierce host not only the wild flowers but it is also a home for a little swarm of mosquitoes. So, if you cannot force yourself keep moving those will speed you up in no time.
At this point on that side of the mountain the weather became scorching hot. Fortunately, I had plenty of water with me; unfortunately, I didn't take enough food for two mountains and I started bonking near the top of Mount Pierce and my body started to consume my precious fat, which I don't have much to spare. At that moment it was not the problem because I was on the top in few minutes. I had another 30 min break there, making pictures and enjoying sunbath listening mosquitoes' buzz soundtrack and headed back... I really started feeling that I bonked when trying to get on top of the not really steep hill near the small lake on the way back, that was the hardest part of the trip. As soon as I tried to walk a bit faster I immediately felt dizzy and very tired, going slow or downhill was fine, I could even run downhill (not very fast) as fat burning kept me going (at the end of the day when I returned home and had a dinner, drank all the water I wanted I still weighted one kilo less than usual). Near the Upper Pierce lake I noticed people flooded the area with their tents. I made a few more pictures and went back to the car. On the way, I met some people still going up with huge backpacks. That made me wonder how they climbed that dirt hill with those... on the way back I barely avoided spraining my knee there going down with almost empty backpack. At 6:53 pm I was back at the car.
I was so nice day and even some problems that I experienced felt satisfying at the end since it gave me a feeling of adventure. I would say I wouldn't be so much fun without them.
Ah, yeah, and the book is wrong about the distance to MacFarlane. My GPS counted 19 km round trip for BOTH mountains. The book states that the round trip is 21 km for Mount MacFarlane only!
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