Answer to the Thursday quiz – top pic – Marcus Buhrig -Steve Richardson – Taff – Terry Bainbridge. – bottom pic Amos Bilbao.
Today we are posting a pictorial of our 2007 ride up Joss Mountain – As most of our regular readers know, we first made this difficult climb back in 2004, up the old 1920 pack horse trail to the Fire lookout, at 8,000 ft elevation. That first year was perhaps the toughest with Mark needing to cut out trees with a chainsaw, plus we had to skirt a big avalanche. – We made this trip a total of eight times, the last being with Stan on my 75th birthday. -( I’m likely the oldest guy to make it up to the summit and my name is in the visitors book from that last time in 2012 – they installed this in 2007 when they replaced the roof and windows – not sure if this is still there)
Although this is now shut off to motorized vehicles. – Once again this fantastic area seems to have been taken over by the Mountain bike clubs etc which is a shame, as we feel it should have been left all wild as we first saw it.
Pic #1 The base camp site the night before showing Jimmy (rip) Harold and myself.
Pic #2 Harold failed to last the night.
The thick weed section before we started the climb up the switch backs – this was after the narrow trail & creek section
Looking back about a third of the way up the switchbacks
Jimmy is wondering what I have got him into.
A difficult part of the rocky climb – me on the Beta Rev 3
Same place showing Steve Wilson the vet – Paul Gronow from Vancouver Island and another I can’t remember. (maybe Paul’s brother)
Here’s Stan – We needed to take extra gas in our back packs.
Banjo Bobby
Jimmy threads his way up the narrow trail
more riders – the last one could be myself
Time for a welcome break, after we broke out of the thick bush into the Alpine.
Looking up ahead – those of us who had been up before knew what that low cloud would mean higher up
What a view
Yes we were into the snow – here are Taff and Bob Clark
By this time we were in quite the snowstorm, so most of us stopped just short of the Fire lookout
Bob is likely not enjoying these conditions
Stan and Paul did struggle to the top and got a pic to post in their Album, taken in the old Fire Lookout.
We hope you like these few pics – obviously we have a lot from the many climbs we did, always very special memories.
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Footnote ! Here is a couple pics Stan took of me on the Final trip I made up the Mountain at age 75. – it was my birthday. the first one is just after we got to the Alpine and as you can see I was knackered. – Surprisingly when we got to a higher elevation, the rain stopped and the sun came out for a minute. – Yes , lots of challenging terrain.
Below back down into the valley – the trail goes through the trees along another narrow track. but at least this is fairly level – coming down off the mountain is tough with both being quite exhausted and all the weight on your arms.
