Mt. Harvey North Ramp and David Peak

Alexis and I started early, arriving at the trailhead by 7am. Most of the logging road was runnable in trail runners, which made for a smooth start. Snow began right at the junction of the Harvey North ramp, where we were greeted by a hefty number of toppled trees blocking the trail, nature’s version of an obstacle course.

Once we crossed a small creek, we switched into mountaineering boots for better support and traction. The snow was light but enough to cause some postholing, at least for me, all the way up to the base of the gully. We had brought snowshoes just in case, but with only about 10cm of fresh snow, we never needed to break them out.

Overall, a solid start to the season with some unexpected trail challenges!

At the beginning of the gully we postholed a bit but otherwise we were mostly travelling on hard snow. Alexis was cruising up while I was struggling behind him. There was a tricky part in the middel section of the gully, where it kinda funnel in and you have to traverse on a steep slope. Alexis bypassed it without any problem. I felt uncomfortable so I went in the moat to avoid the traverse.

Once we were on top of the ramp we roped up for the traverse and travelled on running belay. Snow was good for front pointing.

We descended to East ridge for our next objective, David Peak. We made to the summit of David Peak by 11:00am.

We descended to Harvey bowl and back to Lions trail.

We were back in the car by 1:00pm. 6hours roundtrip.