Adrien organized a trip to Lizzie Lake for Christmas break. Lizzie Lake is a great destination for it's wildly remote, easy ski touring peaks around the vicinity, and also less crowded cabin. The access is somewhat you would really earn to get to this area for it's brutal approach. Due to a low snowpack this year, going through the alders was difficult on skis and heavy backpack. It's a great destination for sure because I ran the trail in summer, however I did not express my interest due to work commitment, but after some persuasion from Adrien, I decided to join the group. We left Vancouver on the 25th at 6am, driving Adrien's crammed Subaru with all our gear.
The plan was to skin up on the first day to the hut but it didn't happen. We decided to take the bypass trail higher up instead crossing the creek. Adrien had chosen to wear his ski boots on the approach while Ben, Alex and I had our approach shoes. The bypass trail was narrow and steep. We didn't put our skis until 6-7km mark on the logging road. Just like what we had expected, it was very tiring to get through to slide alders.
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| Hiking up the bypass trail |
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| Adrien and his 95L backpack. He had another small day pack strapped at the back.\ |
We reached the lake just when the sunlight faded out. At this point, I didn't know if I misunderstood Adrien's plan about crossing the lake. The actual trail starts from the north of the lake and gradually ascends to the ridge below Whisky lake, contouring Southeast to the upper creek drainage of Lizzie Creek. I took the lead and crossed it heading towards South of the lake. We started ascending, following the creek on the north side. Our chosen route was a big mistake. We were sucked in through deadfall and steep terrain for skinning. After some difficult postholing and slow progress navigating through deadfall, the group had enough and decided to camp in the ravine. I protested to the idea and wanted to keep going, at the end I was overruled by the group. We were less than 1km away from the hut, according to my GPS. I wasn't a happy camper that night. Adrien had his 2P tent which he had shared with Alex, same as Ben but had chosen to sleep in his bivy bag. I had my bivy bag as well. I was drenched from sweat and my bag was getting heavier from the rain. I was so tired that I had fallen asleep right away in my warm sleeping bag. I woke up twice during the night because of the rain and snowbomb kept falling on my bivy bag.
The next morning we woke up in blue sky, promising a great day ahead of us.We proceeded to the cabin but once we reached the cabin the weather started to crap out. Ben, Alex, and I went to get some turns, hoping to bag a peak. We went up to Tabletop and Anemone. The wind picked up once we hit the col. We made to the summit of Tabletop in whiteout. We didn't stay too long at the summit and went back down to our skis. We have only 45 mins of day light to get back down to the hut. We skied out in whiteout, great view once we descended below the clouds
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| Alex and Ben on the summit of Tabletop |
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| Crux. Quite difficult to scramble with ski boots. |
It was nice to have the hut to ourselves with all the amount of stuff we needed to dry after skiing. Just like a christmas tree, it is well decorated, occupying every corner of the hut with our wet clothes, gloves, skins, etc. We brought more than enough food to refuel every night.
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| Lizzie Lake Cabin |
On the third day, the weather did not change, this time it was snowing and the visibility was much worse than the previous day. Adrien decided to stay at the hut while the 3 of us went back to bag Anemone. We followed our track from the day before. From the col, it took us an hour to get to the summit of Anemone. A lot of excavation going on. Skiing out in whiteout makes me dizzy. We skied back down to the hut and had our lunch.
The weather slightly improved, Adrien joined us to to scoop up our route the next day. We went up to long lake and stopped at the west shoulder of Long peak.
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| The group crossing Long lake |
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| Enjoying reading some journal entries and map reading. |
Fourth day, we got luck out with the weather. The goal was to bag Tynemouth, Arrowhead, and Long Peak. We followed our track to Long lake, veered off around SE of Rainbow lake toward the South Face of Arrowhead. It clouded in when we got up to the summit. We all took turn skiing down the south face.
Once we were at the bottom, we proceeded on a windswept rocky bluffs of Arrowhead-Tynemouth col. to the summit of Tynemouth. Ben and I skied all the way up tot he summit while Adrien and Alex boot pack the last steep pitch.
We didn't have time to bag Long Peak. Ben and I settled to much smaller objective. We went up to Tarn Peak, a minor bump west of Long lake.
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| Looking South from the summit of Tarn Peak |
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| Ben on tarn Peak |
We arrived back at the cabin for our last night shortly after dark and we all had a great time hanging out and eating all of our extra food.
We pack up our stuff on the 5th day and headed home. The descent back to Lizzie lake was much worse than I expected. Navigating through deadfall is much harder when gravity pulls you down. Skiing out through slide alders on the logging road was quite entertaining for me and Alex. I had fun watching Alex gets his frustration every time he bails. He often talks to himself in Romanian whenever he gets strangled by alders.
Adrien's boots fell apart, the tongue broke off and the locking mechanism at the back of one of the boots failed to work which he had trouble walking on walk mode. It was 6km of sufferfest for him to the car.
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| Lizzie Lake drainage to Lilloett Lake |
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| Slide alders that we had to go through in the logging road |
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| Ben crossing the creek |
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| Ben trying to fix Adrien's boot |
This is a great place to explore. I wish we had a better weather window to explore the area. It was great trip to end the year with friends.
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