Alcoholic Loop: Brandywine Mountain and Brew Group

September 6, 2014

The plan was simple enough on paper: traverse from Brandywine to Tricouni Peak, then loop back through the Brew Group and finish at the car. Easy, right? Well, first I got stuck in Grand Fondo traffic, so I didn’t hit the trailhead until noon, already setting the tone for a race against the clock.

Start at Brandywine

I parked at the junction of the 2 km and 5 km markers on the Brandywine trail and headed straight up to the glacier. The glacier route was longer and more broken-up than expected, especially at the bottom. The crevasses and ice chunks forced me to bail to the NE ridge for a safer, but still scenic, route to the summit.

After topping out on Brandywine, I dropped down the south side and followed the west ridge to Mount Fee. There was a small pocket of glacier on the traverse, but I cleverly avoided it by down-climbing some steep slabs and ledges. Fun times.

Next, I gave the North Tower of Mount Fee a shot but stopped 28 meters from the summit, a prudent decision given the unstable rock. No biggie; I’d summited this one before (see previous trip).

With the clock ticking and daylight waning, I had to cut the plan short. I descended to the Brew Group peaks: Keg, Hops, Brew, and Malt, keeping the pace up but enjoying the scenery.

The final stretch back to the car was via the east ridge of Malt. Here’s where the trip got memorable, for all the wrong reasons. It was, hands down, the worst bushwhacking I’ve experienced this season. I was assaulted by dense alder tunnels and a whole army of prickly bushes that felt like nature’s way of giving me a personalized sandpaper massage. My skin did not survive unscathed.