Sometimes the best adventures happen on peaks without names, or at least not the kind you’ll find on any official map. This trip was one of those "I wonder what’s up there" kind of missions, which started off innocently enough from Duffy Lake Road.
I parked the car and ran a casual 6 km up Boulder FSR, which sounds fine until your quads remind you it’s uphill and the “trail” is more pothole than path. My objective: one of those nameless bumps that quietly dominates the skyline from the valley, occasionally noticed but rarely visited.
The Gully Gamble
To avoid what looked like a horrific bushwhack, I took the obvious gully on the south face. It was steep and bluff-filled, which turned into a bit of a problem. After slipping on some loose rock and giving myself a motivational talk (read: swearing at gravity), I veered left onto a spine.
That “spine” turned out to be a sketchy scramble with loose holds and exposure, but hey! it felt more secure than playing roulette in the bluffy gully. Eventually I gained the west ridge, and from there it was an easy slog up a scree slope to the flat, unassuming summit.
The Onion That Got Away
I dropped down the east ridge, which surprisingly was much friendlier for running. My original plan was to continue across the ridge to Onion Peak, but after tagging what I believe was "N3", time started giving me the side-eye.
The ridge between the summits was narrow, scrambly, and a whole lot of fun — if you like hands-on scrambling with views and just enough spice to keep things interesting. But daylight was fading fast, and I wasn’t about to fumble through a ridge traverse in the dark with a headlamp and some granola crumbs. Bailed. No regrets. Okay, maybe a small one.
The Exit
I descended into the bowl below the ridge and followed the drainage back to the road. Let me tell you , I’m glad I didn’t choose this way up. It had blowdown city written all over it, but to be fair, the bush wasn't as bad as expected. Still, not a highlight.
With 7km of road left and the sun dipping below the ridgelines, I threw it into “don’t-make-it-creepy” gear and managed to run the last stretch in 38 minutes, just beating the darkness. Not bad for tired legs and questionable route choices.
No comments:
Post a Comment