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Castlecrag Circle

Posted by William W on Sep 04, 2010 (last modified on Sep 05, 2010)
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What a great weekend for mountain club trips with 3 officially scheduled: Mount Washington, Comox Glacier and Castlecrag Circle plus a non-listed trip, by members, to Big Interior. There were options here and although Bob & Karl were generous enough to include Tim & I, on their adventure, we decided that our plans were more appealing.

We headed off from the Raven Lodge in the ebbing afternoon with sunny skies overhead and a promising sunset. We arrived at Circlet Lake in 3 hours which was a pretty fair clip for a couple of old timers! We enjoyed a light supper after setting up camp, which was the 1st night in my new tent coming with the usual learning curve. Tim and I shared a tent pad, which was duly noted by our appreciative neighbours, as the sites were full and late arrivals were being forced to an overflow further back on the trail. After supper we had the luxury of watching the 1960's movie "Paint Your Wagon" which Tim had uploaded onto his IPhone - hitech backpacking in the 21st century and what some might call a "walk-in movie".

The following morning we were on the trail by 8 am under the as promised brilliant skies. The morning lighting was phenomenal for photography and Tim was not ignoring this opportunity. When all was said and done, he had accumulated over 200 pictures of our journey. Since the unusually heavy snowpack, this year, left the ground later than it normally does, we've had an amazingly late spring in the alpine regions and so, the flowers are still spectacular into September. We also noted the large number of tarns that are still brimming with water, from the still melting snow - I've been through this area, in previous years, when you've had to search for water.

We arrived on the summit of Castlecrag for lunch, along with the obligatory register sign-in and promptly emailed pictures of the dramatic views. Recipients were able to see what we were viewing, in reel-time!

Following the col that runs west from Castlecrag, we climbed the southern face of Frink and ascended to the summit for our first time. I had been to this mountain with Karl, 2 years ago, but because of an August snowstorm and the limitations of time, a summit that day was not in the cards - just finding our way off the mountain held a much higher priority.

Tim had bought a new pair of sunglasses for our snow traverses on both the Frink and Albert Edward ramps but discovered that he'd forgotten the new eyewear in his vehicle - thankfully, the mountain gods were smiling and much needed cloud cover surfaced when we arrived on the snow.

During our 10 hour loop we only had contact with others on the route coming down off of Albert Edward - Many missed the incredible outing that Tim and I had. We did act as ambassadors for the club when we met with others and passed on our website details to these backcountry enthusiasts, many of whom were new to this area.

Back in camp we celebrated our day with a most refreshing swim - I seem to recollect Tim's backside retreating from the snow-lined waters, remarking something about the water temperature. We also treated ourselves to a fine meal followed by chocolate covered peanuts to go with another segment of our movie.

We had an early morning visitor who rattled around our stove and dishes - This wee rodent would probably be one of the reasons that it is suggested you place your food in the cache bins.

We took the long way home through Whiskey and Murray Meadows, the following day, which was made even longer from continually bumping into many that we knew. We even had a friendly chat with the Park Ranger, who did check for our camping permit and we also stopped off at the SWI hut for a brief chin-wag with Krista, one of our members manning her post, for an update on how this final long weekend of the lazy, hazy days of summer were progressing.

We capped the outing with the proverbial QF food-fest and reflected on a superb trip - Of all the trips that I've done this year, this was one of my favourites!

More photos are available for viewing.