How to get there:
The Trophy Mountain area is an addition to the southern boundary
of Wells Gray Park, just northeast of Clearwater.
The area is accessed via 11 km of gravel logging road (Bear Creek Correctional Centre road),
branching from the Clearwater Valley Road north of Clearwater near Spahats Creek Park.
Trophy Meadow trail allows visitors to access the alpine meadows and basin of the Trophy Mountains,
in less than a one hour walk from the trailhead.
Drive this road to the end, there are information signs and a large area for parking.
This location is N51.75845, W119.94283, elevation about 1680 meter.
Here is a summary of climbs in Canada, August 2022,
Route:
There are basically 2 routes, both starting at the same trailhead,
then going to the area where people camp, - an area with several small lakes.
One option is to descend to CwemCwem lake, then ascend the south ridge.
The other option is to ascend (from the west) the south ridge of
West Trophy Mountain,
then traverse the ridge
that connects the two summits. The first route is (YDS) class 2, while the
second route is class 3. The ridge scramble is, however, not difficult.
It seems that many people prefer to do the ridge route on ascent, then hike back
out passing the CwemCwem lake.
Comments:
We slept near the trailhead and started hiking already by 0610.
I remarked to Adam that I felt pretty bad this morning, but that these
symptons likely would go away once we got going on the trail.
It was a very nice morning, the first few miles of this trail is quite
popular, many people hike into a well organized camp site near a few small
lakes. We soon came to open meadows with alpine grass and flowers. I was still
not feeling great, but progress was reasonable. We left the trail and scrambled
up a steeper hillside towards the south ridge of West Trophy Mountain.
After a brief visit to the summit of West Trophy Mountain, we started the
scramble traverse towards Trophy. This was fun, never hard. Along the way,
we overtook two young Canadians, Adam telling me that we were probabely
doing OK, being able to catch 2 guys that were considerably younger.
We arrived at 1110, the ascent had taken about 5 hours.
A really nice summit with very
good views.
I noticed Dunn Peakto the south, what a fun
climb I had with Pål back in 2018. We spent 20 minutes
on the top, then decided to go back via the CwemCwem lake. After this lake we continued
crossing, passing a smaller lake on our right hand side. Bushwack, we decided to deviate
from the normal route here and try a line that would get us back on the main trail on
the trailhead side of the camp area. After some initial trouble with steep slopes with
local cliffs and more bush, we ´gained a small valley and found a nice, fairly steep slope
having only grass that climbed back to the main plateau.
Overall, this short-cut worked well. Back on the trail, our speed picked up.
We were back at the car in 3:45, I was now feeling somewhat better.
Still, Adam suggested that I take a Covid rapid test that he had in the car.
I said OK, but stressed that it could not possibly be Covid. I followed the
instructions carefully. It was stated that it could take up to 15 minutes for
a positive test to display. However, after only 2 minutes, the test showed a
clear positive sign. What a surprise! It likely happened at some airport, my flight
to Seattle got messed up. Instead of 2 flights, one connecting airport, I ended up
with 4 flights and 3 connecting airports.
Adam and I had already shared a small mountain tent, so Adam most likely already had
it as well. Sure enough, he ended up being only 2 days behind me. We needed to cancel
our planned trip to Odin, but recovered quite well.
