the Needle's Saddle

Stats:9 km / 717m gain / 3:40 hours MT / 1831m high

This is another classic route that our club does every winter. Being at the tail-end of winter in the alpines, we left our snowshoes at home and donned micro-spikes at the trailhead. The weather at best, is unpredictable in the mountains. This day it did not behave and we were not blessed with those amazing views. It did make for some interesting photo ops though...

We parked at the restrooms by exit #217 on the Coquihalla Hwy 5. Then 17 of us walked through the tunnel and met Annette at the parking lot below the maintenance sheds. We could not ford this creek so we did a short U-y to the highway and back.

Putting on our micro-spikes.

The first 311m gain (about 1 hour) is quite steep through the forest. We did a bit of post-holing especially on the melting snow by the creeks. It was a good workout, involving high body-hoisting steps in the older footprints engraved in the snow.

Yak's peaks remained under cloud-cover for the day.

Waiting for the whole group before leaving the viewpoint.

It was good to have two used-to-be-very-regular hikers back with us.

You can faintly see the Needle's Peak is to the right.

Now the grade was not quite as steep.

We stayed clear of the cornice on the ridge to the left.

This rock reminds me of a whale.

A second stop where there was shelter from the wind. This is where 6 hikers opted to turn back.

A group shot of not 18, but 20. Why? We were pleasantly surprised to have run into Claudine & Scott up there. So being members of our club, we asked them to join in on our group shot. They stuck with us after that.

The Needle's Peak did not expose itself till we were back down.

A splotch of brief sunlight behind us.

Almost there.

Flat Iron to the right (west) of the saddle.

No, this is not the Needle's Peak to our left (east). It's the beginning of the higher ridge to the peak which is only 120m higher but involves climbing a rope and negotiating some exposed terrain. Five of our group continued on here.

That left 7 of us who stayed on the saddle for lunch. But not for too long as it was getting cold and even started snowing lightly.

Heading back down -- pink algae in the snow.

Back at the first viewpoint. We could hear the traffic now.