The last ~15km of the road to the base of the Forgetmenot ridge is closed in winter so I biked in from the gate. Since most of it is uphill and because I managed to convince myself that bushwaking with my bike on the shoulder would be (yeah right) faster than riding the last 3 km, it still took me nearly an hour to reach the trailhead. I was more cleaver on the way back and avoided such useless mean of travel.
The rise to the ridge starts with a steep climb that gradually levels off to a nicer angle. 700m of climbing later, you reach the top of a flat wide ridge that extends for about 6 km. Along the ridge, there are sevel false peaks. There was even a little section that forced me to do a little bit of rock climbing. I named this section the mini Hillary Step! (see picture)
I went to the end of the ridge and back tracked to the start. As I said, I elected to bike around for an extra 3km instead of bushwaking this time around! All in, I was away from the car for 7 hrs, went up by 1155m and drank 13 scoops of perpetuem and a ate few bars. I still had to stop at Wendy's on the way home and it tasted sooooo good. I guess Ron and I will fight for Julie's fast food during the race!
Sorry about the small pictures, I took them with my cellphone because I forgot the camera...
View of the flat wide ridge (2300m elevation)
Hillary Step: Atthe top of this little peak, I could either traverse it on the left in 4-5 feet of snow(not!). to the right on a scree field with a strong side slope or go straight up and climg the last 10 feet to get over it. That's what I did and it was certainly the easiest way to do it.
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