December 12 - Stats: 9.5 km / 493m gain / 653m high / 3:45 hours MT
This adventure involved a mixed bag of activities. Mostly hiking with a bit of scrambling, a bit of balancing, a bit of route finding and a bit of auto repair. It'd been a good four years since I'd been out there. I was concerned about 3 obstacles: finding the trailhead, crossing the raging river and crossing the dangerous top of the falls. The 4rth obstacle was unforeseen...
We had gorgeous views well before we even started the hike, driving along the left side of Harrison Lake and then turned west onto the Mystery FSR. This pic is taken close to the trailhead.
There was no signage for the trailhead but I remembered it. Turn left at the end of the Mystery FSR and then the first right onto this side road lined by alders. Here Bote had to pull Case out because he didn't listen to his wife (moi) and kept driving as the old FSR got rougher and narrower.
The tire got a hole in it probably from jamming up against that old log (previous pic) and then Bote janking him out. Thanks Bote. He'd thrown his thick rope in his jeep at the last minute this morning.
So that was our unforseen obstacle. We left the truck with its soft whistle coming from the tire and agreed we couldn't hang out too long at the lake so we could deal with the tire in day light.
A short drop to the creek and then very careful steps on this log bridge which is equiped with a thin steel cable hand-rail. Joachim was the smart one, taking the time to put on his micro-spikes first since there was a small slippery section despite the non-slip shingles.
No snow, but numerous dead branches coated with Hair Ice. I'd never seen this before. Probably because Hair Ice needs very particular conditions to grow. It grows on a humid winter night when temps are just below 0 and it's shape is caused by the Exidiopsis Effusa fungi.
This is the first change I noticed: a large area of clear-cut. Just on the bend of the FSR was a rock cairn, indicating which way to continue through the clear-cut.
This was obstacle #3: The river. But it vanished because of this massive land-slide. Now instead of crossing a raging 50' wide river, we just had to step over these small creeks.
Team work for Margaret who's legs aren't quite as long.
After crossing the former river, there was a well-flagged entrance to a trail leading us back into the forest, on an overgrown FSR.
At the end of the FSR the trail narrowed and led steeply upwards to the top of the falls. The ground beyond this fallen tree became quite frosty. So on the decent we kept our micro-spikes on till this point.
The roar and boom of the falls became louder. Allana got her first glimpse of the falls here.
Lo and behold, a second landslide had occured here, obliterating the danger of slipping and sliding over the falls.
Why were the falls so dangerous? #1: These 40' wide sheets of granite covered with just a few inches of water, look flat and easy to cross. They're as deceiving as the devil. They are in fact, very slippery and sloping ever so slighty. #2: That roar and boom pull you to satisfy your curiousity and have a look over that edge. It drops straight down black cliffs for about 50 meters!
Now we could get closer by staying on the debris from the landslide. That strip on the right is part of the original crossing.
And here is a pic of the falls! I'd never had this view before but it being winter and there being less foliage, I could see it! Three of us with our micro-spikes on, took this faint side trail to another top-of-the-falls spot which is a little ways past the top-of-the-falls crossing.
Within 10 minutes we were at Statlu Lake.
It was just below freezing and too damp to get a fire going.
In the summer you can hike another hour to the other end of the lake where there's a lovely spacious campground + more views of mountain peaks.
Group shot: Allana, Lori, Janice, Case, Margaret, Bote, Joachim + me.
Back of the former river.
A final river crossing close to the trailhead. As suspected, the tire was now flat. But Bote had a compresser that filled it again, after jacking it up. This had to be repeated one more time before making it home.
In conclusion, lessons to be learned from unforseen obstacle #2: Husbands should always listen to their wives + obstacles #2 + #3: Landslides are not always a hinderance. This time they enabled us to cross safely.
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