Steven's Peak-bagging Journey

August 10, 2020

2159m

Chehalis Area / Harrison West, BC

Mt. Clarke is by no doubt an iconic summit in the Chehalis area highly visible from most summits in the Fraser Valley. This rugged massif boasts an impressive north face dropping into the upper Winslow Creek, and a long and jagged NE Ridge that composes of several towers including Recourse Peak and Viennese Peak. The standard route is however, an unpleasant and contrived slog (class 3) documented in Matt Gunn’s Scrambles in SW British Columbia. For those capable of alpine climbing the more aesthetic way is to ascend the NE Ridge (5.6) as part of the “VRC Traverse”, traversing the entire ridgeline from far to the SE of Viennese Peak all the way over Mt. Clarke. This route is considered as a local classic although fair amount of suffering on unpleasant terrain is required no matter what. My original plan about Mt. Clarke was by the scramble route but I changed my mind this year. Lily and I had been talking about this group of peaks for a while via the “VRC Traverse” and we pulled the trigger upon seeing a window towards the second weekend of August.

On the first day we climbed up and over Viennese Peak and Recourse Peak and bivyed on the SW Ridge of Recourse Peak not far from Recourse/Clarke col. The sunset was incredible and the night was not too cold to shiver through. In the morning we woke up in the mist so slept in. The mist still came in and out after a while so we should get up regardless. We spent some time cooking a warm breakfast as we brought the stoves up there anyway. Packing up all of our gears took a while. We then traversed some easy terrain and did one rappel into the deep chasm of Recourse/Clarke col. The reference said an “optional rappel” but upon inspecting we determined it’s pretty much mandatory unless one wants to down-climb exposed and unknown class 4 slabby terrain.

The climbing up NE Ridge of Mt. Clarke didn’t look too hard so I volunteered to lead even though Lily’s a much stronger rock climber. I wanted to gain more experience on terrain I felt relatively comfortable with. I thought about ditching the pack due to the 5.6 grade but decided to carry my own pack. Based on the experience on Viennese Peak I knew how difficult was to haul up two packs. I felt the first pitch being much harder than the second pitch probably because I didn’t really know how to climb cracks. There was one set of crux moves near the top of this pitch that a crack climber would felt no problem. I, on the other hand, did not have much confidence making crack moves so it took me a long time figuring out a solution. I put in two cams (sizes 2 and 3) and went for a committing mantle move on climber’s left side completely skipping the cracks. It worked, but felt harder than the 5.6 grade. When Lily came up she commented that I basically read the rock wrong and picked a harder-than-necessary line.

Lily took over the lead to the base of the second pitch and because of the length of the rope she had to belay me over there. The terrain between the two steps was just “scrambling”. Looking at the second step I opted to lead again, and this time I had minimal issue getting up. It’s also a much shorter pitch than the first one. The communication was difficult upon reaching the upper station thank to the strong winds and the failure of my walkie talkie. I had somehow turned the walkie talkie into another channel. This was the first trip that I ever used that thing so I had little clue what’s going on. Beyond the two pitches we decided to unrope and scramble. The terrain was stiff 4th class with fair amount of exposure but the rock shoes were the game changer. Unfortunately the summit was soaked in clouds that after waiting for half an hour with no sign of clouds lifting we decided to head down saving the views for another time… Well, chances are we won’t be coming up here in another time as the descent’s such an unpleasant shit show…

There are two ways to descend – the short-cut via SE Ridge with at least one rappel, and the standard scramble route that’s longer and more unpleasant. We wanted to descend the short-cut but we feared that we didn’t bring enough snow gears (only one ice axe and one pair of crampons among the two of us). We also had Jeff Han’s GPS track for the scramble route so in the end we opted to play safe. There were fair amount of 3rd class scrambling on the uppermost SE Ridge but the terrain became shitty as soon as we dropped off the ridge crest to the south. It wasn’t difficult, but unpleasant with nothing but boulder hopping and side-hilling. After a long while we had to regain some elevation to a bushy col and descend some slippery grassy ramps to the east side. This was then followed by a long-ass side-hill traverse with hardly any elevation loss to the basin immediately under Recourse Peak and Viennese Peak. We wanted to avoid elevation change in this stretch so did our best to trace the contour line on the GPS map. The result was some sketchy side-hilling on wet grass, bushwhacking and one added rappel into a loose gully. We could have worked around the gully but wanted to avoid unnecessary elevation regain.

Eventually we could finally descend straight down towards the upper Statlu Lake but the terrain was a mix of heather slopes and granite slabs that the hiking felt very unpleasant on my mountaineering boots. There were at least enough cairns to mark the route that we didn’t have to check GPS zillion times. The most critical point was to traverse skier’s right and bushwhack down and around an imposing waterfall cliff. This waterfall wasn’t obvious from above but we did do our homework and we had a GPS track to follow. It seemed odd to leave the most obvious path into some dense, BW4 bush but we had to. We probably didn’t pick the best line through the bush but at least the orientation was down-hill. I simply didn’t give it a damn fuck and just thrashed through letting the gravity do its job. Once we could see the bottom of the waterfall we bailed out of the bush and went back into the creek beds. The descent from there down to near the upper Statlu Lake was surprisingly not too bad, but then we spent almost half an hour wondering around to locate the trail. We wondered back and forth on the lake’s shore and in the alders and eventually decided to just bushwhack tracing the GPS track. Eventually we found the trail, and immediately the trail did at least 50 m of elevation regain. I checked the GPS at least 10 times and it did seem like we were definitely on track, so it’s frustrating. The trail then suddenly did its steep descent towards the lower Statlu Lake. The grade was very steep and there even had some exposure on this trail. The exposed stretches were aided by some fixed ropes, at least.

I was very beat and called for a break partway down this section. I ate pretty much all of the remaining food and still felt shit, so I ate some of Lily’s food as well. At least I did manage to regain some strength. The trail around the lower Statlu Lake was in a decent shape and my job was to not miss where I ditched the trail-runners. It actually took me a while to find the pair of shoes. It felt extremely good to not have to wear the sweaty mountaineering boots again, and the rest of the plod back to the truck was uneventful. We made back just before it’s dark enough for headlamps.

We were not home-free yet as there was still 40 km of rough roads to drive out of Mystery and then Harrison West FSR. Even with all terrain tires I had to crawl slowly thank to the zillion pot-holes and washboards. We eventually got back home at around midnight and that concluded another successful, type-2 kind of mission in the South Coast. Not sure how much would I recommend the “VRC Traverse” if you are here for the “climbing” parts. It’s definitely more mountaineering than climbing and you need to enjoy exploring and be okay with the approach suffering. One needs to be competent on a great variety of terrain, from bushwhacking to 5.8 rock climbing and have a superb level of fitness. On the other hand, if you “have to” bag these peaks and is capable climbing then the “VRC Traverse” is definitely more enjoyable than the standard scramble routes. At least by doing the traverse one only needs to do Mt. Clarke’s scramble route in a single direction. It’s honestly not too bad for SW BC standard, but I’m more of a Rockies mountaineer than a South Coast explorer… Mt. Clarke is by no doubt a trophy summit, but I’m 100% sure it won’t see me a second time..