Capturing the Art of Nature
Mount Keenan Adventure
It was a struggle along the ridge but with determination we made it to the summit area and achieved our goal of activating the mountain
Category
Serendipitous Discoveries
Summits on the Air
2018
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Mount Keenan was a summit on the list I have wanted to try for a number of years. It was first activated by another radio operator a few years back and it looked like one that wouldn’t be overly difficult to do. So I convinced Ralph to join me on the adventure and when he had some time we would set out and climb to the summit.
Back in July Ralph indicated that he would be able to join me for the adventure mid-week in August so when the day arrived he came to my house and we set off for the summit at 8:30. The drive to The Hemlock Valley resort area should have taken around two hours, but as we approached Deroche we were stopped by a train at the crossing. Normally uneventful but it stopped not much past crossing the road. It sat there for a while then backed up a bit while another train sailed past on the second track. Then it moved forward a back a few times before finally backing up out of the way. The whole process took upwards of 15 minutes! Quite annoying. From there the rest of the drive went quickly.
One of the concerns I had on selecting this summit was whether we would be able to drive up to the ridge line or if the access would be gated off and we would have to hike all the way up the slope from the base of the chairlifts. When we arrived the gate was open and in we went, now to pick the road up. I found one that seemed about right that followed along a ski lift. We drove it to the top of the lift and there the road ended, so I returned to the bottom. After looking around we didn’t see anything better so I decided to go back up the road we tried and turn at a small side road mid-way up. Sure enough that road opened up and we were able to follow it to the top of the bowl. There we made a few turns and we were able to follow some narrow roads through encroaching hemlocks towards the ridge I had plotted on Google Earth as our access route. The road got quite narrow for my big truck and when I reached a fork I turned the truck around and parked it just in on the branch. I hoped it would be out of the way of any ATVs. We then got our gear in order and set off for the start of my plotted route.
A short way along the road it opened up and the area would have been a good spot to park. Well I wasn’t sure what to expect so I guess parking where I did added about 500m to the hike. But the walk along the road went quickly and was quite easy. When we arrived at start of my track we were standing at the top of a drop, so we continued along the road another 100m as it descended a bit, then we cut across a small meadow for the forested ridge that we would be following. So far it was going quite well. The first bit of the route was through mature trees with little undergrowth but even here the dead branches were a bit of a nuisance. Then we broke out of the trees into more open areas with thick clumps of black huckleberry which we had to push through. It was slow going as we made our way up the ridge alternating between the trees and the clumps. The smoke in the air didn’t help either.
So as we continued upwards, time was ticking by quickly and our progress seemed interminably slow. As we got closer to the summit area the trees thickened and we were able to spend more time squeezing between them instead of fighting the shrubs so things were looking up. However, looking a bit further on the steepness of the ridge increased dramatically. Now we were fighting the slope instead. We took a good breather and then started up the next section of the steep slope, it ended on the top ridge. We eventually arrived at the top of the ridge but it was somewhat west of the marked summit. The area was within the SOTA activation zone but it seemed to be about 100m west of the map’s location. I scouted out the area but in the direction of the marked summit the ground dropped quite some distance. I continued to walk the area and look over to the marked summit but I didn’t see much of a rise beyond the dip. It looked like the location was off a bit, even if there was another rise it would only be a meter or two higher. So we decided to stay where we were and eat some lunch. Once we had rested I set up my yagi and Ralph got his HF antenna strung into the trees. Then we were both busy putting out calls. I managed to get 5 in the log including one summit to summit with a chap on Moose Bench in the Olympic Peninsula, around 195km distant. Ralph logged 6 CW (Morse code) contacts.
Well we had completed the task and logged enough contacts to get our points for the summit so it was time to head back. The return went faster as we weren’t fighting gravity to the same extent but the plants blocked our view of the ground more and so watching our steps was harder. Pushing through the dead branches and thick undergrowth took its toll and we were both exhausted when we finally emerged back on the road way. The final stretch along the road in the hot sun saw us dragging ourselves forward to the truck. Once back and cooled by some AC we felt better. The route we travelled wasn’t hard to follow as the ridge was fairly narrow and so finding our way along it was fairly easy, pushing through the trees was not.
Well, the drive back down to the ski lodge area went without issue and soon we were back on maintained roadway and no longer bouncing around. The final descent from the lodge to the Morris Valley road seemed to take quite some time, I was tempted to stop to gather some photos but I was just too tired to bother. So we continued down and once on the main paved road our drive home went without further delay. A good day’s effort though much more than we had expected.