Welch Peak

Via Williamson Lake

August 11-12

Shawn had been a smoker since he was a teenager. What began as perhaps a rebellious streak had quickly turned into an addiction. He would hang out and smoke with his friends in parks, backyards, and in the plentiful forests of his home British Columbia. But over the years, whether it be by nature or by nurture, Shawn grew bitter, distancing himself from his family. Despite making use of the province’s beautiful wilderness through the occasional drinking trip to the woods, he came to ignore it’s importance. Then, in his mid twenties, the littering began. Out of spite for his ex-girlfriend who had been a model citizen of environmental consciousness, he would make a point to drop wrappers, empty bottles, and most of all, cigarette butts wherever he stood. This blatant disregard for society at large, and his penchant for drunken tirades at the local Timmies, led to him being looked upon unfavourably to say the least. This in turn led him to reject society. On his fortieth birthday Shawn, now a unkempt recluse, purchased a 1992 Winnebago from a Carol Mabel of Kelowna and disappeared up one of the many logging roads to live a life away from the people he despised. He would wake up every morning coughing, then down the half empty can of Kokanee sitting by the bed. At 8:07am on July 23rd, after smoking his second Marlboro of the day, he tossed it out the window into a particularly dry pile of Douglas Fir needles. Thus started the fire that led to me breathe in god damn fire smoke all night on my trip to Welch peak. Screw you Shawn I wanted a view from the summit. I hope you and your Winnebago didn’t make it.

Welch Peak is the tallest among the Cheam range just east of Chilliwack. At 2,431m, it isn’t all that high but offers some nice moderate scrambling. Having read Steven Song’s report on Welch and Foley, I thought I’d give it a shot as I hadn’t done much sustained scrambling and my friend Amanda wanted a bit more experience with exposure. We would do the complete south ridge route as described in Matt Gunn’s popular Scrambles in Southwest BC with one night at Williamson lake. As with most of our trips, this was planned last minute. In fact we didn’t know if we were going till about 10pm the night before.

Access lies with the Foley Creek forest service road. If you can make it to the upper landing, its a short hike where you gain only around 500m in elevation. Unfortunately, the best vehicle we have is a Toyota Highlander. After a couple hours from Vancouver, we reached the left turn onto the FSR. Driving along it, following the Chilliwack River, there were a surprising amount of people car camped by the water. Passing Foley lake, we spied a crowd of pickups and SUVS amongst the trees. The road was soon supposed to turn upwards into a series of switchbacks but sure enough we ran into a familiar problem. The car was inadequate. Just after Foley lake, we put the car in park and studied the map to try and find out how much elevation and distance this would add. However, in reality, the only measure we were really concerned about was how much boring logging road we would have to travel on. Turns out it was about 4.5 kilometers and an extra 650m in elevation. We’d done a lot worse so we packed up and headed out.

We hiked very quickly up shaded logging road, flailing every few seconds to peel spider web from our faces as we wondered whereabouts on our bodies its eight legged owner was crawling about. There was a faint hint of smoke in the air but it was easily ignored. Soon we had made it up to the proper trailhead and spotted Welch above us.

The trail started as an old and mostly overgrown logging road. It then became very much overgrown and sharply transitioned into a steep climb amongst second or third growth. Logging in this area was clearly evident. Soon the scenery transitioned again, this time into a large avalanche path of grass flowers and rock.

After a short section of traverse, it was another steep push upwards to the lake.

It was a very pretty campsite. A beautiful alpine lake with views of the many peaks to the south.

Amanda and I aren’t known to have the most elaborate camping meals. A particular dinner on the North Coast Trail comes to mind. A meal which consisted of a whole wheel of brie warmed up on my frying pan then eaten with bits of tortilla. This trip Amanda had insisted on doing the meal prep stating something about how my meals never quite hit the spot. What I was worried about was her concerning habit of mentioning healthy food and how eventually she’ll do a vegan camping trip. Alas, my fears were realized. Dinner was quinoa, tofu, and bell peppers, all drenched in a teriyaki sauce. It was alright but I maintain that the backbone of the meal was the sauce. It had nothing to do with the meal being vegan.

It was a sleepless night. While very warm, a strong wind picked up sometime after sunset. Neither of us got much rest and the smell of smoke grew stronger and stronger. I must have dozed off at some point because I was woken by the sound of voices. I got out of the tent in time to greet two guys who also planned to summit Welch. They went on their way as I boiled water for our breakfast of coffee. The smoke had gotten significantly worse obscuring much of the view we had had the night before. I could feel it in my lungs and we considered just turning around and going for brunch. But it was the end of the summer and could very well have been our last trip before school started back up so we decided to go on as planned. We watched as the two guys attempted to gain the ridge too far to the right encountering sketchy looking rock. We finished our coffee, packed, and began to head left of the rocky mess and up the grassy slopes towards a gully. At this point I grew lazy with the camera and most of the photos of the trail are from my phone.

Upon reaching the ridgeline, we encountered the two guys which was surprising as they had left quite a while before us. The mistake in route finding had rattled them. We chatted for a bit then went on ahead. There was a pretty evident trail, sometimes following the top of the ridgeline, sometime dropping down to cut under rocky features. The higher you got the rockier it became and an obvious trail disappeared. In a couple of places you needed to drop down a decent bit to circumnavigate towers of rock. Overall it wasn’t very exposed. There were just a few moves where you wouldn’t want a slip. On one of the more difficult moves, someone had placed a fixed rope.

We ascended above some of the smoke hopefully lessening its negative effects. The terrain grew more exposed, scrambly, and route finding intensive as we ascended the false summit. We hadn’t seen the other two for a while so we figured they turned back. They had been trailing us since we started along the ridgeline. From here, the true summit looked rather imposing. Amanda wanted to wait as I went ahead, but I managed to convince her to come along. Much like on Castle Towers. Descending into the col between the false summit and true summit was simple, but scrambling out had a couple sketchier moves. After some increasingly careful route finding a couple of exposed steps brought us to the summit. Most of it really didn’t feel that exposed but in reality, if you slipped, it would be a while before you stopped.

We hung out a while eating a lunch which consisted of romaine lettuce and veggie turkey. I had wanted to do both Welch and Foley but considering the smoke, my lack of a nutritious lunch, and Amanda’s comfort level on this terrain, we decided it was best not to. So we enjoyed the view a little longer. Looking around us, dirty smoke hung low over everything. We would soon be descending into it.

We descended off of Welch regaining the false summit. From here, rather than follow the ridge back down, we opted to go left down to the scree slopes following the partial ridge route down. There was no clear trail and cairns were placed very sparsely so I found it rather annoyingly tedious. Alternatively, I could have been a little hangry.

After a couple of wrong turns, we ended up on the scree slopes. I like scree slopes. Boot skiing down on soft crumbling rock feels wonderful. Unfortunately, this slope was not of ideal scree skiing quality. The rocks were a bit to varied in size and shape, and the hill was too variable is hardness. It ended up being an exercise in trying not to slip and trip. It took an inordinate amount of time. Again, that or I was hungry. Upon reaching the lake we went for a welcome dip in the frigid waters. We stayed in and around the water for a couple hours enjoying the sun and the mountains. While my trips tend to be very goal oriented, it was nice to sit back and just relax rather than being in constant motion. Finally, we dragged ourselves back to the tent and headed out. Somehow, in the 24 hours that had passed, the spiders had managed to intensify their efforts and created what felt like double the amount of webs across the logging road. Plucking wriggling spiders out of our hair, we reached the car and drove back into an apocalyptic looking Chilliwack. The entire lower mainland had been blanketed in a thick smoke.

But despite the undoubtedly months off my life the smoke has taken, it was a brilliant scramble and a worthwhile trip. My first in the Cascades.