Overseer Mountain
- Overseer Mountain
- 2749 m
- Primary factor 1679 m
- British Columbia, Canada.
- Location: North 50.52878, West 123.38087 (GPS on the summit.)
- Difficulty: YDS class 3
- Climbed August 29. 2018
Overseer Mountain
|
|
How to get there:
An ideal place from where to climb this peak is the VOC (Varsity Outdoor Club) Harrison Hut.
The club has done a great job establishing a trail to this hut from a trailhead that may be
reached via a forest service road (FSR) called Lillooet South FSR.
Locate Pemberton along Hwy. 99 (north of Whistler).
At Pemberton Portage Rd turn left. Follow the road to a roundabout where you go left onto Birch Rd.
At the end of Birch Rd make a right onto Pemberton Meadows Road.
Continuing on this road 9km past the Lillooet River FSR turnoff leads you
straight to the start of the Lillooet South FSR.
One should drive about 23.7 kilometer on Lillooet South FSR. Note that there
is a gate after 2 km and a second gate at 23 km. These may be locked in which
case accessing this trailhead will be difficult. There seem to be no
reliable information about this issue (policy). If there is active logging
activity vehicles may be driving in in the morning and back out in the late
afternoon. One may then be able to access (in/out) at these times.
A bit after the gate at 23 km, one should turn left forking off the main valley road.
This road now climbs the hillside, them a pretty long traverse. Stay on the main
road avoiding various ´forks serving logging purposes. The trailhead is clearly marked
with a sign, there is parking for a few cars. This location is N50.60031, W123.40692,
elevation about 915 meter.
Route description:
Hut climb:
Initially, one moves up the main valley,
staying high on the left side with
sometimes good views to
impressive landscape also on the opposite side.,
The trail is pretty good and marked with colored (reflective)
markers on the trees.
First, (2018) there is a temporary detour, a bit cumbersome, in order to avoid
a logging area. Next, the trail runs along the fairly steep hillside with several
sections gaining and losing some elevation. The trail eventually joins an old
logging road, then hits what appears to be a newer logging section (2018), before
re-entering the forest.
You will turn a ridge, then descend to a pretty wide
river, lots of rocks, but limited water. Easy to cross under normal conditions.
Two more rivers are crossed on bridges, the last one has a new bridge higher
upstream while the lower bridge has been destroyed. One should note that
the trail markers lead to the correct bridge, while the most visible trail
heads straight to the damaged bridge.
The trail climbs more consistently at the end, reaching a last river that may
be crossed on big stepping stones.
The Harrison hut is now only a few meter
away. This hut is very nice, with a wood burning oven and basic equipment.
One need to bring a sleeping pad, a sleeping bag, as well as food and a stove
for cooking.
The hut location is
N50.52064, W123.43189, elevation 1715 meter.
Note:
The river next to the ´hut has glacial water, not good for drinking. We searched for and
discovered a nice clean water supply. Return back across the creek, follow the trail a short
stretch downhill. Just as the trail turns left to cross a small ridge-line, proceed more directly
downhill, then slightly right. The water source is under a pretty large boulder, just as the
hillside levels off a bit. (The foot of a reentrant). Search near location N50.52311, W123.43178.
Peak climb:
One should access the lower end of the glacier that drains to the river running
very close to the hut. Initially, the terrain
is covered by big boulders, proceed
a bit to your right in order to find a reasonable route. Pretty soon, one may move
back near the main drainage and pass the small lake pretty close on the right
hand side.
Ascend more steeply among rocks
and smaller cliffs to arrive
at the glacier at or near location
N50.60031, W123.40692, elevation about 1930 meter.
Proceed up the glacier. First, a climbing traverse right, then straight upslope. Higer up,
do a climbing traverse left in order to make the pretty distinct col, ie. the lowest possible
crossing to the glacier on the other side.
From this col, head north, descending to about 2210 meter, then contour right and ascend the glacier
on the south side of Overseer until you reach a level area. From this area, we climbed onto the south ridge
of Overseer. This ridge may now be followed all the way to the summit.
There is plenty of scrambling, YDS class 3. Most of this may be avoided by going on the side,
mostly left as you head uphill.
Comments:
I did this climb together with Åke, Pete and Rob. We left my rental car at the trailhead
at 1000 on August 28. The trail was well marked and we arrived at the hut around
1730, so more than 7 hours of hiking.
The next morning,
we left the hut at 0800 and
roped up for the glacier travel around 0930.
The glacier certainly had crevasses, but overall,
I did not find it very difficult to navigate across. We arrived at the lower part of
the ridge at 1150, more than 2 hours across the glacier. The climbing was easy, but the weather
was not very nice. We arrived on top
about 7.5 hours after departure.
After a short break, we headed back down in limited visibility.
The weather finally cleared as we got off the glacier and headed back down to the
small lake.
We were back at the hut by 1800,
quite a long day in marginal weather. A nice evening
with a nice rainbow above our
mountain, hitting the lowert part of the glacier.
The next morning, we left already at 0700 arriving at the car by
1245. We hiked near by a tree with two climbing cubs,
obviously, their mother
had sensed us and was somewhere nearby.
Upon driving out the forest road, we made the very unplesant
discovery that somebody had locked the entrance gate only about
2 kilometer from the public road. After a bit of looking around, I decided
to drive my car around the gate. This was a rough passage, but obviously,
somebody had used it before.
