Snow on the Trail to Mt Caro Marion

April 12th (Sunday)

It was a beautiful and surprisingly warm day.  

Yesterday we had finally decided that it was time to remove our V-berth hatch cover.  We had put a layer of insulation and plastic underneath our hatch last fall when the weather started getting colder and wetter because we were getting condensation drips at night.  The insulation and sealed air layer prevented the condensation, but it also covered up our hatch.  By removing the cover we now have our awesome skylight back in our bedroom, and because of this we were up early with the daylight, which was nice. 

After our morning Spanish time, we headed out hiking.  We made our way up our cleared trail and when we got to some of the steeper sections, like the one that goes up the narrow ridgeline, we stopped.  

We had been given some old rope and we had carried it up with us.  We used the rope to make a secure line, which would hopefully help people climb up and down the steepest sections.  It was poor-quality yellow plastic rope and it was only about 1/2” in diameter so we used alpine butterfly knots in it to make handhold loops to make it easier to use.  

When we were finished with the rope we continued on up our trail, and soon we came to the end of the part that we had cleared.  Out came the clippers, and on we went.  It was not long before we got to the area where the old trail that followed the bottom edge of the cliff met up with our ridgeline trail.  

Layers of ribbon mark the old trail.

At this point we stopped clearing the trail and just headed up roughly following the old ribbons and scouting on ahead to see what we would find.    

After 1300 feet, where we met up with the old trail, the incline of the mountain continued to steadily increase.  At around 1800 feet we started to encounter patches of snow.  The snow had obviously slid and accumulated into clearer areas, which were also the areas that we wanted to hike up.  

Jason in the snow on the trail.

We did our best to skirt along the edges of the snow piles, and we carried on upwards.  Soon we reached a section in which we were climbing up at such an angle that we had to use all of the exposed tree roots and sturdy branches as hand and foot holds.  At the top of this section we were suddenly in much deeper snow, and at just over 2000 feet we decided that we should turn around.  The snow, which was now everywhere, instead of just in patches, was now deeper than Jason’s waist and it was impossible to know what was underneath it.  Although we had really been hoping to get up beyond the tree line for a beautiful view, we decided it would be unwise to carry on.  

We made our way carefully back down the wet, snowy, and slippery slope, and when we got back into the dryer and warmer forest down below we found a nice spot for lunch. 

It had a lovely view out over the lake, even though it was largely obstructed by the trees.

As we made our way back down the mountain we were amazed by how warm it got, and by the time we got down into Ocean Falls it almost felt like summer.  It was definitely the warmest day that we had had so far this year.  We also noticed a dramatic difference in the bushes.  Leaves were actually starting to come out on some of them, they actually looked green, and the buds on others were noticeably bigger.  The forsythia bushes were fully out in their bright yellow splendour, and we even saw a daffodil in bloom in front of the municipal building.  Yay spring!  The only downside to this increase in temperature was that we saw several mosquitoes today; they were the first we had seen on all of our hikes this year.

After changing into some fresh clothes, and out of our hiking boots, we headed back to the municipal building with our laptop to spend some time making our next online Save-On-Foods order.  It took us a while with the slow internet to go through the flyer and add everything that we wanted, but it will all be worth it in two more weeks when we see what we get.