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Date |
Ascent Time |
Complete Time |
| 1st Time |
01 Jul 97 |
didn't record |
didn't record |
01 Jul 97 - Mt. Chester lies behind Fortress Mountain Ski Resort, but
you have to access it from Smith Dorrien Trail (Spray Lakes Rd). Basically, you park
in the Chester Lake parking lot, hike through the woods to Chester Lake, then go up
a gully on the southwest side of the mountain. Once at the top of the gully, turn left,
and hike to the summit. It's pretty simple. Here we see Mt. Chester from Smith Dorrien
Trail.
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01 Jul 97 - I took Hwy 40 to Smith Dorrien Trail, and the intersection
of these two roads has proven to be a popular place for Mountain Sheep. These sheep are
much older than the mountain sheep we saw on our way to Big Sister. According to the
Discovery Channel, it takes 7 years for the horns to form a complete circle.
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01 Jul 97 - When you get to Chester Lake, you will come to an alpine
meadow. During this time of year, the alpine meadows are usually full of glacier lillies.
Evidently, these flowers can only be seen at this elevation and during late spring.
According to a park ranger, black bears like to eat the roots of these flowers. As it so
happens, when I was pulling out of the parking lot (heading home), I saw a black bear walking
along the edge of the parking lot. Wow. That was close.
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01 Jul 97 - From Chester Lake, you want to go up a gully. As you can
see, it was full of snow, which made for a tough trip up, but a very fun trip back. Going
up, I stayed on the left side of the snow; however, the book suggests staying on the right.
On the way down, I had a great time sliding down. It took me about an hour and a half to
get up this section, but it only took about ten minutes to come back down it. At the top
of the gully, you want to go left.
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01 Jul 97 - The summit really didn't have a cairn to mark the "very top".
As you can see, it was very cloudy that day.
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01 Jul 97 - From the summit, you can scope out many of the other
mountains. Here is a picture of Mt. Galatea. You can see the path you take to get up
that mountain.
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01 Jul 97 - Looking down from the summit, you can see Chester Lake.
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