Elevation Gain: 1,262m
Distance: 11.15km
Total Time: 3 hours 56 minutes
Date: August 17th, 2024
After a week in the Pantheons and a few more days after in the Charlotte Alplands I was back at home at last. I had the whole Friday to rest and happened to discover that Saturday had immaculate weather. The following week and weekend… not so much. I didn’t want to rest a second day if I was going to have all week to do so and so the search for a reasonable outing began. I knew deep down I didn’t have much energy in the reserves so I was on the look out for something tame. That’s when I remembered the Pinecone-Burke area. Laura and I had done Seed Peak some 3 years prior and that’s the last time I was in the area. Nearby Mount Gillespie was still awaiting an ascent and it turns out a secondary peak “November Peak” was actually on the route. When Laura and I had gone I don’t think this was established as a separate mountain and odds are we just walked right past the “true summit”. It’s since become well known and with sufficient prominence, why not add it on. As for Mount Gillespie, it’s the second tallest summit around the Pinecone Lake area and is mostly a hike with some scrambling. I didn’t bother doing much more research than that and headed out Saturday morning to see the area again.
Mamquam FSR was in good condition and I had no issues driving the spur roads to their end where the Pinecone Lake trail starts. There was at least 10 cars at the trail head and that’s no surprise given the addition of this area to AllTrails. I started up the cut block, not realizing there was a new trail head start, but eventually located the correct trail and followed it with ease up to November Peak.
From November I dropped down 100m+ to the col with Seed Peak and then back up again to the large system of slabs at the base of Seed Peak. This time I hooked right and followed the undulating slabby ridge line down towards Gillespie. There ended up being quite a bit more elevation loss than I expected, but the scrambling was pretty fun overall.
Near the col, I ran into Brooke and Andrew from SWBC PeakBaggers and 2 of their friends. I briefly chatted with them before I continuing on. From the col there was one section of class 3+ climbing that was quite fun and there I ran into a second group. I recognized one of them as Alice who I had done The Camel with last year. Again I chatted with them for a bit and then pushed on up the summit. There was one short section of class 3 below the ridge and then I was on the top. The views were great and I spent about 20 minutes eating snacks and chilling out before heading down.
I basically returned the way I came although I ended up too far skier’s right locating that class 3+ section. After traversing a bit further skier’s left I located the entrance and down climbed without much issue. From there it was an easy return up some optionally harder scrambling to gain the top of the ridge. The rest was an easy walk out and I finished in time to have the rest of the afternoon to hang out!
Nice frog.