Date – January 1, 2011
Location – Map 24, Blue Mountain
Distance – 1 km, or less!
Hikers – Dean, Marlene, Benjamin, Madeleine, Steve, Simon and Robyn
Start – 2.3 Beaver Valley (Intercept Side Trail)
End – 2.3 Beaver Valley (Intercept Side Trail)
Direction – South, but not very far
Weather – 5°, showers
Details – It’s New Year’s Day and we are skiing for a few days at Blue Mountain. It’s a warm day and some of the kids have gone skiing, but we plan to wait until tomorrow to ski again, so when the rain lets up, we decide to hike a short section of the trail.
We try to drive to the starting point we’ve chosen but there’s a section of 4th Line Road that’s completely closed – no winter maintenance.
We make a wide detour to reach our starting point, but by now it’s late in the afternoon and we know we don’t have much time before dark.
We park the vehicle and head towards the trail head, and it’s only a few steps before the first soaker. Within minutes, we are all soaked by the water that is running under the quickly melting snow. We decide that if we press on we are sure to reach higher ground and easier hiking, but we are wrong. We get about 1 km before deciding that this is the kind of story that ends up in the papers: “shivering hikers rescued from cliff after being stranded by dark and poor conditions.” We think we can make it to 69.4 of the Blue Mountain section, which is where we’ve left another vehicle, but then we decide that we can’t risk being so irresponsible and we give up.
We are all very glad to get back to the hotel and dry footwear.
