SUMMARY:
distance: 3km for us, round trip, see below
date: Aug 3, 2000
Elevation Gain: 200m see below
difficulty: Easy... see below
For us the trail ended up being just getting to the trail head.... we got out really late, and ended up not being able to driver to the trail head. To get to the trail head drive South from Windamere on the West side of the lake,(13th Ave or 13th st, which becomes _____ road) Follow this south for around 12 miles (yes miles not km) and turn right on Hawke road (a gravel/dust road). I am unsure of the exact distance, we ended up passing Hawke road, and comming to the but end of a 'T' intersection, and had to go back 4-5km (approx). simply follow Hawke road (paying attention to signs) to the trail head... you have a truck or a 4x4 right? I don't
This hike was recomended to as one of 4 possible destinations, for a 1/2 day hike, or a quick and easy sight seeing destination to finish up a day. According to this fellow, the hike was a 45 minute walk in a upper medow, then you could spend an hour or so and scramble up the to one of the peaks surrounding the valley. Sounded great, it was getting late, but we could do this in the time we had left in the day ... or so we tought.
Hawke road is a bit of an adventure in itself, it is a 'real' road, that is a genuine road sign marks it's location, The road however looks like little more than a track cut out by off roaders, this road doubles as a logging road for the first 7km. We pulled off just after turning onto the road to let a logging truck go by, later around the 3km point we had to quickly take the ditch as another logging truck came around the corner. There is definately not enough room for two way traffic on this road, especially when one of the vehicles is a huge truck. In all serousness, do be careful anytime you are on a loging road, These trucks comunicate with other traffic using their raidos. I don't have one, so had to drive slowly and carefully, with the lights on.
At the 7km point there is a fork in the road, keep left, and you will (at least right now) not have to worry about huge trucks, only the forestry traffic from the station which shares the road. With out all the logging traffic the road quickly becomes semi-rough for a car to handle, we were in a car and had no problems so far, just had to drive fairly slow. After driving for some time wondering if we were still on the right road, around the 11km point we came to another fork in the road, along with a sign indicating that this is indeed brewer creek. Stay right at the fork
Actually, there was yet another fork in the road just after the 7km point... no signs, stay left, when we were there the right side was 'blocked' by a big branch placed accross the path. This could be easily driven over, or moved...
Somewhere between the 11-12 km point there is another fork in the road, A sign post in the center of the road is marked 'trail' with an arrow to the left. follow the arrow, the other road leads to the Brewer pass forestry station. It is right around here that we meet a heard of cattle.... that is no doubt common in this area of BC, but it seemed kinda odd to me being out in a very wild setting. The trail is by this time looking like it may get 2 or 3 vehicles a week on it (just a guess) but needless to say it is getting pretty rough, still passable with my little cavalier though.
14-15km : Turn right at the post marked "Brewers creek", just after a sign warning hunters that they may not use moterized vehicles beyond this point. Trail speed kept to 20km or less due to the roughness of the road, I guess the deer can read, because it was not long after this we see 2 white tail(?) deer on the road, which quickly jump away into the forest.
23km: Around this point the road cuts through an avalanch, This was not the big bolders that I am used to scrambling over, rather smallish 1 ft or so in diameter rocks... they made me pretty nervious driving over them. Although we are still proceeding in the car, I was then daydreaming of owning an actual 4x4 vehicle.
25km: we hit the bridge... can not proceed much farther with my wimpy car due to the water cuts in the road. we retreat to a reasonable parking area just before the bridge and start out on foot around 7:00pm. Hiking along the road, I am sure a 4x4 or just a truck with it's higher under cariage could have made it, at least on the day we were there. It took us around an hour to make it to this bridge from the start of Hawk road.
The hike to trail head takes about 45 mins, you have the creek running close by, but out of sight, lots of flowers, Dasies, 'honey suckels.... that is what I've called them since I was a kid, the little read ones with mulitple stamans(sp?) which you can pull out and suck the nectar out of. Several other types of flowers, which I have no idea what they are. Getting to the trail head, really made me want to go on, but it was now pushing 8:00, and I thought it best to head back.
The way back was uneventful other than a elk bounding accross the road in front of us
Well there was no real hike, so it is hard to say there is any lessons learned on this hike... other than the old don't start so late... yea yea I've said that many times now. But we were not intending to go on a hike at the start of the day, and this was recomended as a good short hike (around 1.5 - 2 hours) but we neglected the time it would take to get to the trail head. Oh well.... maybe santa will bring me a nice little 4x4 truck for Christmas...
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