Trip Date: Oct 5, 2013
Participants: Wayne Pattern, Christian Molgat, Steve Pollack, Alison Coolican, David Puddicombe, James Lamers, Brittany Zenger, Geoff Zenger
Difficulty: 1/2
Report: Our original plans to head up Cypress Peak scuttered due to a large amount of fresh snow falling in the days before this trip, I looked at a map and changed destination to Mt. Brew, which we ascended via the “winter route” trail and whose trailhead lies only a couple km away from the Cypress Peak trailhead up the Roe Creek main. The last 1.5 km or so to the trailhead require a 4wd vehicle due to the steepness and looseness of the road, but was otherwise drivable by one of our party member’s Honda Accord.
We departed the trailhead just past 10am under low overcast skies, and after about 30 minutes hit both snow and fog. Up to Brew Lake the snow was firm enough to be easily traversable without snowshoes, but past the lake those of us who brought snowshoes were very grateful to have them as the rest of the party spent much time postholing in the boulder fields on the route towards the Brew Hut. On the way up we caught up to a VOC work party led by Roland Burton heading in to replace some windows in the hut, and after this, eventually reached the hut at about 12:40, where we stopped to enjoy a nice lunch in the fog.
We departed the hut for the summit of Mt. Brew at 1:10, and made it to the summit in no time as we were standing on the top at 1:30, once again in total fog and without any views whatsoever. Bored by the whiteness, we didn’t stay long and soon started on our way down to the cars, which we arrived at before 4pm, making for a very relaxed trip of less than 6 hours. The terrain in general is very mellow and the trail is pleasant enough, it’s just too bad that we couldn’t see a thing at all for the entire day.
