Bridge over Vermilion River
October 2 2014 Thursday.
The day did not start off too well with snow and ice on the highway. The bridges were especially slippy as we found out when we had to help a motor cyclist who had fallen off his bike on Hwy #1.
Numa Mountain & Floe Lake trail head are down Hwy 93 on the right from Castle Mountain, about 30km from Hwy 1. The trail to Floe Lake and Numa Pass is a well defined trail.
We decided to approach Numa Mountain from the avalanche chute route ( bench ) and return via Floe Lake.
Bench at the turn up to the avalanche slope to Numa Mt
All of the blogs I had read had mentioned this was one hell of a grind and I have to agree especially with the fresh snow. It looks so very easy from the above photo but the photo foreshortenes the route. The ground underfoot like all of this area has loose plates.
Cutting across to the Col of Numa Peak.Peak is top right
There is no need to head to the top of the peak that is ahead of you unless you enjoy extra elevation gain. As the chute starts to narrow head left to catch the col . The summit is top right on the photo above.
Happy to have made the summit of Numa
Mt Foster and the ridge down
View from the summit. The ridge showen in above photo is the route down to Numa Pass and Floe Lake.
Heading down the ridge to the lower summit
Heading down towards the lower summit where a bit of scrambling is required.
Leaving the lower summit. Another top center
Going down from the lower summit is sheer hell with the snow covering. All the way has big slabs of plate rock and I think they have ball bearings under them. I sure did a lot of bum work down this section. Looking at the next summit I have good news you can cut across to the left to the ridge on the left.
About to cut to the left
At about this point we short cut to the left.
Floe Lake and the way down to the trail
It is a nice stroll down to the Numa Pass trail which is just above the tree line and visible to the naked eye.
Distance return 24.4 km Time return 10:30 hrs ( inc 30 min lunch ) Elevation Accumulated gain 1670 m Elevation to Summit 1 375m Summit height 2735 m
[recaptcha_form]
Recent Comments