We set out on Friday with plans of hitting Sentinel Peak west of Longview.  It was going to be a bike/hike of around 20km round trip.  However, as we got closer the weather was turning colder, it was wet and muddy and Petro-Canada was doing a lot of work near where we needed to park.  So, we basically chickened out and headed further south down the Forestry Trunk Road, caching along the way as far as Coleman.

 

We ended up turning off onto Atlas Road, which was a rough and rocky stretch.  There were some fairly good puddles to cross and having higher clearance paid off in some locations.  No more so than at a location where the road has been washed away.  We stopped at the top of the washout because it looked like the road turned into a quad trail beyond that point.  We were still 2km from the cache we were looking for at that point so we decided to walk the rest of the way.  Well, once we got to the top of the washout it was clear the road carried on and, in fact, looked better on the far side of the washout than the section we had just been on.

 

So, I walked back, hopped in the Jeep and carefully navigated across.  The pictures don't do it justice because it was quite steep and the dip at the botton didn't leave a lot of clearance.  But, the Liberty lived up to its "Jeep" moniker and made it without problems.  That saved us backtracking 14km!

 

Atlas Road eventually hits Highway 3 west of Coleman.  So, we did some more caches in that area, including one which let me set into BC briefly.  We scouted out some locations for future caches and some old alignments of Highway 3.  A quick bite to eat at the Subway in Coleman, a drive home along the Cowboy Trail (Highway 22) some more caches along the way and we made it home just a mere 12 hours after leaving.  Just a typical day in the life of a cacher. 

Another one of those situations where I'll just copy and paste my Geocaching log from GCJHCQ:

 

Awesome, simply awesome. Great views and a great hike to get to this one. I was hoping to finish the ascent of the mountain but I either ended up on the wrong trail or I don't have the skill/nerve to complete this one. Just about 50m or so beyond the cache I came to a location where the trail dropped down to a narrow ledge with severe drops on both sides. I figured I would either fall getting across or I would get stuck coming back so I bailed out and went down. Some other time, perhaps! Had a horrible time keeping the cache from sliding out of its hiding spot but I finally got it blocked in. Great time! 

Yesterday we had a great time taking the Galatea Lakes Trail up past Lillian Lake to Lower Galatea Lake. 

 

Despite rain Friday night, freezing temperatures at the trailhead and fog it ended up being a great weather day.  It wasn't too hot and at the higher elevations there was just a trace of snow.  The cooler temps made it easy to conserve our water as I used only about half of the two liters I carried up with me.

 

Great hike.  Our net elevation gain was around 750m, but with all the up and down our total ascent ended up being just a shade over 1000m.  The round trip was 16km.  We spent a lot of time lunching at Lillian and taking our time on the steep sectons so our total time was seven hours -- four hours of walking time and three hours of stopped time.

 

The ladies stopped at Lillian while the fellas pushed on to Lower Galatea Lake.  That was an additional 1km each way, but you gain an impressive 250m of elevation in that short distance, much of it on loose scree.  That portion of the trip alone took us 40 minutes to complete.  The cache at Galatea Lake was in pretty grim shape but it was an easy find.  After signing the log we took about 20 minutes to get back to Lillian, found the ladies again and then completed the walk out.

 

This was my fourth straight weekend of trying some good hikes.  From Barrier Mountain to Moose Mountain to Grass Pass to Galatea Lakes it was been great.  I'd like to think it is getting easier but I'm not so sure.  Today my left ankle is very sore (I kind of rolled it over coming down to Lillian Lake) and my right knee gives out on me everytime I bend it with any weight on it.  We'll see if I recover enough to hike somewhere else next weekend or if I'll be limited to doing the lower more accessible caches.

 

We forgot our trekking poles at home and we left the camera in the trailer, so we have no pictures to post this time. 

 

Guinn Pass looks really tempting at some point.

 

OK, that hike is deceptive.  It doesn't look that far on the map but the path is used for running cattle so it is very worn in places.  It is also much rockier than you expect.  In fact, I am more sore from doing Grass Pass yesterday than I am from either Barrier Mountain or Moose Mountain.  The views once you get to the top are nice, but certainly not as great as the ones from places like Barrier Mountain or Heart Mountain.  As well, the whole way up the view is behind you so you don't really appreciate the effort you're putting in until you are done and heading back down.

 

According to my GPSr, the one-way distance was about 3.8km -- again deceptively short.  However, in that short distance you pull around 470m of elevation gain making the route quite steep.

 

In the end Shirley bailed out after four caches and I only managed to get six of the nine I had on my list.  In a sense that worked out OK because there was a new cache placed up there in the Bull Creek Hills (which is where the three I missed are) that I didn't know about.  It would have been a lot worse coming down thinking I had hit all nine caches and "cleaned out the area" and then found there was one left.  At least with four still up there I have more motivation to return.