31.5km, 1240m elevation gain.
Total hiking time 11h 11m
I've been working my way through all the mountains in my corner of Strathcona and I finally made time to get up Jutland. There's nothing too hard about getting to the top, it's just a long daytrip.
I started at 7am from the Paradise Meadows parking lot. The sun was starting to rise causing the nights condensation to mist across the ponds and meadows.
I had another cool interaction with a pine marten. I heard a rustling in the bush and saw the little guy run up the back side of a tree right in front of me, less than 5 feet away. As I struggled to get my camera out, a game of peek-a-boo started. He kept on hiding behind the tree then poking his head out to look at me. He bolted off to the bush where he came from and then came running back up to the tree, this time with something in his mouth. I couldn't tell if it was a mouse, baby squirrel or maybe a bird but he played another epic game of peek-a-boo with the dead animal hanging from its mouth before he ran off. That's the only picture I got and only because he stopped for a moment.
Eventually I made it to Circlet Lake and then the climb up the ridge to Jutland. This is about where the flies started to appear. There were some brown ones which I think were horse flies and some black ones about the same size. The horse flies weren't too bad, as long as I kept moving. Those black flies kept landing on my shoulders and getting me through my shirt.
On the summit of Jutland, the cairn had been taken over by flying ants. They seemed harmless but I still had to get close and pull out the summit register from the cairn!
I didn't stick around long. From this point on I was pretty much chased by bugs the entire way out. It wasn't terribly fun but, I got my checkmark.
Mount Regan, Mount Mitchel and Mount George V are all high on my To Do list. Pearl Peak and Peak 1931 are sort of on the list but not as important. Not sure how many of these I'll be able to cross off my list this year but there's always next!
Comentarios