Exploring a new mountain trail
			by Jim Easterday

Ever wanted to explore? To go where no man has been before? We're lucky. There are mountains and valleys in north-central B.C. that are still unexplored. Sure, helicopters have sat down on top of every mountain but that's almost like cheating. No sweat, no scratches, no flies- a ride in a helicopter does not earn you the title of explorer.

BACK to return Our trail to Mystery Mountain

After 30 years of hiking on local trails, I decided it was time to be an explorer and walk a new trail to a mountain that no one visits. We pored over maps and picked a mountain that is accessible by logging road but is seldom visited. The mountain we picked has no name. It's a massive peak with it's own glacier. We call it Mystery Mountain. We had no idea what cutting the new trail would be like. My wife and I planned to use flagging to mark the trail and a GPS unit to navigate. When we were finished, we will pull the flagging and no one will know that we were there. GPS stands for Global Positioning System. It's a hand-held unit that triangulates your position on the earth's surface from signals received from 12 satellites in earth orbit. It's accurate within 15 metres but can be blocked by mountains or trees so it's always best to carry a compass for back up.

The view from Mystery Mountain

At home, I laid out our trail using maps and created waypoints on the GPS so that we wouldn't get lost in the thick timber or get close to hazardous slopes. Now, all we had to worry about was all the hazards we may encounter. Rock canyons and sheer rock walls, slide alder thicker than dog's hair, alpine balsalm thickets, cold wind, snow: there are lots of things to stop you in your tracks. Bears are a threat but we usually see more bears in our backyard than in the mountains. We always carry bear spray but have never needed to use it.