Grouse Circuit via Erik the Red, 2019-10-10

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  • October 11, 2019 at 9:08 pm #10322
    Mark Latham
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    What’s great about this hike?:

    • Although it’s in the popular Grouse Mountain area, much of it is little known, seldom travelled.
    • It’s a loop that connects familiar places like Baden Powell Trail and Thunderbird Ridge.
    • Beautiful viewpoints: waterfall on Mosquito Creek; Thunderbird Ridge.
    • Goes through a wide variety of terrain — steep forests, leafy overgrown trails, marsh, boulder field, alpine meadow.

    Since this is a less known route, I wrote a detailed trip report when we hiked it on July 12, 2019:
    northshorehikers.org/forums/topic/grouse-mtn-circuit-via-erik-the-red-july-12-2019

    Here I’ll just add incremental notes from hiking it again yesterday:

    To ensure sunny weather, I posted this on our schedule just 3 days in advance, after checking the forecast. I also posted it on our Trip Updates forum, which members can subscribe to receive by email.

    The weather was beautiful! Six of us met at Grouse gondola base station Starbucks at 9am, and started up the Baden Powell trail, then turned onto MacKay Creek trail uphill, reaching 840m elevation at about 1hr25min. Having led this route several times this year, I had no trouble navigating the short 300m bushwack across to Old Grouse Mtn Highway. Followed that flat overgrown trail to the waterfall on Mosquito Creek at about 2hr10min.

    30 min stop for lunch-part-1. Then 30min hike to Pipeline Pass, where we turned left onto Erik the Red trail. The big log blocking the trail at about 1080m altitude is now best circumvented by clambering uphill to the top end of the log, rather than squeezing underneath it.

    Ascending to the familiar trail along Thunderbird Ridge, we found quite a few icy patches. In a few weeks, spikes may be needed for safety. At the ridge’s east end viewpoint, we basked in the sunshine for a relaxed lunch-part-2, then an hour or so hiking to end at Grouse chalet.

    2019-10-10 track & data:
    Total time: 6hr 16min including 1hr 35min stops
    Ascent: 1,118 m
    Distance: 11 km

    Event posting: northshorehikers.org/events-page/2019-10-10

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