[MCR] Athelney Pass Area, South Coast

Subject: [MCR] Athelney Pass Area, South Coast
Date: Wed, 07 Sep 2011 18:55:20 -0700
I spent 4 days backpacking in the Athelney Pass area on the divide between the upper Lillooet and Upper Bridge rivers. Despite the fact that the access route is described in some guidebooks the few following points should be considered:

From the perspective of people mainly used to hike on "parks grade trails" reaching Athelney Pass will be challenging as the trail is more of a flagged route rather than a well established trail. For people used to off-trail backpacking, this should be more of the same as what they may be used to. Note that not the entire route is flagged though, so just keep you eyes open. Part of the route travels through forest (typical), and wide river bed filled with glacier outwash, which is fairly untypical for the area. I have yet to find another area just like this in all the accessible terrain around Whistler / Pemberton. Higher up on the ridge system, the travel is good and the views are breathtaking. Another important consideration, is the area is a wildlife corridor between the Bridge and Lillooet river system. In 4 days, traveling every day, we saw many Grizzly footprint from single to sow and cubs and run into 2 grizzlies. The first one , just walked by our camp ( maybe 40m away) as I was starting breakfast. It barely looked at me, and appeared to be avoiding our campspot by climbing over a small moraine and disappearing out of sight. It never appeared stressed, or in the rush though. This medium size bear was most likely the one that was sighted up valley at the pass proper by another group. Description and behavior were similar with the "bonus" of having the bear digging out a marmot 20m at most from people's tent. It took the bear close to 1hr to do the job and have a meal, all the while remaining unconcerned by people around who first attempted to scare it away by yelling etc... I do not know more about the details, but they could watch the scene from their tent (likely a bit nervous...). At no point was the bear ever interested in the people and the tents, however it was not scared of them either...

Finally, on the last day, as we were hiking out on the river flats, we came across a big male grizzly walking up river, the wind was such it could not smell us, and we were lucky to spot it ~ 100m ahead, so we had time to b-line away from the riverbed, undetected (so we think), leaving plenty of space for the bear to continue not being bothered. Most of the route goes along these river flats, with occasional section in the bush to avoid the creek. This will also be the route of choice for bears and others "locals", so keep your eyes open.

Make sure you remain aware of your surrounding if you set destination to this place in the coming weeks. The forecast remains solid and this is a great place to enjoy some wilderness.


Cheers,
Laurent Mingo,
ACMG BPG.




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