Ponds, the magnitude of breaking out MacNaughton from an entire season’s worth of snow hit us. The bushwhack up MacNaughton when approached from the Loj begins near the outlet of Wallface Ponds. Wallface Ponds are isolated, beautiful, and infrequently visited, so it was great to be there for the first time. That feeling of accomplishment faded pretty quickly under the realization that we had reached the end of the marked trail and the beginning of the bushwhack. I asked Heather, the one of us who had done this hike previously, “so now it’s a free-for-all?”, which she confirmed. I initially took lead on the bushwhacking trail-breaking, but was soon confronted by an endless spruce trap minefield of waistdeep powder. There did not seem to be anywhere to go, and following the GPS tracks was actually making things more difficult. Each step fell into an abyss. Heather then jumped into the lead to relieve me but seemed to have a similar experience. It was taking minutes to go just a few feet. Finally, we managed to get through the snow and found the drainage. We understood that we could follow this to just below the final summit “crux.” Bob, Jerry, Alex, and Heather were all trailbreaking rockstars, and we slowly made our way up the drainage. As we reached the top, we knew we needed to head left (south) up the steep final pitch before the summit. The good news was that we were getting close; the bad news was that it looked virtually vertical and impossible to climb in the season’s worth of deep snow. Our snowshoes were getting very little purchase. I took a stab at commencing the final quarter-mile pitch, but it felt like I was making negative progress through the powder. I moved to the right a few feet, tried again, made some meager progress, pulled down a dead tree in the process, and then managed to fall backward into yet another spruce trap. While Alex was assisting me to my feet and I was dusting the snow off and repairing my bruised pride, Bob spotted a possible route up, even further to the right of where we were, and took the lead. With some personal heroics by Bob and a lot of arm work, he was able to ascend the final extremely steep pitch. I followed in second, with Heather, Jerry, and Alex directly behind me. Nearly eight hours into our journey, the mountain suddenly flattened out—we made it, right? Nope, now it was time to find the sign. After consulting the GPS track, we headed left (east) and traversed the summit ridge to the true summit. Once we confirmed that we reached the true summit, we split up and continued to walk all over the ridge looking for the sign, but we could not find it anywhere. As a testament to the nature of this awesome group, not one person ever suggested stopping the search during the hour or so that we were on the summit ridge. This was a “yes,” “can-do” group of hikers—there was absolutely no quit in anyone, and positivity continued to reign supreme. Personally, it was inspiring to be a part of this team. Heather then recalled that the sign may actually be on the lower (west) end of the ridge and on the far side of where the primary route up the mountain was located. I.e., where we went left after reaching the summit ridge to go to the true summit, the sign was to the right. After a few more minutes of searching focused on this specific area, Jerry let loose a holler that immediately told us all that he had found it! We were elated! The photograph/highfive session that ensued felt well deserved after nearly nine hours on trail to get to that point, but we kept it relativeWINTER 2023 | 27
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