If you have ever read the book The Golden Spruce by John Valliant then you have most likely read about eccentric Grant Hadwin who at one point lived in the area. With his wizardry he somehow carved a road up to Seton Ridge for a logging company. The road is just visible from the Duffey Lake Road and is a sight to behold, winding steeply high above the canyon. Therefore access to the trailhead is not for the faint of heart or gutless 2 wheel drive vehicles. To access the trailhead Darryl and I drove 19km west of Lillooet on the Duffey Lake Rd. We turned right onto an unmarked logging road and crossed two bridges over Cayoosh Creek and Copper Creek. From here there are kilometre markers starting at 1km to 6kms that you can use to count and sooth yourself as you white knuckle up the steep canyon. At the summit there is a wide pull off with a few old fire pits. Here we parked and the trail began.
We headed up a very well flagged trail on the left. I was very pleasantly surprised at the condition of the trail. It is maintained by a group of locals that go up a few times of year to mountain bike and hike the ridge. With the exception of some deadfall to manoeuvre over the trail was in great shape and easy to follow. The route climbed steadily through a forest buzzing with various birds and the ground was littered with false morels. Me being silly picked a few along the way and put them in a bag mistaking them for true morels. Luckily a triple check a mushroom before I ever consider putting it even remotely near my mouth.
After just under an hour we arrived at the first good view point of the glistening, turquoise Seton Lake. Here there were some neat rock spires that jut out from the ridge. Far below us we watched the passenger train making its way back from Seton Portage to Lillooet along the train tracks. From this point we carried on up and up. We eventually crossed into a beautiful sub alpine meadow and ran into a couple patches of snow. Nothing to hard to get around. Not long after the trail curved north and headed down into a gully and back into forest. This part was slightly frustrating because we lost quite a bit of elevation and had to climb back up. We emerged back into the sub alpine and started to talk about turning around. We had come about 6kms. Unfortunately we did not make it into the full alpine out on the ridge, but we will save it for a time when we can do an overnighter. We had a quick lunch and headed back for the truck. The hike down was uneventful. |