3rd annual trip to Fairy Meadows Bill Putnam Hut

After the youtube video posted by “Foresty Forest” claiming he had clean the hiking trail we needed to go back and enjoy a hike without bushwhacking much…. Well, at least that is what we thought.. This time we planned to overnight and take our time to enjoy a day hike once at the hut. We drove to Golden on Friday after work and slept in the car in a nearby gravel pit in Golden. Up at 6:00am and after a quick breakfast at MacDonald we car pool with Stefan to the trail head.

Dave, Stef, Nicky and me on the truck and Angel and Chris drove her 4x4.

Almost 3 hours took us from Golden to the trail head, the trunk road parallel to Kimbasket River is in good shape, but it is long and windy…

We split into two groups, fast and slow. 

The first 3-4 kms are certainly clearer than before and we can even run for a bit, after that we hit a burned out section what was still smoking ! the trail sort of got washed out and we spent at least an hour trying to figure out where to go.. finally found a few flagging tapes and with a bit of bushwhack we managed to get to the avy section near the creek.

Once there, it gets steep, but clearer as you are on bolders and the moraine. The day was overcast and rainy, we made it to the Hut at 3:15, set up camp just below the hut since it was already full and we didn’t make a reservation and headed out for an another hike while waiting for the rest of the crew.

We have been here three times now, and finally we are not in a rush to hike down… Blue barriers were all over the place, hundreds of them ! we chatted with some of the people at the Hut and when we got back to camp we re-group with the others and set up a nice fire for the night. The rain was spotty, so Dave and I set up a tarp on top of the vivy sacks and at around 9 we called it the day…

The night was uneventful, and with a 7am start I set up a fire and started to pack. We had breakfast at the Hut since all the guest had already left and right after that we went out for a hike to the glacier above the Hut. Angel and Chris started the hike down so that we can catch them and try to finish together. With 2 hours head start for Angel and Chris we began to hike out. We caught up to them at the burned out section of the trail, 4 kms before the parking area. We passed them and Nicky stayed with them. We finished up and sat for an hour a half waiting for the them to re-group and by 6 we were driving out to Golden.

It was around 9pm when I started to drive back to Calgary and made it home just before mid night !!































































  


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