30.07.2017
Well worth the climb up from Tenquille Lake, the views are superb in all directions.
Our plan was originally to just follow the trail up through the absolutely stunning meadows and enjoy the flower show. But we found ourselves just continuing upwards until we reached the Tenquille-Finch col, and then on to the summit cairn with its handful of claim posts sticking out at various angles.
The trail heading north out of the campground leads to the creek, which is definitely not the best way up towards Finch Ridge as it climbs an extremely steep slope that would not be fun or safe to descend. We ended up having to bushwhack through the trees to get back over to the meadows to continue our ascent. My suggestion is to follow the trail to the creek and enjoy the view of the cascades, and then backtrack to a very faint trail that leads up the meadows and continue upwards.
Once in the upper meadows, the trail vanishes - we did our best to avoid the flowers wherever possible. Thankfully, there were plenty of marmot burrows in this area too so it was quite easy to do so. At the top of the meadows you get the best view of Tenquille Lake; higher up you only get partial views.
The next obstacle was a 30-ish degree slope of hard-packed dirt that was near impossible to penetrate to get traction. Next time I think we'll take a higher path, staying on scree to go over the top of this section. It was awful, both directions. Avoid if you can.
Beyond that the route was obvious. Still some snow patches which made for slightly easier travel (except when it was too soft). We stayed well away from the creek as it ran under the snow but that wasn't really a problem except near the edge of the snow patch.
We could see the smoke plume from the Elephant Hill fire near Cache Creek to the east. :-(
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