South Chilcotin August 2014; Day 2 – Lorna Elbow Ridgelines & Elbow Peak

On our second day we had a nice leisurely breakfast taking in another beautiful day as the sun rose and the water lapped at our camp at Lorna Lake. By 9.30 we were ready to rumble and headed out of camp to take our bikes for another nice walk 400m up to Lorna Pass.

It was another scorcher but yet again, the winds were cooling us off nicely and bugs were largely absent giving us time to cool down at the pass before pushing up another 200m to the Elbow-Lorna Ridge at approx 2350m. On the ridge there’s faint trails set by horse-packers along with fantastic 360 degree views including to Elbow Peak (2458m) which would then be our next destination.

Temps were 20 degrees or so in the alpine which was very conducive to sitting around but we had places to go so off we rambled down the ridge. Trails grew faint as we traversed up and over Shart Hill and then back down as the ridgeline gently keeps rolling west to east. Bryce wanted to roll off S back down to Lorna Trail while Trevor and I wanted to roll off N to the Elbow drainage. Given that it would have scarred up the scree mightily to drop in off Shart Hill we kept ambling along the mellow ridgelines taking in views till we both found nicer ways to drop in. Trev and I actually found pre-existing tracks on our scree showing that someone else shared our route scoping vision and after a sporty traverse we ended up barely 80 m below Elbow Pass.

From Elbow Pass it was another 350m push to Elbow Peak and also tremendous views. While its possible to amble on more ridgelines we came to the conclusion that the views would be no different than from the Elbow-Lorna ridge. So Trev and I old-manned serpentined the meadows down from Elbow Peak, pushed back up to the ridgelines than again meandered down meadows to Lorna Pass. From there it was a brake-burner back to Lorna Lake for yet more lazing around the lake in the sun. Dinner tonight was Mongolian Beef from Red Chilli Szechuan restaurant of North Van