Heading down from Dial, I was curious to see exactly where we had gone wrong last week on the trail between Bear Den and Dial. One issue I noted last time was the dearth of trail signs after Bear Den - so on the way down from Dial to Bear Den I was especially on the lookout to see where the trail markers were. Sure enough, I noticed dramtically fewer trail markers after a while - there seemed to be a stretch in the vicinity of the Bear Den - Dial Col that had markedly less trail markers. That, combined with a pretty bad set of blowdown make this section tricky to navigate in the winter and in the absence of tracks. Beware!
However, with the previous day's party's tracks, the route-finding was easy. We crossed over the bad blowdown area relatively quickly, got over Bear Den, and down into the Burn area. The gloomy weather made the already stark burn area even more stark!
Impromptu trail maintenance
It was nearing dusk as we exited back onto the Lake Road, and, shortly thereafter, the first bit of precipitation at the leading edge of the upcoming weather system started to fall. Good time for us to be getting back! We signed out at the trailhead and quickly scurried back to the car, glad to have finished and to have managed to do winter summits of Nippletop and Dial. A much more satisfying outing than last week, to be sure!
Interactive trackmap with photo points - click map to expand
Start Time:
7:07a.m.
End Time:
4:58p.m.
Duration:
9h51m
Distance:
22.02 km
(13.68 mi)
Average Speed:
2.2 km/hr
(1.4 mph)
Start Elevation:
1259ft
(384m)
*
Max Elevation:
4602ft
(1403m)
*
Min Elevation:
1196ft
(364m)
*
End Elevation:
1208ft
(368m)
*
* : +/- 75 feet
Total Elevation Gain:
4204ft
(1281m)
*
Total Elevation Loss:
4258ft
(1298m)
*
* : +/- 75 feet
Elevation Graph
Elevation profile over distance
Elevation profile over time.
