We managed to get our two Subarus down 5 Kms south of the "big hill" though the second half of this was basically just on the river bed. We then set off at 7:30 am to find a route from the South Ghost up Orient Point. We had trip descriptions from Bob, Sonny Bou and one Carl had from Kerry. We did n't find the trail straight away - I had Sonny's track and I thought we could just bushwhack a short distance as we were further south than his track. After a short while we intersected a horse trail but it did n't seem to be heading in the right direction so we preferred an old seismic line which did intersect the old road up the South Ghost river valley. The South Ghost river and road suffered, like many river valleys in K country, from the 2013 flood but it was easy travel where the road still existed.

After finding the drainage mentioned in the trip descriptions we bushwhacked up it's eastern side - a mistake we corrected on descent!

Approach drainage from South Ghost to Orient Point

When the drainage split we took the climber's left drainage and gained the ridge. Higher up we got to the cliff bands.


Cliff band on Orient Point

Jeannine and I went about 60 m up a chimney to see what was above ... and obviously it "goes" as this is the route Sonny describes but the terrain looked, to me, a bit intimidating and I could n't be sure how long it would be before we could get on easier stuff. We decided to descend to traverse and try the right hand ridge which looked milder terrain (this was also implied by Kerry's report).


We traversed below these cliff bands

A bit of somewhat tedious side hilling for a while but then we got on the SE ridge and the last section was quite fun easy / moderate scrambling along the ridge with nice views and an airy drop on the east side.


Susan on final ridge to summit of Orient Point

We got to the summit around 2:00 pm and had a pleasant 45 minutes picking out mountains quite a distance away - we think we could see King George way to the south.


Susan, Bill, Jeannine, Alda and Carl on summit Orient Point

On descent we stuck more in the drainage which was better travel than we had on our bushwhacking ascent. Using Bill's GPS we followed the South Ghost road further than where we had picked it up in the morning but cut off a dog leg it takes with a bit of bushwhacking. We ended up, after joining back with a very washed out South Ghost road, with the cars across from us when we emerged on to the river bed around 7:00 pm.

Early evening in the Ghost: Phantom Crag and Devil's Head

I almost got stuck driving back up the river bed as we took a different route through the gravel of the river bed to get back to the "big hill" - I should maybe have GPS'ed our route through the gravel also!

An excellent day for me with a new peak for all of us. Thanks to the group of Alda, Bill, Susan, Jeannine and Carl for patience and tolerance with the route finding. Thanks also for the smiles and good company!John.

The "speedy ladies": Jeannine and Alda

Trip stats (thanks Bill):23.4 Km 1310 m elevation.

Orient Point route 2014