Mt James Walker 255294 Off-Trail hike on 18-Aug-2020

It was a pleasant 13 degrees when we left the Sawmill parking lot and headed up the the fire road to the turnoff to James Walker Creek. Surprisingly the lower tarn still had some water in it. We followed the trail North of the lower tarn and turned off about 600 metres beyond the lower tarn. A short stretch uphill through the forrest led to the bottom of a boulder slope. The group followed the vegetated left hand edge of the boulder field up to the plateau.

The temperature was still quite reasonable, which was helped by a moderate breeze. After traversing the meadows, we followed the left hand side of the valley around each of the three large tarns. This section is probably the most scenic part of the trip.

At the end of the valley the group followed the trail up the gully to the ridge where we were able to get good views of Fortress Ski Area.

By this time the wind was quite strong, which helped keep the grunt up the ridge to the summit of James Walker bearable heat wise.

The last 150 vertical metres up to the summit of James walker is very loose talus/scree, which made for slow going - two steps up and one step back. Not the most pleasant of hiking experiences.
Once on the summit of James Walker we settled in for a lunch break and to enjoy the views.

The trip from the summit back down to the gully was quick and much more pleasant using a fairly good loose scree trail.

We followed the valley floor, traversing around the three tarns and made our way to the front end of the plateau.

We retraced our route back down the edge of the boulder field and back to the trail above the lower tarn. We were back at the vehicles at 5 PM.

My thanks toPhilip,Jim,Janice,Yoko,Gary,Jim,Krzysztof,Michael and Jeannette for their excellent company and for joining me Kevin (C/S) in exploring the James Walker area.