A group of 5 cheerful mountaineers spent a good part of March 5 on the southern slopes of McDonald and around the Stick bumps. The objective of the trip was to stay off the trodden trails as much as possible. Essentially, we connected various sections of steep wet rock to mossy ledges, mixed with a few short trail sections, and using hands to hold on to rocks and mosses where needed. Many beautiful flowers were spotted and admired along the way. A few bushes also came in the way, evidently providing the launch pads for 4 ticks for hitching a ride with the group (but only using the trip leader).
A particularly exciting part of the trip was the climb up the east face of Malcom mountain. We spontaneously decided to check out the steep rocky face and found a surprisingly easy ramp that diagonally cuts across the face, with only moderate amounts of vegetation. After finding a few more mossy ledges below the summit we had lunch. We finally made our way back to the trail head, still enjoying the sunny scenery and conquering yet another boulder, in addition to two other boulders on the way in.
There you go - the big and wild outdoors can still be found close to civilization!
Start of the scrambling: Gully around the corner from the McDonald rock climbing area (photo credit: Mary Sanseverino).
Mossy ledges near the gully (photo credit: Mary Sanseverino).
Boulder preening on McDonald (photo credit: Rachel Treloar).
Looking eastward back towards the route, from Martin’s boulder, near the base of Malcom mountain (photo credit: Mary Sanseverino).