Smith Brook road is one of Mike's favorites for snow shoeing and easy cross-country skiing, so I've been up and down the road quite a few times in the last few years with his group. We usually don't stray too far off into the field though and I've been thinking about doing a little more ambitious back-country trip here this winter. I thought I would take the opportunity this weekend to get reacquainted with territory past the end of the big switchback before it gets snowed in so Karen, Huck & I hiked the Union Gap trail up to the PCT and Lake Janus.
I've done this trip before from Smith Brook road but it was in 1974 and I wasn't thinking about snowshoes or skis at the time. Even before that, Doug's dad took us on a cross-country hike to Lichtenwasser Lake. That hike also started along this stretch of road and it was the first time I'd ever been hiking in this area. That was a looong time ago, but since it was only my second ever overnight hike, I remember the trip well - to get to our starting point we had to cross a bridge made of two huge logs over the creek, one of which was broken in half - Mr. Caley made us all get out of the station wagon and walk across before he drove, slowly, over. I also remember wearing our rain gear the whole weekend because the mosquitoes were so bad. The hike was short, but with no real trail it was an adventure for a bunch of Jr. High kids.
For this trip though, we decided to stick with the trails and follow the standard route up. I've heard of people skiing to Lake Janus and I wanted to have another look at it with that in mind. Most of the route looked like it would be pretty straightforward: climb up from the switchback, cut over to Union Gap and the PCT, and traverse with the PCT on the side of long ridge and then around the end of the ridge to the lake. Along the ridge though, we crossed a couple of slopes that looked like they were regularly cleaned by avalanches. I didn't see any good way to avoid these slopes so I'm not sure I would want to be back here anytime there was enough snow for good skiing. We probably should have gone the other way on the Crest Trail and checked out Lake Valhalla - I read somewhere that's a good winter trip and although you still have to traverse under a high ridge, on the map it doesn't look quite as steep as the hillside you have to cross to get to Janus. We'll just have to wait for some snow and check it out.
It was too early for snow this weekend, but it was plenty cold; there was lots of ice on the creek, frost in the meadows and icicles hanging down where the water was dripping out of the small springs in the hillside. The fall colors were slightly past their prime but it was still very colorful and pretty.
There's a few more photos on this
Picasaweb album here.
Compare to this post. Coincidence? 
I followed the trail for a quarter of an hour or so and then turned off in the general direction of the peak when it looked like the trail was heading too far east. I traveled on game trails and a few faint boot tracks, essentially following the easiest path just inside the timber on the east side of an old clear cut. Eventually I found a good track heading up the northwestern ridge of the peak and followed that until I lost it in the scree. I tried following the ridge itself, but got cliffed out so dropped down into the middle of the bowl and found another boot path heading toward the summit. The final approach crossed the ridge a few hundred feet below the summit and met up with the track coming up the west side from Annette lake. Neither the north or the west side looks like it gets much traffic and I didn't see another soul until I actually got on the summit and could see the main trail coming up the south ridge.
