FKT: Tlell Mooney - Augerpoint Traverse (BC, Canada) - 2025-08-11

I left Mt Washington just after sunrise; the trail to Mt Albert Edward was quiet until Circlet Lake where I could see many people camped, and after that I passed multiple parties heading for the summit. I arrived at the summit (of Mt Albert Edward) at 9:20am and I called my partner to give him a more accurate time of when I'd be at Buttle Lake, while taking a pause and having a snack. Then I headed down the ridge deeper into the park. The cairns were pretty frequent going down the ridge though I did check Gaia regularly just to make sure as the trail was much less obvious than on the other side of Albert Edward. The stretch between Albert Edward and Ruth Masters Lake felt very long and hard and took quite a while despite being a short distance. I credit this to being around the time where it started to get very hot (high of 34°C when I got down to Buttle Lake a couple hours later), in addition to the less apparent trail, and a techy downhill followed by a consistent uphill. Getting to Ruth Masters Lake was a relief! So beautiful. I had carried 2L of water from the morning and I had just run out before the lake, so I had a good drink of filtered lake water and refilled four flasks. I debated getting moving but the heat and beauty of the lake got the better of me so I jumped in - so good! Feeling refreshed and relieved to have lots of water, I carried on west to the saddle. I think I lost the trail a couple times going up that hill, but eventually found the steady cairns and arrived at the saddle. I got quite confused here as my gpx file on Gaia showed going down from the saddle and traversing the slope of a couple high points, but the "Augerpoint Trail" on Gaia showed going up the peak to my left, then undulating down and up before rejoining the gpx track. I spent a bit of time here debating what to do (feeling a bit tired at this point especially with the heat) - I didn't want to go uphill again but I was worried that the gpx file might have been wrong and that I would end up off course and lose the trail or get bluffed out and having to backtrack (although I didn't see any bluffs). I decided to follow the trail on the map and the cairns and continue uphill. There was a great view of Syd Watts and Sid Williams peaks to the NW from the high point I reached, as well as Mt Colonel Foster looking majestic in the distance in the direction I was headed. At this point I was feeling quite tired and looking to where I was headed there seemed to still be a considerable amount of elevation gain which added to the my mental fatigue, however between the two nameless peaks I was traversing, there was a lovely stretch of runnable windy dirt path which felt good. Finally I was heading up the bump west of Jack’s Fell which would be my last uphill for the day! I was shocked to get a couple bars of service here, so I sent an updated eta text, though I wasn’t sure if my partner would still be in service at that point. At the top of the last climb I saw a woman solo and I yelled and waved excitedly to her: coming closer she asked if I was alright, and I replied that I hadn’t wanted to startle her. Truthfully I was so happy to see another human as I hadn’t seen any since before the summit of Albert Edward 3ish hrs earlier. She said she was day hiking in the area, warned me about wasps in the trees, then we parted ways. After seeing her I had a boost of energy and good mood and I started to feel excited that I was nearing the end of the traverse, and seeing Buttle Lake ahead of me was a welcome sight! However, I knew the descent near Jack’s Fell down to the road was incredibly steep so I wasn’t quite at the home stretch, but close enough. The terrain was good enough that I could run slowly, and it felt good to move faster than a walk which had been my speed for most of the peak traversing. After the trail started to descend steeply I came upon one more person who was going down, and he was completely oblivious to my greetings until I was a meter away as he had both headphones in. We greeted each other and I carried on. This part was so steep and had portions of scree switchbacks, portions of straight down, and lots of roots, loose rocks, and slippery dry dirt. My knees were starting to ache at this point, and the downhill started to feel neverending. Sometimes I would come to a bluff and get a small amount of relief for the knees, only to see that I was still quite far from the lake. There were many good saves at this portion of the day! Finally after seemingly forever I heard a car drive by very close, and a couple minutes later I saw the road hallelujah! There were a couple cars parked on the side of the road, and I talked to the folks down there. The woman was doing a solo Syd Watts ascent, and a man who asked me if I’d seen his son descending - I had - and told me that the Augerpoint day area was closed for fire reasons. This worried me a bit as I’d told my ride to pick me up at 1:30pm at that day use area. It was 1km away from the trailhead so I started walking down the road (it was approximately 1:30pm at that time). After 10min of walking and trying to shake out my knees, I saw my ride pulled over on the side of the road and they said it was perfect timing as they’d arrived 5min before. Yay! Good adventure! Swim time!