TITEI MOUNTAIN 2570m 8432′
Pronounced “Tie’-tay”. It is on the local watershed south-southwest of Long Mountain. With Blacktail and Naskowen, the ridge line of the three of them forms the boundary of Kokanee Glacier PP. (The original “square” park has had several bumps added and a few bites out of it to make a border that follows natural ridge lines. These 3 mountains form an added bump on the northwest side).
Difficulty: C3
Elevation gain: 3100′
Key elevations: Fishermaiden Lake 5300′; Billy Valentine cabin
Distance:
Time: 9 hours
Season: mid July to mid September
Access: Difficult
Map: 82F/14 Slocan.
Drive: Silverton Creek FSR. Begins in the town of Silverton. One hundred meters south of the bridge, turn east on Fourth Street. At 200 meters, go left (north) on Alpha Street. Where the pavement ends (0.3 km), curve right on Four Mile Creek road above Silverton Creek. It extends
7.3 km Continue straight. Right goes Maurier Creek (Mount Aylwin).
9 km Fennel Creek south to Paupo Mountain Both roads are north of the park.
16.4 km to below Mount Heyland, Long Mountain and Titei Mountain (high clearance, four-wheel drive).
Approach: In 2007, the road was blocked 4-5 km from the end.
Fishermaiden Lake Trail: very overgrown and difficult to follow. Beware: about halfway, it snakes along a very narrow tread on a steep bank above Silverton Creek.
Billy Valentine Trail. Follow the Fishermaiden Lake trail for about 10 minutes, Encounter a sign and flagging for the beginning of this trail – very overgrown and inapparent that turns left just before Fishermaiden Lake. The trail runs SE on the north side of the creek going to the lake below Titie. In 2007, it was in good shape to the lake and an old cabin at 848-239. It seems worthwhile to make attempts to find it to avoid bushwhacking.
We then bushwhacked SE up from the lake (5300′), staying on the N. side of that creek that flows into the E. side of the lake. After 65 min. of moderate struggle, we came across this wonderful trail and followed it to a destroyed cabin near the lake at 848-239 (Slocan, 82F/14). We figured this must be the Billy Valentine Trail and cabin, as I found out later that he’s listed as an area prospector on that big sign located just at the beginning of Silverton Creek Road.
1. Northeast Ridge. Drive the Silverton Creek road (see introduction, access) to about one kilometre from the end of the road (to the last major creek on the east side) and hike up the southwest side of the creek. There is a little bushwhacking, and then a stretch of spectacular house-sized boulders. This leads to the small lake north of Titei.
Ascend south to the col in the northeast ridge and ascend it, Class 3.
The party descended the west-southwest ridge to the col, and then northwest to the large lake with an island and returned to the road (the approach route for the west face). (II,3). FRA Rick Bivar, Mike Brewster, Joan Harvey, September 22, 1990.
2. West-Southwest The descent route of Routes 1 and 3.
3. West Drive the Silverton Creek road (see introduction) to the trailhead for Fishermaiden Lake, 16.4 km (10.2 miles; high clearance, four-wheel drive). Hike for 10 minutes and turn left on the Billy Valentine trail (flagging at first) to the lower of two lakes (847-237); trail in good condition above.
Traverse southeast toward Titei’s west face. The route is walking in the alpine zone and high-grade scrambling on good granite on the west face. Three and one-half hours up. (II,3).
FRA Kim Kratky, Peter Tchir, July 16, 1997.
The two then traversed over the 2510m bump between Titei and Blacktail Mountain, climbing the latter by the easy southeast ridge, 2 hours from Titei. They returned by circumventing Blacktail on the south and east, passing over the rib north of Blacktail to the lakes. It was a 9-hour day.
TITEI, BLACKTAIL, FISHERMAIDEN by Kim Kratky
Next, Peter and I went scrambling up Silverton Creek on the 16th.
The road is open now to the Fishermaiden Lake trailhead (good quality 4WD, a little bushy at the top end; probably could do it in 2WD). We hiked the Fishermaiden Lake trail (20 min.) and found it easy to follow but overgrown with stinging nettle and other such crap before we got into the timber. There are some deadfalls, but it’s not bad.
Probably not worth working on right now. However, the signs at the trailhead are in bad shape making the BCFS look kind of derelict.
Now the really interesting thing is that after about 10 min. walk on the trail, we encountered a sign pointing to the Billy Valentine Trail off to the L. There was flagging but you couldn’t see the trail in the vegetation, so we laughed and pushed on to the lake. We then bushwhacked SE up from the lake (5300′), staying on the N. side of that creek that flows into the E. side of the lake. After 65 min. of moderate struggle, we came across this wonderful trail and followed it to a destroyed cabin near the lake at 848-239 (Slocan 82F/14). We figured this must be the Billy Valentine Trail and cabin, as I found out later that he’s listed as an area prospector on that big sign located just at the beginning of Silverton Creek Road. Refreshed and out of the bush, we continued SE, skirting the upper lake on the N. and headed for Titei’s NW face. This we did on snow leading to a high-quality scramble on good granite for the last few hundred feet. 3.5 hrs. to the 8405′ summit–remarkably similar time and altitude to those of the Chipman trip.
After an hour’s lounging, we headed SE to the next bump (35 min., 8250′, 855-227). From there, we descended the SW ridge of 8250′ (saw two goats at very close range) and dropped into the upper reaches of White Heather Basin before ascending Blacktail Mtn. by an easy S. ridge (rock much more crumbly than on Titei–more like that on Virgil). Blacktail has a series of formidable-looking molars on its NE side; they may not be that hard, but we had no rope. We reached Blacktail (8176′) just before 3:00 and hung around for 30 min.
On our return, we traversed around the SE side of Blacktail, went through a col just NE of the peak, crossed a ridge running NW from Wilfred Ridge at about 846-233, and descended on snow to a point between the two lakes we had passed on our ascent. After contouring the SW side of the lower lake, we crossed the creek at its outlet point and came across a mine and tailings (Billy’s mine, we reckon).
We found no connecting trail between the mine and cabin, but after 5-10 minutes of searching, we picked up the trail and followed it right down to its junction with the Fishermaiden Lake trail (2 hrs. 10 min. from the top of Blacktail to the car park). The trail is in good condition with excellent flagging except where it passes through a rock slide below the tree line. As well, the bottom 200 meters are indistinguishable from the vegetation and have to be negotiated almost entirely by reading flagging. Deadfalls are present but not at all bad. Somewhere around 6500′ on the trail we came across a small metal plaque affixed to a tree. This looked like a claim marker but was a BCFS record of trail assessment, the most recent date showing 8/28/94.
I talked to Dave Fitchett by phone about this trail. He knew of its existence but had never been on it. Information about it was supplied to the BCFS by Nancy Anderson who lives near Silverton. You and Dave might want to take a hike into this area. It’s quite attractive, especially the upper lake which has an island in the middle of it.
As a sidebar to all this and another negative reflection on Parks BC, I called their West Kootenay office for information about access to Wee Sandy Lake. Steve Kent was away, so I got some guy named Dan Harlowe. Know him? Anyway, he wasn’t very helpful about access to Wee Sandy and didn’t want to hear about the Billy Valentine, even though it does give access to Kokanee Glacier Park (Blacktail is in the park, at least on my maps it is). I got the feeling that Mr. Harlowe’s philosophy is that parks are not for people but instead for protecting animals, and that whatever knowledge these guys do have they don’t want to share it. I do understand and respect this point of view, but I’m just not in total sympathy with it. As you would probably say, “SIGH.”
Kim Kratky