Beverly Lake Via Effingham River     To view Photo's of the hike. Click on the "dark green stars" that are placed in different locations on the topo map.

    My first view of Beverly Lake was back in 1994 while flying around with a local pilot. Ever since then it has been high on my list of beautiful places to visit. The only problem was the location and the accessibility of the lake. After looking on the Topo map of the area I had a route plotted out, 8 years later it became reality. The route I had planned on going, was by driving to the headwaters of the Effingham river, then hiking a new route up the “South/West ridge” of Fifty-Forty Peak turning North just below the summit, down the upper Col dropping into the bottom of the North Bowl, then taking the long ridge that leads to the base of Niamint Peak.

I had planned on leaving early Saturday morning, hike to Beverly Lake and then depending on the turn around time spend some time hiking around the lake and generally exploring the area. While I was doing up the map I got a phone call from Barry who is a good caving buddy of mine. He was looking for something to do on the long weekend. I asked him how energetic he felt and he replied by saying very. Then he asked “why?” I then explained what I was just up to and asked if he was interested in joining me. I also mentioned we would be crossing over unexplored limestone to further entice him. It worked and the plan was to meet at my place at 6:00am Friday.

I was ready by 5:30am and Barry showed up 10 minutes early so we were off in good time. When we finally got to where we were going to start hiking, it was then I noticed I forgot my watch I looked over at Barry and he was not wearing one either. Humm, I’m a big fan of keeping track of my time and more important I use it to tell me when to turn around. I normally hike by myself but this time I had company so I thought it would be OK to go in without a time piece. We started up some steep slash, but this only lasted for 5 minutes. It was into the Virgin timber pulling ourselves up by the blueberry bushes as we go up more steep country. I was told by the person who hiked this route the year before, that it was only about 30 minutes in the timber then it breaks out into alpine meadows with only small rock bluffs to walk around here and there.

Well it was at least 1+hrs and we were still in the timber and coming up to the bottom of a 200ft cliff, YUK!! I was starting to think that we were not on the same route that buddy described to me the year before. Then out of nowhere we ran across some old flagging tape that was placed when there was still lots of snow in the area, explaining why it was 10ft up in the trees. Luckily it took a good line up the cliff, lots of pulling up on bushes and branches. Once on the top of the cliff it started to open up to alpine and the going was a lot easier. We lost the survey tape, but at least it got us on top so then we started to head right getting off the ridge and heading down towards the lower lake to have a bite to eat. After getting energized it was up and over the Col just south of the summit of Fifty-Forty, it was here we got our first views of the long alpine ridge heading towards Niamint Peak with Beverly Lake at the base of it. We couldn’t see the lake at this point I just knew it was over there some where. At the Col there was still a fair bit of snow in the North Bowl making it a fast boot ski decent down towards the ridge. At the bottom of the bowl it was easy going over rolling low angle rock n snow towards the ridge. The next stop was at a small outcrop of limestone, here we did a little exploring hoping to come across a cave entrance, and unfortunately we came across none. This was due to lots of frost shatter which is common at high altitudes also it was only a very small outcrop of limestone, but it did offer some cool looking karsts features and one small walk through cavern. After leaving the limestone you walk over beautiful wide open alpine meadows with lots of colour from the alpine flowers. A third of the way along the ridge you decent once more down a small bluff stay on the left side. A little farther along right on the crest of the ridge you will come across a fairly new looking fracture in the rock approx. 6 inches wide 100ft long then turning into about 3ft wide and 40ft deep and running another 100+ft. From here on until you start heading up the last 300ft rise about .5km in the distance stay on the crest of the ridge don’t try hiking on the South side, its nothing but house sized boulders stacked on top of each other. Pick your own route up the last hump, this will depend on weather. It was dry when we did it so we walked right up the rock, but this could be tricky if it was wet. There is a small rock cairn at the top with nice views of the surrounding peaks, but you can still not see Beverly Lake. I was only about .5km away from seeing the lake that I had wanted to get to for the last 8 years. The last stretch is over rolling alpine and then … there she was, and as beautiful as I remembered. When you first see the lake you are about 200ft above which gives an excellent view of the area. Barry and decided that we would stay up high and head down the south side slowly dropping down to the lake by the time we rounded the south end. From here we walked north walking around the lake looking for rising fish and also taking in all the awesome scenery. At the north end we headed up to gain access to the ridge that can take you to the summit of Niamint Peak if you head north, but this was not on the agenda “some other day”. Also we were both feeling a bit tired and sore at this time. There is a flimsy looking wood structure that has a small weather station on top that we could see from the Col at Fifty-Forty, this made for a good break spot before we start the long trudge back to the vehicle. Hiking at a slow steady pace we hoofed it over the first rise and then we accidentally veered to the south side of the ridge, but in no time we were in the middle of a boulder field, a quick back track to get on the crest. After that we had no problems hiking over the ridge. The next obstacle was to grovel up the snow slope leading towards the Col, this ended up being not as bad as we thought. Now it was all down hill from here on. We first crossed over a Scree slope passing just underneath the base of the large rock pinnacle “exposed” we were then able to gain access to the ridge we hiked up, but at a slightly higher elevation so I was not familiar with the local surroundings. Before heading into the bush I called home to say we were still on top and hoped to be home in a couple of hours. I also asked the time and was surprised to find out it was 6:00pm not 4:00 as we thought. This should be no problem as we still had 3hrs of light and the hike down should only take 1hr. “Famous last words” Heading down into the timber I made the mistake of dropping down too far instead of heading right. The going was good but this was going to change real fast. Thank god for all the bush that grows on near vertical cliffs as this was the only thing that got us down through this snotty part. Now we were committed to try and find a way out of the cliffs, luckily we found a way out and came across the survey tape that took us up. That was a big relief as now we knew it was a fairly easy hike out. For some reason the survey tape disappears as fast as it appears, I was not too worried because my dog Hawk has always taken me back to the vehicle. Not this time, I guess coming down through the bushy cliffs tuckered the poor old boy out and he was in no mood for leading. This threw me off, because for the last 5 years I have relied on him to take me out, that’s why I never had to carry survey tape to mark my route. Well for some reason I headed too far left and this just took us into more very steep ground, once again thanks to the bush for getting us down. At last we could see the Timber Slash it couldn’t be much further now, boy we were in for one more eye opener. Where we came out of the timber couldn’t have been in a worst place. It was at the middle of a Heli-logging slash. “Bar none the worst slash going” and no road could be seen in the distance and it was starting to get dark. “SHIT”. We had cliffs in the timber or we had the gross “Heli-slash”. We had no choice but walk over the grossness. I had no idea that they did a Heli-show at the end of the road or else I would have made a point to avoid it at all cost. Just as it was getting dark we got back to the truck, only 2hrs behind schedule but still in one piece which is the main thing. I think next time I go up to climb Niamint Peak from this direction I’ll take the standard route up Fifty-Forty and cross over below the summit, and I’ll take a couple of rolls of survey tape.