@andreat and I headed out for a long awaited trip into the Kwoiek area this weekend. Specifically to do Kwoiek Needle. There was a heyday for this area when the logging roads were up and running but since their deactivation, access has been getting more and more challenging. Our desire to get in was bolstered by a recent report that the trail around the lakes west of Kwoiek Needle was in pretty good shape. This would make my original bushwhacking plan unnecessary and hopefully speed up the approach.
Andrea and I reached the landslide on Kwoiek Creek FSR around 10pm and bike the last 4.5km to the trail head. We found quite good conditions along the first lake, but came armed with clippers and a saw to clean up as much as we could along the way. Around the second lake the trail was much harder to follow but we kept finding it whenever we got off route. We made one creek crossing at the inflow of the second lake and then bushwhacked up to the lake at 1800m west of Kwoiek Needle.
On the following morning we snowshoed up a steep slope and then bushwhacked along the northwest rib until reaching dry rock at 2000m. Here we had pleasant, but windy, scrambling up to the west ridge. Another 500m of foreshortened scrambling landed us on the summit. The views were phenomenal! The wind kept us from staying long and we returned to the rib and dropped off early on snow slopes all the way back to the lake. This bypassed all of the bushy sections of ridge and made for fast travel to camp.
Finally, we packed up and slogged out! It was a glorious return down the road on bikes back to the truck with almost no uphill.
The trail we used goes much higher towards the Chochiwa glacier and it would be a shame to see it fall into total disrepair. I highly recommend checking it out and adding some much needed foot traffic to the area. Even better if you bring a few clippers to dispatch with the devil’s club sprouting up and encroached sections of trail.