Brew Lake Trail
Route Description
This route requires tresspassing illegally on the CN Rail right of way. Park at Brandywine falls parking lot and walk the railroad tracks south. After a prominent bend right, and then back left, you will find the trailhead on the right side marked by flagging tape and a FMCBC Adopt-a-Trail sign. The trail climbs steeply from here to Brew Lake. The section from the lake to the hut is above treeline, has no trail and must be navigated on your own. There are a few cairns here and there, but they are not continuous. Once at the lake, don't make the mistake of trying to beeline it for the hut because of cliffs in between. Instead, stick to the mellower terrain in the basin west (left) of brew lake and then climb up to the col just south of Mt. Brew, where the hut is located.
Brew Lake Trail trailhead relocation
Trail Building Plan
- Spring/Summer 2005 - find a suitable route which is acceptable to the VOC, CN Rail, local property owners, the Ministry of Transportation and the FMCBC.
Information from Western Forest Products
Updated June 2005
Western Forest Products is the company that is logging around the existing Brew Lake Trail from the railroad tracks to brew lake. They were kind enough to forward a map showing their logging plans for the area, but asked that the plans not be released publicly, so I will not post them here. Email me (Scott Nelson) if you want to look at them. They have 1 clearcut that intersects the trail, and logging is now complete. Western Forest Products has now rerouted this section of the trail around the edge of the clearcut.
Road access to the clearcut is from Brew Creek FSR, which leaves highway 99 just south of the bridge over brandywine creek. Since the brew creek watershed is used to collect drinking water for Black Tusk Village and Pinecrest Estates, the entire road system has been gated to prevent public access. This is consistent with other watersheds such as Magnesia Creek (lions bay), 21 mile creek (whistler) and Capilano (north vancouver). We may be able to arrange a key to the gate for the duratoin of brew hut construction, but the road system will not be publicly accessible in general, and thus cannot serve as a new trailhead access. The road system is not very suitiable for access to the trailhead on foot, because it takes a very round-a-bout route to reach the point where it intersects the Brew Lake Trail. It would be faster to hike the lower part of the trail to this point than to take the road.
Brew Lake Trail Relocation Exploration
March 8th, 2005 Scott Nelson (VOC) Evan Lovelss (FMCBC) and Ethan ? (MOT consultant).
There is a pullout about 1km south of brandywine falls which Ethan had proposed as a possible new trailhead location for the Brew Lake Trail. We bushwack from here to the BC rail line, and then crossed the rail line (and a stream) and continued west towards the current trailhead by the railroad tracks. Progress was made difficult by many steep sided ridges running N-S through this area, and by trying to find a route that avoided going through recently logged clearcuts. It seems that the best route would be to use branch 31 of brew creek FSR (this branch will be accessible once the gate is moved to accomodate a proposed trailer park and campground further up the road) and then go up beside a stream (heading NW), then climb out of the stream, cross branch 100 of Brew Creek FSR (beyond the new gate), cross another stream and then start up the mountainside to intersect the existing trail a few hundred meters above the present trailhead. This route has only been partially explored.
Much of the land south of the trailhead is privately owned. There is the Brew Creek Lodge and some undeveloped land owned by a private landowner, which complicates access from this direction. It would seem that the terrain on this side is much flatter, and the trail extension would run mostly N-S instead of E-W which should make for easier travel given the topography.
March 13th, 2005
We now have a key for Brew Creek FSR. Sandra and I walked branch 31, which is deactivated, but only has 3 gentle water bars and a few small alders, and explore around the end of the road. This could be a good potential trailhead. I would take 5 or 6 people about 1 day of work (triming alders and armouring water bars against erosion) to reopen the road for vehicles. In the future, the gate on brew creek FSR will be moved up past branch 50 to allow for a RV Park and Campground off branch 50, so branch 31 should be publically accessible by car.
April 22nd, 2005
I bushwacked from the powerlines near brew creek lodge up to the railroad tracks. This was swampy and bushy at first (under the powerlines), but quite nice once in the forest behind Brew Creek Lodge. There are a couple ridge to cross over on the way to the trailhead however. I also explored from Brew Main Branch 100G up to the current trail, which was ok, with a steep talus section. On the way down, I bushwacked from the trailhead down to the back end of Brew Creek Lodge, which was generally pretty good travelling.
ScottN 14:15, 14 Mar 2005 (EST)
Land use considerations
Logging
Logging around the summer trail, on the east side of Mt. Brew, is being done by Western Forest Products. The contact person for the VOC is Scott Nelson.
Private Land
Much of the land south of the existing Brew Lake Trail trailhead is privately owned, which is unfortunate since this would seem to be the best to relocate the trailhead to. Perhaps a route can be found through here that avoids the private land.
Brew Creek Community Watershed
Brew Creek is the water supply for Pinecrest and Black Tusk Estates. For this reason, Brew Creek FSR is gated to limit public access. In the near future, an RV park will be constructed off branch 50 of Brew Creek FSR. The RV park will not be in the watershed, but the gate will be moved up the road to accommodate it. A new road is being built to the RV Park to avoid going through the watershed, so the gate will only be moved back a few hundred meters from its present location and there will be no public vehicle access to branch 31.