Sleese Driving Mileages

[Doug_Hutchinson]

If you wanna see cute snafflehounds like this one on Sleese, you have to find the right parking lots on the approach and on the descent. This is no small task if you follow the awful descriptions and incorrect mileages provided in guidebooks by Beckey, Nelson/Potterfield, and Kearney. Below are exact driving mileages (current August 9, 2002):

 

Drive Hwy 1 to Exit 119. Go South through Sardis on Vedder Road approx. 3.5 miles and turn left immediately before the bridge over the Chilliwack River onto Chilliwack Lake Road (CLR).

 

Descent (Sleese Creek side): Drive 13.2 miles down CLR and make right on Sleese Creek Road (adjacent to a large gravel lot and the entrance to a military base). Drive 3.6 miles, avoiding any smaller spurs. At "Y" take left (signed "New Sleese Cr Trail"). Drive straight past left turn in about 100 yards. At 4.7 miles from CLR, main road takes a sharp left turn and climbs uphill. Although this seems logical don't take it and instead turn down a small road to right and take the left fork (right deadends in 100 yards). Another way to describe this critical intersection at 4.7 miles is to view it as a 3-way intersection: take the middle fork. Go straight down this overgrown road for 0.2 miles to a fork at a wooden frame (for a shooting target?). Turn right and leave car/bike in the clearing. The road to left proceeds about two more miles to the actual Sleese Mt. trailhead but anything short of a monster truck will get stopped by huge waterbars within a half mile. You will be hiking out this road on the descent.

 

Approach (Nesakwatch Creek Road): Return to CLR, and drive 5.6 miles to the Centre Creek/Nesakwatch Rd (At Riverside Campground). Take right, cross the Chilliwack River in 100 yards, and take right at fork in another 100 yards. Drive 3.4 miles to a spur on the right that leads to a small lot at the approach trailhead at the site of a dilapidated cabin.

 

Hope this helps and sorry to ruin it for those who haven't had the joy of trying to figure out where to park using the available guidebooks.

[Dru]

all of that driving info is in alpine select (McLane) which you should have used instead of the guidebooks you mentioned....and it slesse not sleese.

 

aside from that, can we get a TR?

 

[ 08-12-2002, 08:20 AM: Message edited by: Dru ]

[Doug_Hutchinson]

Due to the amount of logging in the last two years near Slesse, the descent parking area is a little different than described above. At 4.7 miles, the left turn still goes up but the road is immediately gated again. This intersection is now only a Y instead of a 3-way. Take the right fork and head into a new, large clearing with huge piles of (soon-to-be-burned?) brush. Park here. I was amazed at how overgrown the old road to the Sleese Creek Trail (descent trail) now is. In areas, the road requires more alder bush wacking than the steep climber's trail descent.

 

This weekend, the glacier and the NE Buttress were in exceptional conditions. There were some crevasses of course, but it was the easiest crossing of the Pocket Glacier I have seen.