Waddington Range summer 2010 camp

[Russianfront]

Hi all,
I am seeking 2 people to team up with me to fly with White Saddle Air (http://www.whitesaddleair.com/) into the Waddington Range this summer.
Here are the details:
1) Nabob Pass specfically. See the attached picture. The top 2 images I took from the air 2 years ago. They show Mt. Waddington (which is just up the valley from Nabob Pass), Nabob Pass itself, and a Google Earth screenshot of the on the ground view in the pass towards Mts. Marcus, etc. accross the Tiedemann Glacier. I also attached some pictures of the pass and view from Don Serl's Waddington Range guidebook. For those of you who are not familiar with the Waddington Range, it holds the highest peaks in BC, with Mt. Waddington itself being just over 4,000m or 13,000 feet tall.
2) Fly in via helicopter with Mike King from Whitesaddle from his base at Bluff Lake which is about a 10 hour drive from Vancouver. Drive goes up Highway 1 to Cache Creek, then 97 to Williams Lake then accross the Chilcotin on Hwy 20 to Tatla Lake where the turn-off to Bluff Lake is located. The flight into Nabob Pass should be about 20 minutes or so.
3) The pass is located at about 5,300' and hosts 2 big alpine lakes. Lots of space to camp. Nabob Pass used to be much visited years ago before the advent of commercial helicopters as Wadd bound climbers used to floatplane into Dumbell Lake (lower down the valley) then travel through the pass and towards the mountain. Apparently these days few people go there. Other than the pass the main hiking objectives are Memorial Point on the shoulder of Mt. Jeffery and also the ridge to the west which wanders closer to Waddington itself. Terrain is quite gentle despite the rugged surroundings. That's the charm of it.
4) Want to go last week of July or 1st week of August to tie into the BC long weekend. Weather is usually pretty good then too. Peak of summer. Trip would be about 8-9 days total. 1 day each way driving and say 7 days at camp.
5) Cost of the round trip flight is about $2800 with taxes. I am willing to cover $1500 of the cost leaving about $1300 to recover from other participants. If 2 people came along, the cost per person would be $650 per person. This does not include food, gear or gas for the drive up there.I have room in my truck for 3 people plus a pretty huge load of gear, thus allowing us to split the gas costs.
6) This will be my 4th heli-based trip into the mountains, and the 3rd time I will have flown with Mike King. I am quite familiar with the drill! I am a photographer and am going into take pictures mostly. We would have a radio for communucations with base and I have an EPIRB emergency locator beacon as well...we are a loooooong way from civilization out there.

I am posting this now as I know it takes time to find partners. I have a bunch of friends who would like to come along as long as I pay lol. Isn't that always the way it works out?

Look forward to hearing from you. Best way to contact me is to fire me an email:
scottpick@shaw.ca

[Russianfront]

Still looking for 1 more person. Trip has changed a bit. We are going to heli into Nabob Pass for about 4 days then after flying back to the White Saddle base we are driving over to Nimpo Lake where we are going to floatplane into Ape Lake at the northern end of the Monarch Icecap just south of Bella Coola. The epicness has hopefully been turned up a north. $1000 gets you in and covers both flights (4 flights, 2 in heli, 2 in floatplane). Only other expenses are food, gas for the drive up there.