We woke at 2:30 AM and it was pouring rain, I walked the dogs around the property and came in already soaked! At this point, Fabrice decided to upgrade his raingear for the trip. We drove off to the trailhead in the rain; we were both quiet... Moments before arriving at the trailhead, the rain ceased; I sarcastically said: "wonder how long that will last". We followed the good trail to the waterfall and continued on a crude trail to Hector Pass, that took us 2.5 hours. Coming down the other side on the karst pavement was thoroughly enjoyable; we spotted Charles who camped there and joined him before resuming our descent to Molar Creek. We avoided rockbands by veering skier's left towards a drainage and followed it until we got to the forest. We steered away from the drainage (skier's left) into mature timber and bushwhacked our way down to valley bottom. The undergrowth was still soaked from last night's rain, my saturated pants kept sagging down like a skateboarder's. Eventually, trees made way to shrubs and open terrain; soon thereafter, we were hiking along the east side of fast flowing Molar Creek. We could see that part of the creek coming from Molar Pass still needed to be crossed. We searched for a place to rock hop across but that seemed treacherous; we tried setting rocks but most of them got swept by the current. We looked around and found a smoother section just before the creeks converge. We took turns at crossing the knee-deep creek with our boots on; it was rejuvenating! We carried on, with squishy boots, to Molar's described ascent drainage. The ascent is direct and the terrain is pleasantly negotiable. The way through the first rockband is obvious as you go and the rubble on the upper mountain is relatively stable. We ascended the summit block on its ridge line, climber's right via a short easy-moderate scramble. A few steps and we stood by the cairn; I was ecstatic, I had my doubts! We took the time to enjoy the view and the accomplishment. We grabbed a bite and Fab signed the register before we headed back down to the first rockband, where Charles had been patiently waiting. Back at the ford, Fab took a spill; his camera got wet and he lost a pole. My camera also got wet; as I tripped, it popped out of my side pouch. A bit wet and with daytime slowly running out, we didn't linger. The undergrowth in the drainage had dried off by now; I hoped we would gain Hector Pass before the rain, if it came. We picked up Charles' extra gear and continued on the fantastic karst to the pass. The rest of the descent was uneventful and it never rained; we reached the truck with only minutes to spare before having to use our headlamp. This outing is very satisfying, now I must sleep!
