From the intersection with Shand Avenue in Grande Cache, drive north on Highway 40 for 920 metres and turn right onto a side road.  In 60 metres, keep left and drive another 140 metres to a pullout in front of the town's cemetery.  Park here.

From the cemetery, Zosia and I walked westward along a road which runs parallel to the highway.  The trailhead sign is roughly 140 metres west of the cemetery, and we turned north here to begin hiking on a snow-covered track which follows a power line climbing up the mountain.  Initially, the track was quite easy to hike as we followed numerous old footprints in the crusty snow.  As we climbed higher, the snow became deeper, and signs of previous passage slowly dwindled until we were essentially breaking trail on our own.  The post-holing was perhaps not the worst we have ever done, but it was still wearisome nonetheless.  Had we brought them along, snowshoes might have helped a bit, but our upward progress likely still would have been slow.  About two-thirds of the way up the mountain, there is a significant dip which requires losing about 70 metres of elevation.  This drop can be quite disheartening especially in conjunction with post-holing through deep snow, but in retrospect, the elevation loss and regain is not as bad as it looks.  Determined to bag the summit, we put our noses to the grindstone here and churned our way through deep snow down into the dip and up the other side.  As we approached the mountain top, travel became easier again as we trudged on windswept snow or bare ground.  The vast plateau at the top made it difficult to discern the exact location of the true summit, and short on time, we simply picked a suitable spot to snap our requisite summit photo.

Chilled by a brutally cold wind, Zosia and I did not linger on the summit for long before retreating the way we came.  Our egress was considerably easier since we now had a broken trail to follow through the deep snow.  Traversing the big dip was annoying but not nearly as painful as I had been anticipating.  The rest of the descent was long and somewhat tedious, but we had no serious problems even when darkness fell.  After an inauspicious start to our day and the exhaustion of post-holing up Grande Mountain, we were appropriately dead-tired by the time we got back to the cemetery.

	Sonny tries to dislodge his car after getting the rear axle stuck on an immovable rock along Beaverdam Road.  Mount Hamell can be seen in the background. Photo courtesy of Zosia Zgolak
	Zosia starts the hike up Grande Mountain from the Grande Cache cemetery.
	The trail up Grande Mountain follows this power line.
	The power line can be seen rising up the distant ridge.
	Zosia pauses at a scenic viewpoint partway up Grande Mountain.
	Mount Hamell (right) is visible from the viewpoint.  Beaverdam Road is also visible to the left of the drainage at centre.
	Zosia begins to encounter deeper snow higher up the mountain.
	The post-holing quickly becomes tedious.
	Sonny drops down a most discouraging big dip along the route. Photo courtesy of Zosia Zgolak
	Zosia grinds up the other side of the big dip.
	Zosia passes by some telecommunication structures atop Grande Mountain.
	The top of Grande Mountain is broad making it difficult to discern the location of the true summit.

Zosia and Sonny pick this spot (1992 metres) for their summit photo.  At distant left is Mount Hamell.

 

	Zosia descends into the big dip on the return hike.  Visible on the horizon is Lightning Ridge.
	Sonny hikes down the mountain in growing darkness. Photo courtesy of Zosia Zgolak
	Total Distance:  10.4 kilometres Round-Trip Time:  6 hours 20 minutes Cumulative Elevation Gain:  1002 metres GPX Data