Was it all public land up the powerline? How about the area where teams cut from the powerline to the route that everyone else used?
Apparently we could have gone all they way up and it would have been public land, but it wasn't obvious on the map. You could at least take the power line up to the point that was on them, but you know how power lines can be... either great or terrible - more often terrible messes of raspberries.
We didn't see it as an obvious way either (according to the map). We almost went for it, but decided that if we were wrong we would have wasted a lot of time backtracking out or around. The only sure thing was taking the roads (Hwy 101 Death March). It was a very disappointing trekking section to say the least.
it was definitely a gamble, one that may not pay off next time. we saw it as our only real opportunity to make up for lost time.