Mount Cokely from the Arrowsmith Saddle

August 24, 2019

~ trip report by Mick Bailey

Mt Cokely sounded like an interesting destination. I had read about the trip on the Island Mountain Ramblers page several weeks before, and though at first it was fully booked, I managed to latch on when a few people cancelled. The plan, for our group of ten, was to ascend the Saddle Trail, scramble up to the ridge of Cokely, and then further on to the summit. On the return trip, we’d return to the ridge, find the Rosseau Trail, and return to the vehicles via that route. This would be my first visit to the Mt Arrowsmith Biosphere Region, and I was looking forward to the views!

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Arrowsmith massif from the Nanoose Bay area

The lightest of rains and low clouds followed us as we made our way from Nanaimo on the Island Highway toward Highway 4. By the time we passed through MacMillan Provincial Park (Cathedral Grove) and turned onto Summit Main, the rain had begun to fade. Next came more logging roads, as we followed Cameron Main and Pass Main to the trailhead high above, at roughly 1000m in elevation.

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Fog and mist welcome us to the trailhead. It had been raining that morning, and the evening before

The Saddle Trail proved to be a beautiful hike, as promised. It’s a fairly well used track that winds its way through a pleasant subalpine forest and the occasional bluff on its way to the col between Mt Arrowsmith and Mt Cokely.

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Karen leads John R and me as we work up through some bluffs. This section has ropes to help you out a little….Photo by John Y
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After about half an hour things began to dry out a little as Dustin, Holly, and Adrian emerged from the woods here
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Subalpine tundra

John Y., who was our trip leader for the day, had also brought along his dog Chica. She proved to be quite a talented scrambler, but I suspect she may just have been there for the food!

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Chica at home on the trail!

The rest of our group was rounded out by Karen, John R., Stephanie, Christin, Janine, Adrian, Holly, and Dustin. It helped that we all seemed to have good camaraderie, but after all, it’s hard not to have fun in places like these!

While rolling fog and low cloud obscured much of the views, it was still easy to see why the Saddle Trail is a popular hike. The final approach to the saddle was particularly scenic, with wildflowers lining the path and a creek cascading down to the valley below.

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View from the first lookout
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Fringed Grass of Parnassus. How do you like that for a wildflower name?
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John R and Karen getting closer to the saddle
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Campanula
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There’s Karen and John Y almost at the saddle! Would the sun make an appearance? Read on and find out!
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Thistle

It took us less than a couple of hours to make the saddle, where we regrouped and prepared to scramble up to the ridge. It turned out the rock was of reasonable quality with decent holds, but as we climbed the exposure would increase significantly. Due concentration was needed to choose the right line, especially during the last fifty metres of the climb. This was definitely my favourite part of the hike!

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The scramble begins, an easy Class 2 at this point…Photo by John Y
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Holly partway up on the climb, right where it begins to steepen considerably
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John R reaches the ridge, having taken care to climb a safer line because Chica was following him
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Adrian, Janine, and Christin arriving on the ridge

From the ridge, we traversed our way over to the summit block. That required another short section of scrambling which probably had the most exposure of all and one particularly tricky step you could certainly call the crux. That went very well as we made sure not to rush. Curiously, I took no photos on that part of the hike.

The summit was broad and inviting, and we stopped there for lunch near all the radio repeater equipment and hoped that the clouds might soon clear. Sure enough, after about ten minutes, some blue skies materialized and opened up some views. One could see down to the valley from where the CPR Trail to Mt Cokely made its ascent.

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Summit lunch break for all!
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Christin examining all the radio hardware on the summit
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It began to get brighter after about ten minutes 
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This is looking down into the McBey Creek Valley where the CPR Trail comes up to Cokely

In another twenty minutes or so, we began the walk back to the ridge, which involved down climbing that tricky section that slowed us down on the way up. It was at that time the clouds once again shifted and parts of Mt Arrowsmith made several brief appearances.

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John Y makes tracks on the way back to the ridge
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Mt Arrowsmith is lurking in the clouds
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Waiting to descend…Photo by John Y
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Stephanie looks on as the rolling fog exposes new views
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Adrian, Janine, and Christin finish the descent to the ridge 
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See you later, Arrowsmith!

Pretty soon everyone was together again and we began following the cairns along the ridge of Cokely that marked the Rosseau Trail. Save for one particular area where a short and sharp scramble connected two parts of the ridge, this was the easiest part of the hike, technically speaking. We simply followed the ridge until it neared its end and the trail began to descend into the forest below.

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Traversing the ridge on the Rosseau Route
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Cleft in the ridge and juniper
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Clouds still looming!

Next came a most unusual part of the route, where we meandered through a garden of stunted trees, some very ancient, along a near vertical cliff band. It made the trail seem  almost enchanted!

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Definitely a cool part of the trail!

A word of warning about the next part of the trail, because there is a spot where people have been tending to wander off route on the way down. You reach a point where the trail opens up to your left and it tends to draw hikers downward but in fact the actual route continues along the cliffs a bit longer. At one point, part of our group out front were making their way down this particular hillside, and the hikers toward the back of the pack heard a bit of a yell. I did not see what had happened from where I was. Holly, apparently, had stepped on a log then began a quick slide that ended with her tucking forward and then, briefly airborne, executing a perfect forward somersault before hitting the ground. Miraculously, even though there were plenty of sharp and nasty things she could have landed on, it turned she was just fine. We were all very happy that she was pretty much unharmed, saved by some good athletic instinct!

We actually carried on down that fateful slope for a few more minutes, before several of us finally concluded we had lost the trail, so the rest of us climbed back to the last marker we’d seen. By the time I made it back up, half the group were already laughing a bit, having easily rediscovered the trail once again. According to previous club trip leaders, and a couple of hikers I spoke to on Mt Benson two days later, wandering off the track at this particular spot is nothing new on the Rosseau Trail. It might be worth doing a little trail work to remedy that problem.

With all that out of the way, we continued on the trail, which transitions into an easier walk through a venerable forest. It didn’t take much longer than an hour or so to reach the logging road again from there, and in another ten minutes we arrived back at the vehicles.

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Scaly Chanterelle, not an edible mushroom
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Yellow Coral

That marked the end of another successful Island Mountain Ramblers hike, and a really enjoyable day out. Mt Cokely was well worth the time, and I can hardly wait to do this hike again!

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