–report by Brian Fleming
Mount Milner – 6.5km, 430m elevation gain
Mt Milner is southeast of Sayward and part of the Prince of Whales mountain range. Access is right off the highway up the Siberia Main logging road, which was in excellent condition. We did pass one gate but it was open and didn’t look like it was being used.
We parked at 1040m and made our way up the recent slash to the tree line where travel got a bit easier. We wound our way up and across the ridge to the first high point and began to get confused.
Our maps showed Mount Milner below us and it looked like there was a higher summit to the North West. It was a steeper descent off this side of our current summit, so we put on our crampons and made our way towards the other.
Once we got there we had to scramble up a short section. It took us a bit to get up and down as it was easy to kick rocks down onto the others. We spent a brief time on the second summit before returning to the ridge.
We got to a nice viewpoint of Big Tree Mountain, our second objective, and decided we wouldn’t have enough time to make it there. We had a late lunch and made our way off the ridge, through the slash and back to the vehicle.
This was on the shorter side of our hikes but the weather was great and so was the terrain. It turns out the first summit was the true summit and the second may or may not have been higher!
