April 5, 2026
~ submitted by Nick Fisch
Snowshoes on, then off, then on, then off again…. and again.. and again. It was one of those days.
Four of us set out on Easter Sunday to tackle Heather Mountain from the little Shaw gate. It was a bluebird 20 degree spring day. We began at around 9:30am from the locked gate for a very long slog of an approach up the logging road. We hit snow at around 3100ft and dawned the snowshoes. The going was slow.
We made it to the beginning of the trail section for a quick steep push to the alpine plateau where we would get a glimpse of the summit for the first time. From there it became a real snowshoe across the alpine plateau (covered in about a meter of snow) to the base of the summit hill.
We started up the steep summit hill kicking in switchbacks the whole way. It took a lot of energy out of the group. In the end we ended up calling it a day at a nice viewpoint area about 100m in elevation from the summit. We were tired and getting close to our turnaround time. We had a great lunch at the viewpoint and then began our descent. The return trip was much nicer as we simply followed our boot tracks out on stable snow.
We saw a few sooty grouse, some elk (on the road), and some very large cat prints! Overall a very nice day out in the cowichan hills despite not making the summit. In total it was ~13 miles and 3800ft of elevation gain (sorry for the units).