Category: Hiking

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Marble Meadows Ramble: Marble Peak, Morrison Spire, and Mount McBride

–SUBMITTED BY MATTHEW LETTINGTON; ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON EXPLORINGTON.COM

My summers are hectic. I pack my days full of hiking in the mountains and coasts of the island. Often, I’m thinking about what to pack on my next trip while I’m unpacking my gear from a trip I’ve just finished. So come September, I’m ready to head back to work and the normalcy of weekly routines that it brings. But not before I squeeze in one last hurrah, on Labour Day. This year, we picked Marble Meadows as the destination for the weekend, and it didn’t disappoint. It was just what I needed after a summer of rained-out trips and the loss of a friend on a mountaineering trip.

through the foggy morraine.

Marble Meadows is a unique treasure within the boundary of Strathcona Provincial Park. But before you start shouting, “Uh, Matthew, there are many treasures in the park!”, let me qualify my point. It’s one of the few places you can stand on the top of a mountain and see exclusively unlogged landscapes, turquoise lakes, and the many types of rock found on the island. It’s a backcountry destination well-known by hikers and fossil-hunters for its rolling terrain, well-booted track, and the millions of fossils visible on the surface of the exposed limestone. You get the point: Marble Meadows is worth a special note.

Total Distance: 30.4 km
Minimum Elevation: 227 m
Maximum Elevation: 2079 m
Total Elevation Gain: 3012 m
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Steamboat Mountain via the Zipline

–submitted by Matthew Lettington; orginally published on explorington.com

Steamboat Mountain rises prominently on the north side of Highway Four; you may have spotted the prow, a feature on the east end of the summit ridge, on a drive to Tofino. If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like up there, it’s incredible! It’s also a problem that took me a few years to work out.

The Limestone Twins, northwest of the Steamboat’s summit.

The mountain screams for good weather approaches. This route, like many of the others off Highway Four, creeps through some of the densest biomass on earth. Buried in dark forest, the route is slimy when wet, and any semblance of a booted route can be obscured by low-hanging, water-laden branches. And here is where I hang my many failed, foolhardy summit bids: winter trips done in search of routes accessible off the highway, as the backroads were covered in snow. Of course, these early spring and late fall months are also the wettest, and short on daylight hours. In short, failed trips done in foul weather.

Total Distance: 15.4 km
Starting Elevation: 51 m
Maximum Elevation: 1469 m
Total Elevation Gain: 1538 m
Total Time: 13 hours, 10 minutes

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Bald Mountain — Lemonade

–submitted by Matthew Lettington

I set out with the best intentions, leading a trip up Heather Mountain. But after our rendezvous near the highway, the two drivers lost track of each other on the dusty logging road. Though each driver insists they didn’t turn off the logging road, and each drove the length of the road multiple times, we didn’t make it to the trailhead. We must have passed each other three times.

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Redwall Peak

June 9th, 2019

~ submitted by Matthew Lettington

We started up the climber’s trail under overcast skies. The forest was warm and muggy, but the ground was dry, allowing us to move over the complex terrain quickly. At every step, we watched our footing, ensuring the roots, rock, moss and other debris didn’t cause us to lose our footing. 


As we climbed above 500 m, we met two men and a dog. They had overnighted at a muddy tarn and were on their way back down. After some conversation, they wished us well, and we continued our climb. 

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East Sooke Park Hike

~ submitted by Quinn Park

May 4th, 2019

East Sooke Park is an amazing place that folks go to learn. They learn to hike, they learn to rock climb, slackline, they learn to navigate, and they learn about west coast beach ecosystems.


On this trip, on this corner of Vancouver Island, I tasked myself with learning to lead a trip. And it began before the trip with the logistics of organizing IMR members and non-members alike interested in the trip. On the morning of the hike, nervousness struck – what would I forget? First-aid kit? Sunscreen? Water? Did I forget to email anyone?


How funny the nervousness is. Is it pointless as nothing pertinent was left behind? Or is it a beast that helped me not to forget anything?

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