Category: Hiking

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Sooke Hills- Mary’s Peak

~ submitted by Mary Hof

May 27, 2018

May 27th was a good day for a hike.  Seven of us started off at Charters Creek (Sooke) and headed up to Grassy Lake. The lake was beautiful, after a snack we headed up to Mary’s Peak. The views were beautiful. After a lunch break we came down, headed toward Grassy Lake again, then turned off and headed to Monument. Reaching Monument we came down the slippery trail from bikers and headed back to Charters Creek. Total km 16.5k and 752m elevation gain. Hike took just under 6 hours. A wonderful day, with wonderful people.

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Christie Falls – Thistle Mine – Camas Ridge

~submitted by Bil Derby

May 27, 2018

Eight of us gathered at the end of Arroyo Road just south of Ladysmith to make introductions and swap out flip-flops for boots before starting up the logging road at 09:00, right on time.  The grind of logging road walking was offset by laughter and stories as we wandered along to the trail that leads up to the old cabin and on to Christie Falls, or in Mike’s words it’s “Christie Hill” for lack of water.

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Mount Benson from a Popular Lake

~ submitted by Bil Derby

May 13, 2018

Five intrepid Ramblers and one guest (Karen’s son Nick) met early on Mother’s Day at a popular [redacted by request of Department of National Defence ] before heading to [redacted by request of Department of National Defence ] to gain the shoulder of Mount Benson and follow the SE route to the top. The less than pleasant bit of road walking between exiting [redacted by request of Department of National Defence ] and gaining the tree line on Benson itself foreshadowed the afternoons return trip but all was soon forgotten as the terrain steepened and we worked in and out of small bluffy areas that afforded increasingly pretty views and, at one, a place for a quick bite to eat.

The day started warm and grew warmer as we progressed upward and we were thankful for a light breeze and the shade of the forest. Gaining the summit, we settled in for a proper lunch, a nice view, and enjoyed soulless whine of a drone flying about the summit.

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Lost Gully – Mount Arrowsmith

~submitted by Chris Istace –The Mindful Explorer-

May 12, 2018

A beautiful May weekend for a climb up Mt Arrowsmith and the timing for the Ramblers club day trip couldn’t have been better. We all met at 8am at Creekmore Coffee just off the Alberni Highway and carpooled for the trip up the mountain. The 6 of us split between the two vehicles and headed on our way. The first destination was the end of the spur road for Judges route which would be where we dropped a vehicle for the descent route. We all hopped into one truck and then headed back down to the lower spur on pass main to the end of that road where the Lost Gully trailhead is.

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Maple Mountain

~submitted by Karen Armitage

May 5, 2018

Five hikers converged at 9:00 am at the Crofton trailhead, and were quickly underway along the blue trail. We worked our way along the well-marked trail, enjoying the ferns, arbutus and oak trees along the way. Camas lily were blooming on the rocky headlands. Throughout the day, we encountered several other hikers, with and without dogs. We passed the first pink trail junction and continued to the second, gradually gaining some elevation. Once we started up the pink trail, we climbed more steadily, motivated by the thought of enjoying lunch at the top.

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Mount Sarai

–submitted by Matthew Lettington, originally published on explorington.com

Back in September 2016, I was one of a group that failed to summit Mount Sarai in the Genesis Range. On that trip, we routed up a steep slope to the end of the west ridge in the hopes of following it to the summit. Unfortunately, we discovered a piece of not-so-micro terrain that didn’t make it onto the map – a not insignificant bluff- that stopped our summit attempt. On that day, from our highest vantage point on the end of the ridge, we looked down into the valley and spotted a route up a gully that we believed would provide access to the summit of Mount Sarai. But it wasn’t until May 6th, 2018, a week after our successful summit of Mount Adam, that we gathered ourselves for a spring summit of Mount Sarai.

Total Distance: 8.4 km
Starting Elevation: 812 m
Maximum Elevation: 1670 m
Total Elevation Gain: 960 m
Total Time: 6h 20 m

 

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Heart Lake/Stocking Lake

~ submitted by Karen Armitage

April 22, 2018

Five hikers set out around 10:00 am, for a ramble around the Town of Ladysmith trail system.  Parking at the end of Colonia Dr., we followed the Holland Creek trail to just above the bridge, and then branched off to the Heart Lake trail.  The climb up rewarded us with a view over Ladysmith Harbour.

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Mt. Prevost

~ submitted by Mary Hof

April 21, 2018

The hike to Mt Prevost April 21 was great. I combined this hike with the Outdoor Club of Victoria, when I saw that so many were signing up, (but I didn’t want to say no to anyone). I asked Ray Billings to help out and it worked out great.

We had 19 people and we split the group.

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East Sooke Park : Coastal Trail and More

~ submitted by Bil Derby

April 15, 2018

A great number of Ramblers met in the Aylard Farm parking lot at 08:30 under a brightening sky and near perfect hiking temperatures.

The group doing the one-way Coast Trail trip quickly headed off on their car shuttle leaving seven of us to tighten boots, adjust packs and confirm that yes indeed I had my lunch with me this time.

photo by Wendy

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East Sooke Trail

~ submitted by John Young

April 15, 2018

10K; easy to do, right? I mean even at my more advanced age I could run it in less than an hour, albeit on a flat, smooth trail. So how long does it take to hike 10K? Six hours?! Well, that’s how long it took us for the East Sooke Coast Hike yesterday. Granted we had a 40 min. stop for lunch and a few other breaks, but it was still five hours of hiking, up and down and around.

We drove to the trailhead at Aylard Farm, and then took taxis to the trailhead at Pike Road. For the first 2K the trail is flat through scenic second growth forest.

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