Category: Regional Districts

Posted on

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

 

Continue reading “Mount Sarai”

Posted on

Genesis Mountain: An Easy Ridge Ramble

–submitted by Matthew Lettington. See explorington.com for more images

Located in the Genesis Range on the northeast edge of Schoen Lake Provincial Park, Genesis Mountain is far from a well-known mountain. It’s out of the way, and surrounded by more impressive objectives, but if your mountaineering interests include easy rambles along alpine ridges, then add Genesis Mountain to your bucket list of Vancouver Island hiking destinations.

After a stellar early-season snowshoe up Mount Romeo, we had high hopes for another early-season snowshoe trip. Unfortunately, when we arrived at the start of our route, we were surprised to discover that the accumulated snow from just two weeks prior had melted — that’s a lot of melt! On the plus side, we parked at the highest point of the road (~1200m).

Continue reading “Genesis Mountain: An Easy Ridge Ramble”

Posted on

Mount Adam: Spring in the Genesis Range

–submitted by Matthew Lettington, originally published on his blog

Every once in a while, one of my adventures doesn’t live up to my expectations (ahem, West Coast Trail). Be it an error in planning and predicting terrain, or environmental conditions, sometimes a trip is either much easier or much more difficult than anticipated. In our planning for Mount Adam, we anticipated that we’d be anxiously gritting our teeth as we hung on for dear life and dragging aching legs by the end of the day. But on April 29th, we summited rather quickly, and avoided the teeth-grinding, mostly.

I overestimated the difficulty of this trip based on two factors, the first of which was poorly predicting the elevation of the snowline. The second and most significant factor relates to a prior trip to Mount Schoen, a mountain located on the same ridge. On that trip, we accessed the connecting ridge between Adam and Schoen via a steep, long (>1000 metre elevation) scree slope. It was an experience that ended a pair of Phil’s much-loved shoes and scared us, and even two years later — more than 80 mountains — we still frequently reference the experience. That slope has become a benchmark of sorts when comparing terrain on all our trips.

 

Total Distance: 5.6 km
Starting Elevation: 861 m
Maximum Elevation: 1727 m
Total Elevation Gain: 871 m
Total Time: 5 hours

Continue reading “Mount Adam: Spring in the Genesis Range”

Posted on

Northwood Bluff Climbing

~ submitted by Matthew Lettington

April 23, 2018

Four club members met for an evening of climbing at Northwood Bluffs; a first for the year. We very quickly ran through our gear, set up a top rope, but only managed to squeeze one line in each before it was 7:30!

Next time, we’ll set up the second rope.

Posted on

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.

Continue reading “Mt. Prevost”

Posted on

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

Continue reading “East Sooke Park : Coastal Trail and More”

Posted on

Wesley Ridge

~ submitted by Adrian Houle

March 30, 2018

A successful hike up Wesley Ridge with a group of Island Mountain Ramblers on Friday, March 30 2018.

       

 

Posted on

Canoe Peak: Go Slow to Go Fast

–submitted by Matthew Lettington, see more images on his blog

One of the reasons I’m drawn to travelling in Vancouver Island’s wild places is the charge I get from overcoming the challenges associated with it. It’s not the challenges that I’m attracted to, nor some sort of macho self-reliance; rather, it’s proving to myself that I can do it. It’s setting a goal and finding a way to achieve it. It gives me a way to measure my successes. And wow, I’ve had a lot of failures over the years.

I can’t say there’s a secret to finding success, at least not one this post is going to offer, because success is a feeling that each of us measures differently. But, generally speaking, finding success includes learning a lot of lessons, and gathering a lot of knowledge. Travelling in the backcountry is no different.

Some of these lessons are easy to gather. They can be found on the internet, in a book, in a formal education setting, or shared among friends on a hike. But there are just as many that can only be earned through lived experience. It’s these lessons that sometimes must be learned over and over before they become part of our way of being. I thought a lot about this on my April 15th trip to Canoe Peak in the Mackenzie range.

On my first (failed) attempt at Canoe Peak from the micro-dam, we were rewarded with excellent views, but avalanche conditions turned us back. This time, we arrived at the trailhead with knowledge of the route, provided by a few friends who had summited just a week earlier.

Continue reading “Canoe Peak: Go Slow to Go Fast”

Posted on

Mount Flannigan – Spring Summit

-submitted by Matthew Lettington

March 25, 2018

On March 25th, three Island Mountain Ramblers braved a poor forecast and made an early spring summit of Mount Flannigan. The three met at the Hydro Project at 7:15 am, found luck with the hydro gate being open, and drove nearly 20 km down the logging road where they finally parked at ~550m.  Using a route that climbed through steep slash and beautiful old growth ridge, the three made their summit and then head off to the highpoint on the ridge.


Continue reading “Mount Flannigan – Spring Summit”