Mt Horne, Mt Westly and Westley Ridge traverse
-submitted by Mary Hoff
7 hikers met and make the car shuttle for Mt Horne, Mt Westley and the ridge. It was a very hot day views were awesome. Hike took 7.5 hours we did follow the quad trail in places. I kept reminding people to drink we had couple people that ended up with leg cramps but mustard seems to help. I am going to carry some now, LOL
Great group and I enjoyed leading.
Continue reading “Mt Horne, Mt Westly and Westley Ridge traverse”
Wild Side Trail with a Three Year Old
–submitted by Mathew Lettington; Read the full report on his blog
Dear Hemingway,
We did it! We survived our first father-and-son backpacking adventure. I’m happily writing the trip down as a success! We picked the perfect location, Flores Island’s Wild Side Trail, and lucked into a spate of great weather. Of course, our adventure companions helped us enjoy the trip all the more. We were just two members of an eighteen-person trip that I was co-leading. Trips of this size are often complicated, and the Wild Side Trail is fraught with additional issues. This trip proved no different. Aside from the normal challenges with the water-taxi, some of our hikers had contacted me the night before because they were stranded with a broken axle.
As I expected, you fell asleep on the drive to Tofino on the day before the trip, which made you grouchy and unwilling to go to bed that night. What’s a dad to do? We made the best of it by wandering the mean streets of Tofino, even though it was well past your normal bedtime. I treated the trip with the care that it deserved: we ate pizza-by-the-slice, I bought you a toy car at the Co-op, and when we returned to the hostel (the Doctor’s House, as you called it), we watched the sunset from the big window in our room. It was ten o’clock by the time you were asleep, after we read all the way through the Five-Minute Star Wars Stories book–twice!
Total Distance: 15 km
Total Time: 3 days
Magical Meares Island
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| On the summit of Lone Cone with a marvelous view of Clayoquot Sound, Tofino, and surrounding islands. |
I had wanted to visit Meares Island 20 years ago or more, and didn’t, but this winter when I was planning trips for the spring, I looked into it once again. I found the site to the “Lone Cone Hostel and Campground,” with information about climbing adjacent Lone Cone Mountain, and further details about the nearby Big Tree Trail. I was stoked! I listed it on the Rambler’s website, and before long I had 10 other eager hikers.
Meares Island : Lone Cone & Big Tree Trail
Read the full report on Matthewès blog
To early European explorers, the western edge of North America must have been an overwhelming place to visit. We humans navigate by landmarks, known places with names; explorers applied names to many places, making them easier to identify on maps. At some point, it must have been really overwhelming to provide names to so many different places, or perhaps they lacked the creativity to do so; thus, we ended up with names like Elkhorn South Mountain. The name itself isn’t an issue, except that Elkhorn South is immediately south of the much grander Elkhorn Mountain, and shouldn’t be confused with the south peak of Elkhorn Mountain, which is completely different. Even the name Vancouver Island has caused issues for travelers who mistake the location of either the island, or the city of Vancouver. But this post isn’t about Vancouver Island’s haphazard naming structures – it’s about Meares Island.
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Wesley Ridge Traverse, 04-29-17 (An Island Mountain Ramblers’ Outing)
–submitted by John Young
The forecast for the day was not promising – showers starting in the late morning with rain moving in in the early afternoon. Highs of about 10 degrees, and since we were hiking up to about 900 meters above sea level, we expected to see some snow. And we weren’t disappointed! Although, the rain never materialized, and we did have some wonderful views. Overall, another wonderful hike on Vancouver Island.
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Mount Spencer: Revenge on the Mountain
–Submitted by Matthew Lettington: read the full report on his blog
Back in early November, I led a group of Island Mountain Ramblers on a memorable snowshoe trip to summit Mount Spencer. It was the most challenging snowshoe trip of the season: a gruelling 12-hour slog, hiking over 21 kilometres through the worst type of snow, and we were benighted on our way back to the vehicles. It was a grind, to say the least. But, the biggest sting of the trip? We didn’t even summit! We were only a few hundred metres from the summit, though at the time, it looked like we were another hour away. When I returned from that trip, the first thing I did was reschedule the hike. This is the trip report for that second attempt: the revenge on Mount Spencer.
Mount Spencer GPS track & mapTotal Distance: 10.8 km
Starting Elevation: 822 m
Maximum Elevation: 1460 m
Total Elevation Gain: 907 m
Total Time: 6h 30 m
Workshop: learn to Rappel
–submitted by Matthew Lettington
–photographs by Shanon Tagesth
Four Island Mountain Ramblers met in the parking lot at Pipers Lagoon. Although the early week was raining, Thursday brought an unexpected dry spell, complete with sunshine!
Mount Tzouhalem
–submitted by Jamai Schile
Perfect weather for a wonder! A little breezy at the Cross, but trail generally sheltered as we navigated our way from the Ecological Reserve, Cross look out to Mad Dog Bench look out. From the Bench, the group decided the weather was to fine to miss and the housework would wait. We decided to extend the hike by following Cyclops until it linked up with Field of Dreams and the return trail Old M/L bringing us out again onto T-Road and the parking area.
Mount Abel: A Great Spring Snowshoe in the Sutton Range
–submitted by Matthew Lettington, Read the full report on his blog
The Sutton Range holds a good number of peaks that I’ve included my Island Alpine Quest, including our goal for the day: Mount Abel. The names of the peaks and valleys follow a pattern – Mount Cain, Mount Abel, Mount Adam, Adam River, Eve River, and so on – that have some people referring to that portion of the range as the Genesis Range. Mount Abel, like most mountains, has both an easy or a difficult approach. The west aspect is a dramatic rock wall, but from the southeast there is a good variety of easy mountaineering options.
We parked a short distance down a logging spur, just off Adam Road (~850 m). Only the week prior, the snow was piled at least forty-five centimetres high on the place we were now parked. That’s a lot of snow melt in seven days! Seeing how fast the snow is melting brought a smile to my face, as it’s a sure sign of summer ahead. At the same time, I groaned a little, knowing that we would be trekking through some sloppy conditions.
Total Distance: 9.9 km
Starting Elevation: 886 m
Maximum Elevation: 1819m
Total Elevation Gain: 943 m
Total Time: 6 hours
Continue reading “Mount Abel: A Great Spring Snowshoe in the Sutton Range”