Living the best adventure life, since 1958
–Submitted By Dean Williams
There were nine of us all told, and the weather was perfect with views down to the Olympic Mts, Mt Baker, the coast range and of course Vancouver island. No one was brave enough for a swim this year, but the water was looking a little murky in the bigger tarns. All in all a great fall outing with the club.
I’m the classic weekend warrior. I only have one day a week to get out and make mountaineering magic happen. Though there is a ridiculous number of opportunities on Vancouver Island for outdoor adventure, Phil and I are exhausting the climbs that are possible to do as day hikes.
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| Phil walking in the krumholtz on our way back from the summit. |
Already we are pushing far up-island. Many of our Sunday adventures require more than five hours of driving, including early 5 am departures from Nanaimo. The Prince of Whales Range is proving to be a great location for new hikes. On Sunday, October 4th, Phil hosted an Island Mountain Ramblers event, a hike up H’kusam Mountain. Four of us met and hiked this objective, and three of us made the summit!
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| H’Kusam Mountain via Stow Creek Trail Map |
Total Horizontal Distance: 11.1 km
Starting Elevation: 700 m
Maximum Elevation: 1664 m
Elevation Gain: 1028 m
Time: 7 hours
Read the full report on his blog, Boring Art, Boring Life
Highway 14 features some of the bushiest alpine routes on Vancouver Island. Phil Stone even mentions the region in his list of the Island’s best bushwhacks, though this particular route doesn’t make the list. Because the area is not protected by any special status, most of it has been logged. The regrowth is often dense and difficult to navigate, and in alpine regions the stunted trees are even denser – in some cases, wall-like.
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| From Mackenzie Summit looking east towards Cats Ears, Tripple Peak and more. |
The approach to Mackenzie Peak trailhead is easy. The route starts on Highway 4, about 58 kilometers from the orange bridge in Port Alberni. Look for a pullout on the right side of the road as you round a corner. The trail is on the left side (east) of the highway. We found a long orange ribbon hanging from a tree, marking the start of the trail. We parked on the side of the highway and started up the route just after 8:00 am on Sunday, September 27th. In anticipation of a long day, we didn’t push ourselves too hard.
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| Mackenzie Peak Map and GPS Route with photographs |
Total Horizontal Distance: 11 km
Starting Elevation: 32 m
Maximum Elevation: 1417 m
Total Elevation Gain: 1449 m
Total Time: 10h 10 m
–Submitted by Bil Derby
26 – 28 September 2015
We all know Mt. Albert Edward, most of us have been there (some many times), and, for all arguments sake, it is an easy summit to tuck under our belts. It was my first island summit in 2005 and the one that sparked my interest in mountaineering and the alpine that burns strong today. This past weekend I had the pleasure of introducing four Royal Canadian Air Cadets (shameless plug for the Air cadet program) aged 14 – 17 to Mt. Albert Edward.
This trip was their second with me, the first being Flores Island, and was their first island summit. It was also the successful completion of their respective Bronze and Silver level expeditions within the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award program, the cadets having planned and executed the trip on their own with only my supervision and advice on risk management.
We started from Raven Lodge early afternoon on Saturday and found ourselves at Circlet Lake at 17:30 after poking along through Whiskey Meadows, taking a few detours to see things, and stopping a few times to deal with tender feet, adjust packs, and offer encouragement in the form of food……they are teenagers after all.
Sunday was an amazing bluebird alpine day, all sun……and wind. The ascent to the ridge reminded tired legs of yesterday’s exertion and hinted at the exertion yet to come but the view from the first alpine plateau was reward enough and spirits remained high.
Reaching the main ridge line connecting Jutland and AE there was suddenly a clear understanding of the scale of the mountains.
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| Mount Albert Edward (left), Mount Regan (Right) |
Lunch enroute, a bit of a snowball fight, and a long slug up the summit slope found us on top at lunch and notations made in the register. We were five of 17 to summit, not counting the five that were coming up as we were headed down.
Back at Circlet for supper and a debrief on the days experience and then, to my amazement, the teenagers went off to bed while the old guy stayed up and watched the stars drift by in a crystal clear sky.
Monday we came out via Murray Meadows, Kwai Lake, and the Battleship trail. Tired teenage legs conveyed tired teenage bodies relentlessly towards the truck….and food….did I mention they were teenagers.
All in all it was a fantastic trip with a fantastic group of kids. They enjoyed their trip and I enjoyed their enthusiasm, energy, and trust. Lessons were learned; I from them and them from me, and each of them came away with an little bit deeper understanding of their place in world, the value of wild places, and the accomplishment and confidence that comes from stepping out of their comfort zone.
Planning, in the warm light of accomplishment, is underway for their next adventure. Hopefully they humour me once again and let me tag along; it keeps the mind young when you can share time with youth.
Bil Derby
Captain
205 Collishaw RCACS (Nanaimo)
Canadian Cadet Organization
–Submitted by Matthew Lettington,
Vancouver Island, home to forest giants and cold oceans is often overlooked for its alpine opportunities. A favourite feature of the high alpine is the chance to strap on crampons and walk the many pocket glaciers and snow fields. However, the changing environment means that glacier walking on Vancouver Island may have it’s days numbered. This year with the hot dry conditions, after a year of poor winter snow levels, the glacier ice melt is visible. I visited many mountains this summer and walked on a variety of these pocket glaciers, in all cases the blue ice was on the surface and melting away.
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| Mount Albert-Edward (left) and Mount Regan (Right) |
September 13th, 2015 I was joined by Phil and two others on a day trip up Mount Regan. It’s Mount Albert-Edwards neglected little sister, sitting tucked in beside Albert-Edward. My readers may remember that I tried this trip earlier in the summer, but we took a detour when the weather didn’t cooperate. This time, the whether cooperated and we successfully reached our goal, experienced a few surprises along the way and despite a hair raising fall, had a great trip.
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| Mount Regan GPS Rout and Pictures |
Horizontal Distance: 36 km
Starting Elevation: 1080 m
Maximum Elevation : 1969 m
Elevation Gain : 1949 m
Time: 14 h
Read the full report on his Blog: Boring Art, Boring Life
–Submitted by Matthew Lettington
I hope you are confused by the title of this post. I’m sure you are asking yourself isn’t the summit the high point? In most cases the answer is yes! However, on Vancouver Island the answer is most probably … who knows. The more I hike and climb the more I am made aware of the inaccuracies of my maps to give me the true summits, show me all of the crucial details regarding elevation change and even report accurate elevations for summits. We most likely attribute these inaccuracies to the original surveys done of the local peaks.
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| Phil Walking through the mature forest on the way to the open mountain tops |
A great example of this is the unnamed peak commonly refereed to as 1920, so named as it is marked on the map as being 1920 metres high. In actual fact it is 1931 m, though in this case the high point is marked as the summit. A second example is Mount Rosseau, the summit is incorrectly marked. The point is places in a col between two bumps. Both my GPS map sets have this inaccuracy . Mount Kitchener in the Prince of Whales Range has similar issues. The high point is quite a distance from the summit and requires significant loss in elevation before climbing back up to the summit. It is in this way that it’s possible to do the summit without hitting the high point.
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| Mount Kitchener Map and GPS Route with Photos |
Total Horizontal Distance: 10.2 km
Starting Elevation: 810 m
Maximum Elevation: 1453 m
Total Elevation Gain: 925 m
Total Time : 4h 45m
Read the full report on Matthew’s Blog: Boring Art, Boring Life
Read the full report on Matthew’s blog, Boring Art, Boring Life
My love of hiking and mountaineering is to the level of obsessive. I blame my wife for my love of the sport, she got me started when we were first dating. Our second backpacking trip ever was a trip to Cape Scott. It was March 2008, it rained and snowed so vigorously that we had water penetrating our waterproof gear and running down the inside of our jacket arms and out by our hands. When we arrived at Nels Bight, I refused to stay in the Ranger Cabin; we came to camp! Instead we camped at Guise Bay for two nights. Let me rephrase that, for two nights of storms!
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| Sophie, dwarfed by the fallen sequoia, behind her. |
The Settlers Road to Cape Scott is one of my favorite hikes. It’s more than just a trail walk through the forest and across beaches, it’s a walk through history. All along the trail hikers are reminded that the area was settled several times in the early part of the 20th century; a time when British Columbia was still struggling in economic decline, after the collapse of the gold rushes. There are many artifacts of the early settlers on the trail, like the tractor in the trees but it doesn’t end there, don’t forget about the military history!
Read the full report on Matthew’s blog, Boring Art, Boring Life
— Submitted by Sherry Durnford
We Left cars at foot of R spur at the end of Cowichan Lake at 8:30 am. The first 2 1/2 hours follows inactive logging roads, then a brief tangle on route with old logging slash to a subalpine pond. From there, it is a very pleasant 2 hour ramble up to the summit with profusion of alpine flowers, several grouse, tree frog, but no bears. We had great weather and a great group. We stand corrected that it was only 25 kilometers round trip and only 3100 vertical feet. Trip ended with a cool dip in Cowichan Lake and an ice cream stop.
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| A beautiful tarn on Heather Mountain |
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| A great looking group of Nanaimo hikers |
