Nahmint Mountain

Nahmint Mountain has been on my bucket list for a long time, but there always seem to be bigger and more important mountains to tackle than this peak. The main issue is that the trip reports I’ve read discuss how long the trip is, and it’s difficult to find people who are interested in doing exceptionally long days. I’m happy to report that we used a route that got us back to the vehicle within eight hours.

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Mount Klitsa via Brooke Geroge Trail — Lifetime Objective

–submitted by Matthew Lettington

What an amazing day on Mount Klitsa! Nine of us hiked the Brooke George trail and reached the summit on this beautiful day. We drove on the rough road to the trailhead, which made returning to the vehicles even more satisfying. Many thanks to the AVOC volunteers for creating the turnaround!

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Sadie Peak

July 20, 2024

~ submitted by Matthew Lettington

Why not many things change in the Alpine over the years, the same cannot be said for cut blocks. When I did Sadie Peak the first time, I do remember the block being a little bit of a challenge, but this time it was  very bushy. 

We stuck to the route I used on my first trip to this mountain 10 years earlier. The first half mostly went as expected. We followed the original route pretty closely. The navigation and bush on the first quarter of the route was made even more challenging by the very warm weather. By the time we made it halfway along the route, we discovered a well booted in game trail. It was a welcome sight because it greatly sped up those portions of the trip. 

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Mackenzie Peak

July 27, 2024

~ submitted by Matthew Lettington

McKenzie peak is the High Point to the McKenzie range. On my first attempt, I reached the summit block via the climbers trail built in the 70s by Island Mountain ramblers members. For this trip we went up by the Canoe Creek micro dam. The trails been flagged and blazed quite heavily. There’s lots of evidence of the dozens of climbers that have been visiting the range over the past few years. It made for a quick travel with little need for complex navigation.

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Mount McQuillan from China Creek Main

June 15, 2024

~ submitted by Matthew Lettington

It was an excellent day in the mountains despite the weather’s best efforts to confuse us.

While we had dreams of much grander mountains, because of the crappy forecast, we decided to reroute and head over to Mount McQuillan. I’ve done this before from Father and son Lake, but this time we wanted to do it a little bit different. From previous research, I knew that there was an easier route from the north ridge. 

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Juan De Fuca Trail — Multigenerational Hike

–originally published on John’s blog.

The trail’s east end is about 75 kilometres from Victoria and extends from Jordan River to Botanical Beach, near Port Renfrew.

Untitled photo

Our Itinerary

  • March 20 – China Creek to Bear Beach — 9 k, 6 hours
  • March 21 – Bear to Chin Beach – 11 k, almost 8 hours
  • Marh 22 – Chin to Sombrio Beach – 9 k, 6 hours
  • March 23 – Sombrio to Payzant  Beach – 10 k., 7 hours
  • March 24 – Payzant to Botanical Beach Parking Lot – 7 k, 5 hours

We certainly didn’t break any speed records hiking this trail, covering the 47 kilometers in five days, and a total of about  32  hours, including breaks. The mud, downed trees, and bushwhacking slowed us down.

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Rappel Workshop

June 25th, 2023

~ submitted by Matthew Lettington

Two members joined me for a half day of hanging out on the rope.

We all learned to tie a few knots, and put themself onto the rappel device. By day’s end each of us was able to get on rappel, set the backup Prussic and rappel down the 30 foot cliff safely. 

Mount Maquilla

July 15th, 2023

~ submitted by Matthew Lettington

Another day in paradise! Our group of eight had a luxurious day on the slopes of Mount Maquilla. 

In June, Jes and Matthew found this easy route up Mount Maquilla. I described the route as minimal bush, and I’ll stand by that statement. The majority of the bush is found on the overgrowing road, but even that has been trimmed over the years. It wasn’t much more than a minor annoyance. 

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