Living the best adventure life, since 1958
On July 1st, two friends and I made a successful, though gruelling, summit of Crown Mountain inside Strathcona Park. The story of this day-trip is part of a much longer saga that starts with a failed summit attempt on Mount Colonel Foster.
–submitted by Matthew Lettington, originally published on explorington.com
On June 23rd & 24th 2018, I was one of five Island Mountain Ramblers who summitted Nine Peaks, located on the southern boundary of Strathcona Park. It earns its name from the nine distinct peaks that rise out of the Beauty Glacier, forming a line that runs along a northwest axis. Our trip was planned as an annual birthday getaway – one of Rick and Phil’s long-standing traditions – and was a reprisal of a failed daytrip to Nine Peaks, on the same weekend in 2017. Having been beaten back on the first attempt, we came with the intention of completing the trip as an overnighter.
Our route originated at the Bedwell Lake trailhead, and by the time we were back at the car we had covered 38 kilometres and more than 3500 metres of elevation gain. The trip involves route-finding challenges that change with the season, terrain difficulties that may require scrambling, and the need for self-arrest skills. On top of the physicality of the route, it’s also mentally challenging. There are many sections where you gain elevation, lose it, and then regain it. It includes either two summits of Big Interior Mountain, an airy traverse from the saddle or, at least, an airy traverse around the base of the summit massif.
Total Distance: 34 km
Starting Elevation: 515 m
Maximum Elevation: 1849 m
Elevation Gain: 3068 m
June 13, 2018
The club had three people come out for the Wednesday night Rappel Workshop. We had one guest join at the last minute because two people cancelled that morning. This workshop was originally scheduled for Friday, but was postponed due to rain. On Wednesday, we had showers through the morning, but the evening was warm and dry.
We reviewed knot tying, ATC, harnesses and ropes. We covered tying in, setting backups and rappelling techniques and ended the night with three rappels each down the highest face, at Pipers Lagoon.
Photos by Ruby, Barry & Samantha
June 3, 2018
We expected a gruelling day of fighting bush, fording rivers and grunting up steep slopes. We were only half right.
At the lake we discovered the snow was still more than a foot deep which allowed us to adjust our course and use a gully to access the ridge above– we were following a route described by Lindsay Elmes in the Island Bushwacker, from 2003.
~ submitted by Matthew Lettington
June 2, 2018
Our Westwood Ridges Ridge Ramble was hiked under mixed skies. The five adults and two children took our time exploring the picnic shelter, memorial garden and picking our way through the salal to the upper ridge.
–submitted by Matthew Lettington, originally published on explorington.com
It’s great having a regular group of friends to hike with. From week to week, the members of the group may change, but each person comes to be someone on whom I can rely. It’s more important that they are consistent and always improving than that they are the best at any given task. When the bush gets thick or the slopes get slick, looking over and seeing someone else suffering alongside me, or seeing them surmount a problem, inspires me to keep going. Of course, sometimes it’s the group that makes the tough choice to turn around, as we did on our June 3rd excursion to Mount Abraham.
Yes, another adventure in the Genesis Range. Mount Abraham was the goal, and we arrived expecting a gruelling day of fighting bush, fording rivers, and grunting up steep slopes through blueberry, willow, and huckleberry. We were only half right.
Total Distance: 13 km
Starting Elevation: 840 m
Elevation Gain: 950
Maximum Elevation: 1639 m
Total Time: 6 h
Continue reading “Hiking Between the Peaks in the Genesis Range: A Failed Attempt at Mount Abraham”
Another May long weekend has come and gone, and with it another “first of the summer” camping trip. I don’t put much stock into the idea of the shoulder season — it’s a myth made up by The Man — but this trip felt more like a summer getaway than any other of the season, except for the rain, fog, and snow up to our knees. But thank goodness that the shoulder season is over, right?
The trip started with a hoot an’ a holler. We anticipated a longish slog along a deactivated logging road, more of an alder farm complete with cross-ditches, but today we found that the former jungle has been replaced by a new logging road. We cheered the removal of this most dreaded obstacle, the one that would take the most amount of effort with the least amount of reward. Driving to the end of the logging road allowed us to park just meters from the old-growth, and probably saved us a few hours of travel in each direction. What a boon! We grabbed our gear and headed up into the dense West Coast forest.
Total Distance: 33 km
Starting Elevation: 844 meters
Maximum Elevation: 1645 meters
Total Elevation Gain: 3155 metres
Continue reading “Hiking Mount Derby & Mount Peel: Uphill Both Ways”
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
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
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.
