Timberline Tales

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Maquilla Peak washed down with Mount Alston

–submitted by Matthew Lettington
 
In order to make the most of our time on the mountain, I organized a trip to the north island that included visits to two mountains. Both mountains are worth visiting individually, but by combining them into one day trip, we were able to save some money on fuel.
 
Friday evening Jes and Matthew camped out at the Forest Rec site at Klaklakama Lake. Predawn came even worse than it sounded after a poor night’s sleep (I think too much coffee). It was a short drive to the end of Chuckham Road, and we were hiking to Maquilla by 6:15 am. We parked to 800m, so there was a little more than 1000m to the summit. 
We ventured off the road and up a ridge to an adjoining route that gains the peak via the south ridge. We moved quickly through the light to moderate bush. There was no boot track to guide us but we had great beta provided by another club member – thanks, Eyrn! 
Lower ridge for Maquilla
 

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Nootka Island Trail Maintenance Trip

–SUBMITTED BY MICHAEL PASKEVICIUS; ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON HIS BLOG

[The below report is for the club trip done in June 2023]

The Nootka trail is a remote and rugged 40km through hike on Nootka Island. We accessed the trail via water taxi from Tahsis, starting from Yuqout with a pickup at Tongue Point. The trail passes through the Mowachaht/Muchalat First Nations territory. We planned a south to north hike with intention to conduct trail maintenance along the way. We brought clippers for clearing the trail, ropes for helping with steep sections, and planned to mark headland trails as well with buoys that could be found on the beach.

Day One: Travel to Nootka

After a long drive from Victoria with a pick up in South Nanaimo we arrived in Tahsis in the early afternoon. We learned a small plane had crashed in the area just the day before, so there was a fair bit of activity in town with first responders, reporters, and fire crews dealing with the incident. We were still able to board our water taxi and travel to Yuquot to begin the Nootka Trail from the south end. It was a short walk to our first camp where we spent the first night.

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The Elk River Trail– A Great Plan B!

–SUBMITTED BY JOHN YOUNG; ORIGINALLY POSTED ON HIS BLOG

We had originally planned a trip to Flores Island, but with Highway 4 being closed we came up with a Plan B–hike up the Elk River Trail to the second gravel bar camp on Wednesday, Thursday a hike up to Burg Lake and back, and Friday hike out. And what a great alternate hike it turned out to be! Perfect weather, great company, and some beautiful forest and mountain scenery.

Wednesday–A beautiful trail to the second gravel bar camp

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Mount Milner

–report by Brian Fleming
Mount Milner – 6.5km, 430m elevation gain
Mt Milner is southeast of Sayward and part of the Prince of Whales mountain range. Access is right off the highway up the Siberia Main logging road, which was in excellent condition. We did pass one gate but it was open and didn’t look like it was being used.
We parked at 1040m and made our way up the recent slash to the tree line where travel got a bit easier. We wound our way up and across the ridge to the first high point and began to get confused.

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A Flower Feast on the East Sooke Trail

–submitted by John Young

An Island Mountain Ramblers’ Trip

We had two groups, and after meeting at Roche Cove and swapping vehicles, my group drove to Aylard Farm, where we started off at about 9 a.m. A hot day! Even along the ocean, but much cooler in the shade of the trees. We didn’t hurry, and our total time was 7 1/2 hours, but according to my Gaia appears the moving time was only 5 hours 39 minutes. So we revelled in the sights along this beautiful trail for almost two hours!

Starting off from Aylard Farm

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–submitted by Brian Fleming
Jack’s Peak – 15.7km, 1345m elevation gain, 7.5 hours.
On May 13th, We started around 7:30am at the trailhead, a yellow gate at 300m elevation.  From there it was a pretty steady climb up the service road.  There was plenty of bear scat and we eventually saw one run across the road.

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