How to get there:
From Campbell River, drive about 60 kilometer north on Hwy. 19. Locate the fork
Timber Road (right) near location N50.300, W125.887. Take this exit. Follow this road uphill,
it is only suitable for a high clearance vehichle. We drove a Subaru without many difficulties
to location N50.32750, W125.82045, elevation near 700 meter. This is the trailhead/parking.
If you park a few kilometer earlier, that just adds this distance to the hiking part.
See this summary of climbs in BC, August 2022.
Route::
First, continue along the road, it is now only suitable for ATV vehicles,
until it ends near some cabins and a creek having a bridge.
A good trail continues uphill with the creek a bit away on the right hand side.
Higher up, this trail looses its quality, a few (useless) ropes on the ground
show the way. The trail traverses uphill towards the left (fallen trees) and
enters a small creek. Proceed uphill in the creek, then a somewhat better
continuation, steeply up a gully to reach an upper basin. There are several
steep rocks around, the route continues up the sort of
obvious main gully. This gully had a long patch of snow
remaining in mid-August 2022, but one could ascend on the side with no use of snow gear.
The gully starts with loose scree, higher up there is a step to bypass some large
boulders, YDS class 3. Multi-person parties must be careful to avoid rocks that may
head downhill and pose a danger for climbers below.
When reaching the top of the gully, turn left and walk on easy terrain to the summit.
Comments:
We stayed in Campbell River and left after having breakfast (included in the room rate.)
The drive to the trailhead required some time, the road is narrow and a bit rough, but
not worse than what our Subaru could handle. Leaving around 1000, we had a nice
morning walk along the ATV road
to gain the area with a few cabins and a small bridge
crossing the creek.
We continued uphill in nice old forest on the good trail until hitting steeper terrain.
The rope on the ground served no other purpose than guiding the way. Traversing up and left across
multiple fallen trees, then into a small creek. Bushwack over,
the ascent to the upper basin
straightforward. This basin is quite special with all the steep cliffs. It was not hard to
locate the big, main gully that now is the final key to the route. We ascended with care
to avoid kicking rocks on each other, then a short stroll
uphill to the summit.
The ascent had taken about 2.5 hours. It was a nice day with good views. We spent 45 minutes
on top before finaally deciding to start our descent.
The walk back down required about 1:50,
we were ready to drive back down the long forest road just before 1500. Thanks to Adam and
Dave for a nice trip!
