The plan was to snowshoe up Elk Mountain in Chilliwack on February 5th 2022 and get in some good views. Here is how one might execute said plan.
Step 1: Meet at Chilliwack McDonald’s at 8:30. The morning was a drab, cloudy, grey with a few raindrops here and there. Would we get to see anything up the mountain?
Step 2: Faff until ~9:30, then make our way to the trailhead. The FSR up to the trailhead was bumpy, muddy, and pothole-y, but my 2WD Toyota Camry was able to make it up fine.
Step 3: Gather round, and begin the HIKE! There wasn’t much/any snow to begin with, so the snowshoe trip began as a dirtshoe trip. AllTrails said the stats for this trail were 8.2km roundtrip, and 756m elevation. My mind thought this wasn’t so bad, but my body didn’t quite agree. Mind over matter…
Step 4: Keep on hiking, and pet the dog when it runs by you. The scenery started getting snowier, and microspikes were donned approximately halfway up, with snowshoers putting on snowshoes a bit later. We came across a few viewpoints, but there wasn’t much to see…other than some stoked VOCers
Step 5: Ponder whether or not we’ve reached the top. It was hard to tell in the unfortunately foggy weather, and the trail had disappeared. But, eventually we deduced we were not at the peak. An assessment of avalanche risk was made, and it seemed safe to continue onward along the ridge. Some people opted to stay in the cozy little tree covering snack-area, and some others went ahead. I was glad some people were wearing snowshoes as they were able to flatten out the snow a bit for microspikers.
Step 6: Get to the top and see not much
Step 7: Wait around a while, and see more! I wasn’t expecting the conditions to clear up, but we were graced with parting clouds. Weather changes quickly in the mountains
Step 8: Make your way back down. Congrats, you just snowshoed elk mountain!
Nice trip report! Dog photo wins the photo contest.