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Bagging North Shore Mountain peaks (maybe featuring Mount Harvey) [Updated 10/28] · Sunday, October 31st, 2021

Warning: This is an old trip - it already happened

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Organized by: Matthias Sachs.

Start: Sunday, Oct. 31st, 7:00 am
End: Sunday, Oct. 31st, 7:00 pm
Pre-trip meeting: Friday, Oct. 29th, 7:00 pm
Pre-trip meeting location: zoom MAP

Description:

Update 10/28/21after some more consideration I decided to restrict this hike to some safer trail sections on or around the Howe Sound Crest Trail since we will almost certainly face icy and snowy conditions on parts of the trail. Depending on the experience level of participants who will be present in the pre-trip meeting, we will either opt for summiting Mount Harvey (still potentially challenging under current conditions) or hike the Howe Sound Crest Trail between Cypress Mountain and the West Lion. Both options will offer great views of the Howe Sound and surrounding mountains, but under current conditions are not beginner-friendly! Please see the original trip description for expected skill level and gear. 

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Update 10/27/21: given the current weather forecast for the weekend, I decided to move the trip to Sunday. It will be warmer on that day and the night before won't be frosty. In any case, this trip remains tentative in the sense that we will need to assess trail conditions on the day of the trip, and depending on these may need to cut the hike short. I will distribute more details on the planning of the trip via email. 

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The base of the West Lion is most commonly reached via the route from Cypress Mountain via Unneccesary Mountain. I would like to access the West Lion by first summiting Mount Harvey (great views!) starting from the Lion's bay parking lot, and then follow the Howe Sound Crest trail along the ridge via David peak and James peak to the base of the West Lion. I don't plan to summit the latter as this seems unnecessary risky under current conditions. Beyond the West Lion there are two options to proceed: 

  • Route 1: directly descend back to Lion's Bay
  • Route 2: continue the Howe Sound Crest trail to Saint Martin's Summit and then descend along the sunset trail to Sunset Bay. 
The latter route requires to park a car at the parking lot at the Sunset trail head. Provided that we have at least two cars on the trip, this should not be too much of a logistic challenge as the commuting time between Lion's Bay and Sunset bay is just 6min. Very likely this long route will be a bit too long though given the current daylight window, and we will only attempt it if there is plenty of daylight time left when we reach the West Lion.
 
We may consider splitting up into two groups that either attempt to hike the shorter or the longer route, respectively. I am also open to include people who want to tag along and just do the  easier hike up to Mount Harvey (see the alltrails description here). In any of these scenarios, we will need to assign an experienced group leader to each group! Please reach out to me if you think that could be you!
 
The hike is contingent on suitable weather and snow/trail conditions (i.e., no to minimal snow at critical/exposed parts of the trail). I suggest to have Saturday as the default date for this hike. But in case the weather on Sunday will be significantly better, we may move the trip by one day. I expect, that we will be in a position to make a decision on this by Thursday. Currently, the weather forecast for both Saturday and Sunday looks great!  That being said, we will need to follow the weather forecast and snow conditions carefully. Even if conditions appear good before the hike, there is a a good chance that we will need to cut the hike short if during the hike trail conditions turn out to be very unsafe. 
 
Both routes have at least 2000m of elevation gain, there is some (not exposed) scrambling required for the ascend to Mount Harvey and some scrambling with limited exposure around the base of the West Lion. Moreover, from what I have been told, the trail section between Mount Harvey and The West Lion is quite rugged and may require some scrambling as well, (if anyone is familiar with that trail section, please feel free to comment via the Message Board. This would be very helpful & much appreciated!)   
 
If you are interested in just summiting Mount Harvey, please go over the alltrails desription of that hike, and make sure that you feel comfortable with the challenges and current trail conditions.
 
For your own safety, please join the trip for the two routes via Mount Harvey and the West Lion only if 
  1. you have done hikes of comparable elevation gain in the past or have other good reasons to be confident that the amount of elevation gain should not be a problem for you
  2. are comfortable with the scrambling bit
  3. are used to hike in snowy conditions
If in doubt, feel free to shoot me an email! 
 
Besides warm and suitable clothes, absolute essential gear for this hike include solid hiking boots with ankle support and a sole with good grip, a head lamp, and -unless you have ample experience with hiking in winter conditions and have good reasons to not use them- microspikes. If you are not in the possesion of microspikes: you can get reasonable good microspikes for (relatively) little money on amazon; see e.g. these ones, or, if you want something more solid you may buy one of these on Amazon or at MEC.
 
I will update this trip description in the course of the week taking updated weather conditions into account. If you are wondering wether this trip is for you and/or have any other questions regarding the trip, please feel free to get in touch! 

Posted: 2021-10-24 20:34:26
Last modified: 2021-10-29 10:50:14