There are a couple of different approaches you can make to reach the peak of sumas.
There is an approach from the west which is a little easier (distance and elevation) and an approach from the east.
Assuming you leave and return from the west, you are looking at a 13.5 km hike with a gain of 715m.
From the east it is a 870m gain with a round trip of 16 km. We opted to take two vehicles.
We left one vehicle at the east side and then drove the other to the west.
The trail itself began fairly easily. We soon crossed a log bridge.
This was a little tricky as the railings had fallen off and the wire stapled to the log felt like ice with our vibram sole boots.
About half way across we opted to crawl the rest of the way.
Probably looked dumb if you were watching us, but at least we didn't end up in the creek or on the rocks.
The trail was well marked. There were plenty of markers and being part of the Centennial Trail there were also a number
of Centennial markers.
The next parts of the trail were steady climbs up. This time of year there is a lot of runoff. That makes the trail pretty wet in places. Think its time to waterproof the boots again.
We then approached another arm of Wades creek. This particular part was flowing quite quickly. There was an abundance of water. I suspect it is usually a lot lower normally as there was no bridge. We needed to go upstream a bit in order to find a reasonable place to cross. Even then it wasn't optimal. We ended up getting as far as we could on rocks and then making a leap of faith across to some other slippery rocks.
After this there was another steady climb until we got to the area surrounding the lake. This area has a lot of evidence of camping with the various spots that I could see being popular in the summer months.
We went to the lake and snapped a couple shots. It was fairly cold at the lake. My therm read -3c. It was also quite windy on top of that. The day we chose to go wasn't a particularly nice day in april. But it definitely assured that we would have the place to ourselves.
We got snowed on a bit on our way up and at the lake. It really came and went several times while we were up there.
We made our way around the lake to head for the peak. Unfortunately we were unsuccessful as the lake was high and the area was severely flooded. On a few occasions the muck went a fair ways up - lucky we were wearing gaitors.
We tried some higher routes, but they all eventually led to the bog. At that time we decided to abandon our attempt and break for lunch. We headed back around the lake to find a good spot. Lunch was good - nothing like some hot chicken gumbo and hot chocolate when its cold.
Once we finished lunch, we packed up our gear and headed towards the east. The east was definitely different than the west.
Going down the backside towards the fraser was interesting. The trail itself was pretty steep in places.
That normally isn't bad, however the rain falls from the previous day left the trail quite slippery.
We also had a wind storm the night prior. This left considerable blowdown on the trail.
On several occasions we needed to work our way around these obstacles.
We continued downward, crossed a small snow patch, and then swung around to a 4x road. A couple km of the trail back was road.
Quick to walk on so we made up some time. On our way down there were periodic views of the farms below.
There is another break in the path which again leads into the forest. We opted to take the trail in lieu of the road. We continued on and around the mountain to the other side heading south towards the sumas river.
This length of the trail was interesting as well in that there we several ups and downs along a trail where often there was a reasonably steep dropoff. This part of the trail was also quite slippery so we often took our time.
We eventually got far enough along where we could see the glimpses of the trailhead a few hundred meters below us. We spotted the dam at the sumas river and were happy to see our ride was still safely parked there. It was probably another 45 min of steep switchbacks before we made it out the trailhead.
All in all, a nice hike. I'd highly recommend it as an early season hike. As long you don't mind getting a little dirty, you're all set.
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