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68 Posts |
Posted - 07/21/2010 : 4:37 PM
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I finally reached the my dream summit of Mt. Elphinstone. Thank you all who provided me with info. I think this trail is shown by Adrian’s GPS. It was truly fantastic as mentioned by xj6response. Thank you Mr. Richard Culbert. He should get a Gibsons’ medal.
WHAT I LIKED
Trail is well tagged and on top of it ribbons give further clarity. There are very clear beautiful wooden signs. After first 1/5 of the way, it is almost rock free and very soft ground. Easy for fast running for downhill. Beautiful trail. There was enough trace on the trail itself to not to get lost even at high speed run.
The way they tag; when the trail is veering to left or right direction from where tag placed, only left or right half of the tag is shown indicating which direction the trail is headed. This is really helpful in following the trail without getting lost when you are running.
WHAT I WISHED THEY HAD
I think this is the best low elevation peak trail I have ever been!! I wished Mt. Elphinstone was bit higher so that trail goes longer. On cloudy day you might get lost near the peak as there are many stray trails.
TRIP CONTENT
Time taken. To the peak from the trail entrance 75mins. To trail entrance from the peak 53mins( including 5-7 mins stopping to take bunch of pictures, fixing camera). It was a comfortable pace. Rest at the top 15mins. Fast runner should be capable of 55min up and 40mins down. – but this trail is so nice why hurry?
How to reach the trail; go up Sunshine coast highway from Ferry terminal and turn right when 4-lane hwy finishes, then turn right(not left) again in 100m. Park car here and walk towards a yellow gate with sign “Private, no trespassing” On your left at this point, you see a beautiful wooden sign “Mt. Elphinestone trail”, with yellow tag shaped paint.
Marking is very clear and trail is wide & exposed enough and there is no need at all to worry about cutting your legs with bush- I was quite surprised after several failed attempt to get to the peak so easily and pleasantly. Trail is very wide and easy to run from the outset with some gravel exposing. Soon trail gets very soft and nice feeling on your heel as it does not have very heavy traffic to compress the soil. Trail goes mainly on the various ridges under nice second growth forest without a view. But still nice. Reached the first creek crossing in 36mins(Then there are 3 more small creek crossings later if I remember right). It is a steady gentle climb you can continue running. After a while the trail starts going north and some decline. Then you reach a first view point in 50mins where there seems to be the end of an deactivated(long time ago) old logging road. I kept going on this road for few minutes but it kind of goes downhill a bit. Flagging and tags continue so I kept going. Then there is a tag pointing up left from the logging road and I start the ascent. Now soon I get into stands of first growth primarily of Amabilis Fir mixed with Mtn Hemlock and Cypress starts(don't remember if this was before or after the logging road for sure). The stands here looked kind of funny; some second growth-ish or young old growth-ish trees were mixed. Most of them are not very large in diameter. Very pleasant trail continues. Trail stays very soft on ground and well marked. Virtually all obstacles were removed or cut out consistently to the very end. It is slightly fuzzy at pond areas. The trail looked like it was reaching to the peak and ponds show up but then soon I realized peak was still some distance away. There is another steep climb. Those two steep climbs I just could not run and crawled. Also at this point there are nice wooden signs saying “summit trail” and “Langdale” – “Dakota creek road”. After second steep climb I thought this was the peak but ascent continues. Soon you get to some rock exposed site with grand view of Gibsons and I thought now this should be the peak but trail does seem to go further towards some point where elevation seems to be slightly higher. Finally I reached the peak with a phone tower. As you can see the photos view was fantastic. Met one bear, no people.
To summarize this is the best around 1000m elevation gain trail I have done as long as I can remember. Great beginners trail. No technical challenge. Various nice alpine plants at the peak area. Makes excellent outing with friends or run training of both uphill and downhill. Highly highly recommended.
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Edited by - trailrunner on 07/22/2010 10:40 AM
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 Happy go lucky, plaid wearin, postholin, safeway gaitor sportin, old-school film shootin, giver of many regards
LOGAN LAKE, B.C.
Canada
8878 Posts |
Posted - 07/21/2010 : 5:27 PM
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Nice shots Trailrunner.
K |
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5 Posts |
Posted - 07/21/2010 : 8:43 PM
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Trailrunner ... super pics, many thanks
I think this is one of the very best non-technical hikes around, and we are all hitting it first 
The old de-activated logging road that you emerge onto, where you get the first views of Gibsons and Howe Sound is actually an old 'back-spar' trail. When we engineered that logging block and did the reforestation plan, we were concerned the hillside wold not permit enough deflection (lift) for the log loads to suspend off the ground properly when the tower pulled them into the landing down below. This would have caused excessive damage to the advanced regeneration hemlock-amabilis-cypress under-story.
I never considered that one day it would be part of what is fast becoming my favourite coast trail
happy hiking! |
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68 Posts |
Posted - 07/22/2010 : 10:28 AM
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Karvitk; Thanks. I do enjoy your unique destination pics every time. Back sometime about Tumbler Ridge hiking was very interesting to me. I drove past there once, looking up those interesting looking mountains and artificial structures and wondered what would be like to be up there.
xj6response; Yes this should be the best kept secret on the coast. It would be the matter of time before guidebooks, tourist centres pick up. And thanks for the interesting background of this spar road. I can feel how nice it would be to experience something you engineered comes back to give you some great joy unexpectedly. So this is as new as 1984? Its amazing how quickly things regenerate so quickly and cover things up. Have you heard of any mountains like Panther or Tetrahedron or Varley to be marked or tags like Elphinstone? They look awesome from the bottom. Mt Steel was fantastic, too.
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5 Posts |
Posted - 07/23/2010 : 07:54 AM
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Trailrunner: my wife and I headed back up there again yesterday (thursday). Beautiful views, great trail. In some ways the trail reminds me of the quality of those found in the national parks in the Rockies near banff. We all must enjoy this wonderful hike for the next few years because it surely will become very popular one day.
Yes, that logging block was engineered by myself and another fellow in 1984. We surveyed a logging road up there from Ouiellet creek and timber cruised the entire high elevation old-growth forest on elphinstone. That particular stand of timber was the only one that was harvestable without seriously difficult road-building through the many ridges and gullies up on that mountain. The stand was composed of yellow cedar, red cedar, western hemlock, mountain hemlock and some amabilis fir. Quite diverse for the area. At the time a major market for yellow cedar in Japan had emerged, so despite the difficulty and cost, it was feasible to do.
The understory was composed of thriving amabilis, cypress and hemlock so the trick was to log the area in such a way as to not damage this advanced growth. It seems to have worked. I do think the forest service augmented the area with some planting of trees as well. All in all, a successful effort.
at any rate, we now this most wonderful trail at our disposal. My hat goes off to Richard Culbert for all his hard work on the trail. |
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68 Posts |
Posted - 07/24/2010 : 09:33 AM
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xj6response; Great to hear you enjoyed the trail again. After started to pay attention to Elphinstone, I notice that the mountain is often shrouded in clouds in the morning but almost always clear up in the afternoon. Hope you had a clear view when you were at the peak on Thursday.
Yes that softness and surprising dryness of the soil is somewhat reminiscent of the Alpine Fir-Lodgepole-White Spruce highland forest at Rockies where I did altitude training few years ago.
And 1984 cut-block section seem to have no trace of slides or anything like that and well managed with regeneration...
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Edited by - trailrunner on 07/24/2010 09:35 AM |
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Burnaby, BC
Canada
176 Posts |
Posted - 07/25/2010 : 2:41 PM
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| Congrats Trailrunner. I m glad I could help out. Your pictures are awsome. I love this peak because I can see every clear day when I get off the skytrain at metrotown. It seems so close but I know I would need at least 5 hours to get there. Keep on climbing! |
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68 Posts |
Posted - 07/25/2010 : 7:46 PM
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| Is that right! - Elphingstone is visible from Burnaby eh? And thanks yes your map solved all mysteries. Now I am waiting for the snow to melt so I can try Tetrahedron and Rainy peak. |
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Burnaby, BC
Canada
176 Posts |
Posted - 07/25/2010 : 9:46 PM
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| How about Panther peak, and I would love to come along! |
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68 Posts |
Posted - 07/26/2010 : 6:42 PM
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I will definitely let you know if I plan before hand, though usually I simply go on spur when weather is perfect in my quite iffy working & training schedule. Might try Sechelt route. I had one failure attempt for McNair creek route; http://www.clubtread.com/sforum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=33033
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Sechelt, BC
Canada
280 Posts |
Posted - 07/29/2010 : 5:53 PM
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Great reports Trail Runner. I hope somebody that goes up to the Tet will post a report soon on how things are up there. There was a group of Volunteers went up from Rainy river side to brush out trail to MaNair last weekend. If I hear any news I will post it for you. One of the retired Park Rangers is working on Mapping out all trails with GPS. Feel free to email me through clubtread if you wish. Love your Pics and detailed reports.
Snowman, Plowguy |
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68 Posts |
Posted - 07/30/2010 : 12:42 PM
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| That is great Caveman! Appreciate it. And appreciate people building trails out there. It's a sort of forgotten but great area out there! |
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Vancouver, British Columbia
Canada
15 Posts |
Posted - 08/08/2010 : 11:39 PM
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| Trailrunner, my friends and I are interested in trying Mt Elphinstone. I understand from your TR you ran all the way up to the peak. How long do you think it would take to walk up? Are the steep climbs are doable for people who never hike? |
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68 Posts |
Posted - 08/09/2010 : 6:08 PM
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Trailrunner, my friends and I are interested in trying Mt Elphinstone. I understand from your TR you ran all the way up to the peak. How long do you think it would take to walk up? Are the steep climbs are doable for people who never hike?
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I know the sign post at the bottom says 8hrs. But I feel 6hrs would be the time local hiking guide book would post as(when they include in it- I am sure it will be in coming edition of them).
Their brief two steep sections are at towards latter 75-90% of the climb. I recall they were sort of grouse grind without any boarded steps. It's just a nice soft soil, yet sort foot dug steps are naturally made. And I see the technical difficulty of that hill is equivalent of Lynn Peak or Mt. Strachan. It is less difficult than, say Mt Seymour. If the weather is foggy, then you might want to watch out for the route carefully when you hit Alpine. For reference my hiking skill is that of average beginner. |
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Mt. Elphinstone peak bagged by new beautiful trail
