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Spent some time working in the Vancouver Island
Alps this weekend. Climbed Triple Peak via it's Northern
Route.
The 2wd (HC) logging road up Marion Main
gets you to just over 700 m, and then a steep climbers trail gets you
to a beautiful alpine lake (1050m) in an hour, followed by snow and
rock to the top (just over 1500m). Amazingly, there is still a couple of
good chunks of snow from last winter - mostly in acre size patches, starting at
1200m. To get to the rock climbing, the snow steepens and ends in a large moat.
Need to be careful where you exit onto the snow as the most lip is overhanging
quite a bit. A belay is recommended.
From there it's 5 pitches of 4th and low 5th
basalt, breccias (really good quality), and the odd vertical heather slope to
the top. My climbing mates tell me there is quite a nice view from the
summit - coast to coast. If we hadn't of chosen the one day of fog and drizzle
in the past month, I would've been happy to see that.
Brian Gould
Mountain
Guide
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