Mt. Burke

On Thanksgiving Sunday we decided to be thankful for a bout of nice weather... +10 C and seemingly sunny (although a bit chilly to start). We chose a "shoulder season day hike" from our trusty guide book and made the 2+ hour drive down through Turner Valley & Longview and then into Highwood Junction. Mt. Burke is a 16km round trip with 935 m elevation gain. The book says it takes 5-7 hours, we did it in just over 5. Lots of long, pleasant switchbacks made for a relatively moderate ascent.

We got a bit of a late start, not leaving until 9;30, but it was still fairly brisk when we first left the trail-head... as this fringe of snow along the river bed attests.

Hiking in the sun we warmed up fairly quickly though... Even with snow still covering the path in shaded sections...

Part way up the mountain we could see a cold weather front starting to move in... there's a mist over the back mountains and clouds starting to move in. We paused at this sunny patch just under the tree-line to enjoy a snack.

Above the tree-line the path got rockier (but still packed enough for Kali not to have trouble). The clouds began to move in a bit more and the wind really picked up. I had to pull out my toque!

First glimpse of our destination: the old fire-lookout on the very tip of Mt. Burke! We could really hear the winds howling at this point, and the sun started to dip behind the clouds. We decided to push on anyway!

... even once we hit this narrow point. The trail was at most 4 m across, although it followed the right side of the ridge-line with large boulders that provided periodic wind-breaks. The trek made us think of hiking to a remote monastery...

Success! The fire-lookout... still clamped down by 1 or 2 of the cables holding it in place... Tom of course popped into it before I had a chance to get up there and remind him he wasn't supposed to because it's unsafe (being perched on a peak, dilapidated, and not secured to the ground). We both couldn't help thinking of Kerouac meditating and writing away in that isolated fire-lookout he manned decades ago... I guess it was just one of those hikes that inspired poetic thoughts...

Hand-stands on the edge... Jumping shots (even Kali's getting in on the action)...

Tom posing as the clouds envelope the top of the mountain, the odd snowflake mixed in with the mist and gentle rain. We decided to boot it down at this point because all three of us were starting to get cold and wet.

Once we got back into the trees the weather at least seemed a lot more mild, although still a slight mist that left the trail slick... and for some reason there seemed to be more snow than I remembered! We paused at this tree because the shape of it reminded me of the snow gums we saw in Tasmania, although of course lacking the beautiful red tones... maybe it was also because the weather was so similar (we ended up hiking in some Yuletide snow on a hike down there too).