Paul Romein

Mike and I set out from my place in Port Coquitlam at 4:40am, and drove all the way past Chilliwack and down some back-roads.

We turned off onto the Chilliwack-Foley Forest Service Road at 6:10am. Now, I did my research on how to get to this hike, and I found very strong recommendations about using a good 4×4 vehicle – but I decided my Subaru Forester would be good enough…. it barely made it! After I finally mastered the technique of getting over the dozens of humps built into the road and stopped scraping my trailer hitch on the ground, my clutch decided to get sticky and it was difficult switching gears! Then after a while, the engine started smelling bad so we had to take a break half-way up. It took us an hour and 16 minutes to get from the road to the parking lot at the top! I want to re-enforce to anyone planning to do it to have a car with MORE clearance than mine for sure. I don’t think I want to try it again with my car…. I’ll find a friend with a truck!

The weather today was extremely questionable, as it was supposed to be cloudy and clear up into the morning. For this reason, I brought a whole bunch of gear in the car and just put together my day-back when I got up there and could analyze the weather conditions. It was drizzling light rain, and really foggy. There was only one other car in the parking lot when we kicked off from the parking lot at 7:34am. Within 15 minutes, we were in the beautiful alpine meadows already!

Now here comes the best part of our trip! A stream had melted out a large tunnel in a huge snow bank…! Although DANGEROUS, so much fun to walk through!

Past there, we hiked straight on up the meadows and saw two tents a bit later on! We reached the summit at 9:12am. Unfortuinately it was complete a white-out and we didn’t get any sort of view. I’ve seen the pictures online and I know I’m missing out on something amazing! On the plus side – it just means I get to come back and do the hike again sometime!

On our way down, we saw two people hiking up to the top – they were from the tents we passed on the way up. They looked a little shocked to see us coming down at 9:30am, haha! The next people we saw were down near the bottom of the valley. Surprisingly, there were 8 people coming up the trail really near each other – might have been one or two separate groups. We had some fun hiking back through the snow tunnel again, and made it back to the car at 10:59am.

The weather cleared up a bit by the time we got back to the parking lot, but it still was foggy around. Don’t think there would have been a view from the top still. There were five cars now, and a group of ATV/dirt bike guys who were taking a break from riding around. Down the road a few minutes, there were a few more vehicles from people who wouldn’t make it up the steepest part toward the end. I saw one guy walking, and the other folks on the trail said they drove up and then switched into their friends car for the end.

I got the technique for going over those big berms down quite good and only really hit my trailer hitch twice and my front bumper two or three times. None of my bits fell off and there was no damage to my vehicle, so I consider it a success! Just a few scrapes on the front bumper (as you can see in a photo below). However, as I said before, I’ll seriously debate going back up in that car. Even with great technique, it still took us a full hour to drive all the way to the bottom – I checked on my GPS, and we drove up a vertical kilometer.

Now for links! First, here’s our Google Maps track:

• http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=104912563206901689020.00048d566cc15dc1d242d&t=h&z=14

And then the full photo album (244 photos):

• http://www.paulromein.ca/album/paul_romein_-_canon_powershot_sd1000/10-08-08_hiking_mount_cheam/

For directions, I printed out the trail report from Club Tread:

• http://www.clubtread.com/Routes/Route.aspx?Route=73

The descriptions for driving to the trail head and for the actual trail worked out great – although my GPS tracked it at 11.8 km instead of the 8.5 km from the report. I also, clocked the elevation gain at 905 meters instead of 715m. Strangely contrary to those stats, it recommended 4.5 hours return, and we did it in 3.5 hours.

–
Paul Romein
www.paulromein.ca

I found an awesome website where people come and post trip reports on hikes they’ve just done, and I had to jump on board. From their homepage:

“Clubtread is an online community dedicated to the outdoors. We are a group of outdoors enthusiasts who get together online to share ideas, trip reports, photographs, and advice. Our message board is one of the primary methods to communicate with others, plan trips, and talk gear.”

Naturally, I had to post our Golden Ears trip report up there. You can find it at this url:

• http://www.clubtread.com/sforum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=36386

It’s pretty crazy because in the first 45 minutes, I’ve already had 45 readers and 2 comments. I’ve copied the content of my post below:

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Living in the lower mainland, I stare up at Golden Ears every day. It’s kind of like the big mountain that’s just sitting there laughing at me for having never climbed it. I attempted it last year with my uncle, but he sprained his ankle at the 9km marker and we had to turn back. It’s been a long year looking up at it, but I finally assembled my team and we embarked on a “lazy” overnight trip up to the peak. There were five us us total – two of which had never hiked before. We left the parking lot at 8:50am.

We hiked into the first campsite which was half-way at the 6km marker (arrived 11:20am). As a group, we were energetic and decided to push onto the second campsite, which is at the 11km marker, instead of dropping our packs and going with day-packs the rest of the way. By the way – the only outhouse along the entire trail is about 50 meters past the first campsite. After the first campsite, the trail starts heading much more vertical.

Notice the switchbacks start just after the campsite:

For the two new people, I had lightened their pack to just their clothes and sleeping bag, but we had to carry one of their packs for them when it got steep.

Now there was a long stretch there where we ran really low on water. There was a stream just before the first campsite (approx 5.5km marker), and the next was just before the second campsite (approx 10.5km marker). This didn’t bode too well for my inexperienced hiker friends who needed the water =( We also stopped for lunch on the way. We arrived at the second campsite at 5:22pm. We were the first group up here that would go on to tent up here for the night! We relaxed for a bit before three of us continued on to the summit. We didn’t quite know the trail because there was lots of snow, so we kind of made our own path. Eventually we found the trail.

The view from the top is the best I’ve ever seen of the lower mainland. I went on a little stroll up Dog Mountain (up Seymour) later to compare it, and I still stand by the view from Golden Ears. It was awesome! We summited at 6:30pm.

Back at the campsite, I surprised everyone with a freezing cold bottle of white wine that I had buried in the snow before we started for the summit! We ate like kings! Idahoan’s Roasted Garlic mashed potatoes, three cheese smokies, and white wine, followed by tea & hot chocolate.

In the morning, we walked on down the mountain, leaving the campsite at 10:17am. The stroll down was much easier, as always. It was tons of fun boot-skiing down in the snowy areas.

We got back to the lower campsite at exactly 2:00pm. Down there, we wandered towards the river but it took about 10-15 minutes of bushwhacking to make it to the water and I would not recommend doing it. Just walk down the trail another 500 meters to where we stopped for lunch and there’s extra easy access to the stream. To pamper ourselves some more, we cooked the last of the smokies and Idahoen’s for lunch. Got back hiking at 2:50pm.

The last stretch was nice and easy, and we made it back to the cars at 4:45pm.

Lastly, here’s our Google Maps tracks:

• Day One: http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=104912563206901689020.00048c40221e92ae709ec&ll=49.363874,-122.480392&spn=0.04606,0.111494&t=h&z=14
• Day Two: http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=104912563206901689020.00048c403a3d6881d3e14&t=h&z=14

Now for an experienced hiker like myself, it wasn’t bad at all, but this trip goes to show that with enough time and determination, almost anyone can get up that mountain! I’m really proud of our team for all their hard work – and I hope to have them come out again. After all, it’s all about getting out and enjoying nature with friends!

–
Paul Romein
www.paulromein.ca

PS: First time posting, and I probably wrote way too much – sorry!

Since today was BC Day, I found I had an extra day to get a few things done.  Among the list was a trip downtown, so I figured what the heck – let’s do a short little hike out that direction.  It was a little bit of a double back from downtown, but I had a nice lunch down at Deep Cove anyways.  Sheena happened to be coming back from Squamish perfectly with all her gear and such from climbing and camping this weekend so I got her the phone and she was keen to come on out and get some more exercise!

I had heard from my uncle that this short and easy hike had a really nice view of Vancouver – and it didn’t disappoint.  However, today was a little overcast so it was a little hard to see.  You can check out my photos here:

For a total of a 5km hike, with just a few ups and downs (no real elevation gain at all), this was a great little hike. The terrain kept going up and down evenly, and there were a ton of roots all over the ground.  We saw a lot of small children, dogs, and families.  Not my usual cup of tea, but it would be one I’d start getting someone into hiking with!

I christened my awesome new real Swiss Army Knife (a gift from Harley – thank you!) up there by using it to open a Heineken that I carried up there!

View 10-08-02 Dog Mountain (Seymour) in a larger map

I brought Nate out this morning, and we had a really nice 10km hike. There were four of us total. Nate and another guy engaged in a long and deep debate to exercise their minds while exercising their legs!

View 10-05-18 Diez Hike in a larger map

Another morning hike, starting at 5:45am! This time Mark came out for his first time and he did really good! We did 9.09km over 1 hour 39 minutes.

View 10-02-23 Diez Hike in a larger map

Sheena and I ran up Minnekhada after work today – up and down in 47 minutes. My GPS didn’t get a lock for a bit and we were running so I didn’t get it going until half way into it so this track is a bit incomplete:

View 10-03-10 Minnekhada in a larger map