May 28, Chilliwack -- Stats: 13 km / 1300m gain / 1520m high / 3:05 hrs MT to ridge
I can see why they named it Gloria Lookout. It's a hard long grunt up steep forested trail till finally after 1188m gain, you reach the ridge only to have to drop down again to get to the lookout. And a glorious moment that was indeed. Although on this particular day, we didn't think so at first...
We started out on the in the Chilliwack Community forest where the trails had a nice gradual grade.
Now started the hard part. A relentless steep climb to the ridge that also leads to Mt. Thurston. Although it was Saturday, we ran into only 3 other hikers on the Gloria Lookout trail.
To our left flowed Ford Creek which was mostly obscured from view by trees.
The forecast was for sun in the morning till noon. But that's not how it turned out. Our climb was mostly in mist.
This landslide happened after the heavy rainfall in November.
Two springs were pouring from the black bank.
Orange Peel fungus.
The snow started just before 1300m altitude. Micro-spikes came in very handy. We all made it to the ridge but two did not go to the lookout. Visibility was nil on the ridge. I told them not to be discouraged, the mist can clear in seconds.
Maggot filled bear scat.
We had to drop 100m before arriving at the lookout where we parked for lunch. After 5 minutes Jerry exclaimed, "Look! I can see something!"
I hoped for glimpses of Sumas Prairie through windows in the mist. We were absolutely thrilled when the whole view opened up to us! All the way from the ocean to beyond Agassiz.
Sumas, Chilliwack Mts -- north.
pic 1) Cultus Lake below Vedder Mt. with Vancouver Island and the Pacific Ocean on the horizon.
2) Sumas Mt, Dewdney & Nicomen Mtns. 3) Sumas Prairie 4) Hwy 1 & the Fraser River on opposite sides of the valley 5) Harrison Lake - upper right 6) Agassiz
Our vast views soon closed in once again. It didn't take long for us to run into the other two hikers so we all hiked down together.
About halfway down we turned right onto Big Blue trail which led to Magic trail and then left on Thalatel trail which got us to the parking lot in 1.5 km.
How did such a perfectly round hole (the size of a basketball) end up in that tree? Darcy said it was a woodpecker on steroids.
This short stretch was very steep and our knees were getting sore. So Jerry grabbed the Allana's backpack to help her.
A ramp, roots & criss-crossing trees.
Phew. Just when my knees were telling me they'd had enough, we were back on the more gradually graded Community forest trails.
We did it! This trail it tough but makes for excellent training for those more challenging hikes. For me that will be the 9-day trek on the GR20 in Corsica starting June 10th.
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