Mount Strachan

We got a nice run of late-September sun, so I got in what’s presumably my last hike for the year. The days are getting shorter and I don’t like being out near sunset, so I opted for a quick loop of Mount Strachan for this one.

The first stretch from the top of Cypress Montain takes you along a ridge that continues on to St Mark’s Summit, a popular destination for a moderate challenge. This particular Sunday it was absolutely crawling with humans of all ages and sizes who had the same idea, and after a summer of hiking more challenging routes I wasn’t prepared for that sort of crowd.

Thankfully, it thinned out once I hit the hard-to-find turnoff that takes you up to the peak. The push up Christmas Gully to the summit involved some moderate scrambling over rocks and using roots as handholds to pull myself up the hill, but wasn’t too much of a challenge in the end.

And getting to the top rewarded me with a fantastic panorama of the surrounding mountain ranges and the city and ocean down below. The loop connects back up to the ski hill from the top, so I ended up jogging back down the green Collins run which I’ve been on plenty of times with a snowboard, but never without snow.

All in all, that ended up being a pretty easy one and I was done well before I thought I would be. At under 2 hours of moving time, the payoff of an amazing view at the top is likely to make this a favourite for taking up more casual hikers in the future.