Jim Kelly and Coquihalla // 2023 Short Stories

Written February 2025

Hiking Jim Kelly Peak and Coquihalla Mountain with Eric and Jas. Aka "Jimmy Buffett and Coca Cola"... the mountains that is, not Eric and Jas.

On the third of July, Jas picked me up and we drove to my brother's house to check out a new hiking zone. My two nieces had just woken up, so we got a little side tracked hanging out with them. Eventually, we mosied up to Coquihalla Summit and along the dusty FSR to access Illal Meadows. From there, we toted our bags and tromped along an overgrown and rocky service road for about 3km until it turned to single track. Winding our way up through the treeline, we finally burst into the alpine meadows after about an hour and a half.

A hop skip and a jump away lay a lake below Jim Kelly, a great dipping spot for later!

We decided to bypass Jim Kelly to ascend Coquihalla Mountain first. Part of the reason for going to this region was to check out the Coquihalla Ridge Traverse, which I'd seen several times on whilst surfing trip reports on the world wide web. Since I didn't know how spicy the scrambling would be, my plan was to split off from Eric and Jas to scramble the ridge to the summit, while they would circle around the back side and ascend the standard route.

My approximate route in red, summit hidden

So, I set off, scouring the slope ahead of me for a line of weakness to gain the ridge. The rock quality was pretty decent, and not long after I was on the ridge looking ahead at the many humps between me and the summit. I'd spotted several notches from afar, which I was slightly concerned about - hopefully they wouldn't be too difficult to scramble!

Much to my surprise and delight, the ridge was fairly easy scrambling, and each notch was easy to downclimb. The entire ridge was perhaps 3rd with a touch of 4th class. I arrived at the summit an hour and a quarter after splitting off from Eric and Jas. As they scrambled up the loose back side, I kicked off my shoes and enjoyed the spectacular weather and views while I waited. To the southwest I spotted the landmarks of our home valley, including Mt Baker, Slesse, and the Cheam Range!

Coquihalla Mountain

In quick succession, Jas and Eric arrived at the summit. We spent over half an hour enjoying lunch and snapping photos, including some spectacular film photos! It's a good thing I procrastinated on writing this post for two years, otherwise the film wouldn't have been developed! (only partly true, started the blog in 2024...)

Jim Kelly Peak

As it was already past 2 pm, we packed up our bags and proceeded to pick our way down the standard route. The area sees seemingly little traffick, since the trail was quite hard to distinguish amidst the rock and shrubs. Before long, we arrived at our split-off junction, but this time headed up together to the base of Jim Kelly. The peak is essentially a pile of loose rock, proving to be a 2-steps-up-1-step-down situation. We scampered up to the top, about an hour and a half after leaving Coquihalla Mountain. Much to our surprise, we found a Czech "200 Crown" [~$10CAD] bill in the summit register! A familiar sight to Eric and myself, as we spent 8 years of our childhood in Prague. Once again, we snapped some photos, this time at an expedited pace as it was already 4pm!

On the way back to the car, we simply couldn't resist a dip in the alpine lake. It was cold, but it was refreshing! After we rinsed the sweat and grime off, we mosied down the trail back to the car.

All in all, this was a mega-memorable day with my favourite hiking partner, oh, and my brother. We took our time, enjoyed the views, bagged two new summits, and frolicked in one of the most beautiful alpine meadows I have ever laid my eyes on.

By the time. we got back to the car, it was past 7pm, just shy of 10 hours in the mountains.

While it is a bit of an extra drive to get to, these two summits are well worth the effort. I would gladly go back again!