Summer Solstice Solo Sufferfest - Hiking Mt. Cheam from Home

Friday, June 21 - the longest day of the year.

Dawn at 4:19 amSunrise at 5:02 am. Sunset at 9:15 pm, dusk at 9:58 pm. Nearly 17 hours of daylight!

This solstice was particularly interesting since it was a full moon, so that was neat. Double whammy.

Amidst other plans falling through with a climbing partner, I decided to vent some pent-up energy for a long solo mission in the mountains on my Friday off work. I had long looked at hiking from Elk to Cheam, and decided to add some spice by extending the trip: hiking from the valley floor at Slesse Park.

With Jas picking me up Friday evening from the base of the Chipmunk Creek FSR up to Mt Cheam, I set an early alarm for before sunrise. Solo hiking in the dark just isn't my cup of tea, so I took advantage of the extended daylight and "slept in" til 4:30 am.

With the help of my ol' Norco Bushpilot, I cycled the 5 or so kilometres to Slesse Park where I stashed it (you guessed it) in a bush. Nice to have an old bike not to worry about getting stolen!

Soon, I was slogging up to the Elk trailhead. I listened to some podcasts as the sun started shining through the trees.

After a couple hours I was on the Elk-Thurston ridgeline, soaking in the morning sunshine as the world started to get to work.

The views of my objective and other summits of the valley started to peak (pun intended) through the trees as I continued along the ridge. Simply stunning!

Towards Mt. Thurston, I encountered a fair bit of snow along the path, which proved to be a bit slower going. However, it did provide some interesting evidence of what I suspected to be crashing in the bushes as I neared Mt. Mercer...

Undoubtedly, a black bear had heard me approaching calling out "heyyyy bearrrr" and had trotted off down the slopes away from me. Thankfully, we never faced off, and I eventually holstered my bear spray. As I doubled back from the Mercer out-and-back section about 20 minutes later, the bear print was nearly completely unrecognizable - goes to show how fresh that step was!

I continued on towards the Gloria trail, and soon found myself at the turnoff towards Archibald. I'd scouted this section a few weeks prior, which included a lot of FSR galloping.

At this point, I was making my way down an FSR flowing with water, dunking my hat to cool off as the heat of the day increased.

Shortly before Archibald, I hit a wall. Not literally, I just started to run low on energy and was overheating. Unfortunately, I was running low on water, and didn't have a good fill-up spot. Thus, I decided to eat snow along the way to quench my thirst, slurping a bit of water each time to slosh in my mouth and melt the snow. Worked pretty dang good as ice water!

The view from Archibald was somehow disheartening, with Cheam appearing to be just as far off as it had in the morning. Probably due to the now-visible rambling ridgeline of trees leading to it's flanks...

Nevertheless, I made persistent steps towards my goal, munching some granola bars along the way and chomping snow as I passed it.

As I neared the Cheam-Lady bowl, I got some fascinating shots of the snowpack. Surprisingly, when I compared these to last year at the same time, there was more snow this June than last year! Despite the low snow year, a mild spring held onto the snow for just a bit longer.

Nearly 11 hours after I departed from Slesse Park, I reached the summit of Cheam via the West Ridge. The scramble was a bit tedious due to a few cornices to avoid along the way, but eventually I made it. And what a spectacular view awaited me! I had the summit all to my self. I called Jas to let her know my ETA to the base of the Chipmunk FSR (our CRV isn't quite up to snuff to drive that road to the parking lot...). After a summit snack, I departed down the snowy bowl, glissading down to a stream. I filled up my water, and tromped down the trail to the FSR. I met a group of hikers, who inquired "where did you come from?" to which I responded "a long ways away." I didn't have time explain, I was running late, quite literally!

On the way down the FSR, I started to unlock a gear in the legs that I hadn't used in a long time. It felt good to just run! It certainly helped to be time-motivated, as I didn't want to keep Jas waiting too long. Whooping and hollering on my running high, I neared the last few km's of FSR.

What a welcome sight the green CRV was at the bottom! Nearly 14 hours, 53km, and 3700m of elevation gain later and I. Was. Pooped.