The Brothers Hike Outram
- Greg Luesink
- Oct 13, 2024
- 2 min read
A family man, my brother Eric doesn't have the same time as before. Two little girls (and a third on the way at the time), my adorable nieces, need a lot of attention as 2 and 3 year-olds! This makes it hard to get out on hikes with Eric, but when we do, it's always special.
We settled on Mt Outram, a summit in Manning Park that I'd done a few years prior. On a sunny October Saturday, Eric and I drove out to Manning Park West Gate. The trail is very well maintained, and switchbacks up the mountainside higher and higher. Part of the allure of Outram is its "prominence" of over 1000m, and one must climb 1800m to gain the summit: quite a grind! Although I don't call myself a peakbagger, in the peakbagging community, this fact would beckon many! Rather, for myself, the views are truly the allure, as Outram is situated quite nicely to survey our home Chilliwack River Valley and beyond into the North Cascades.
Starting at 6:30 am, we trod through the lush, mossy forest of the treeline. We caught up on the often chaotic aspects of our life, both shared and independent from each other. Time for talking about these things is hard to come by, which means there is no shortage of conversation for a 7 hour hike!
The treeline thinned, and soon we were getting our first views of the surrounding landscape. The subalpine soon burst into sunlight. From there, the trail continues past a shallow mountain tairn, the only water source up high. After some more climbing, there is a long slog up a scree field, with many iterations of a "trail" through it (I guess no one cares about trail braiding over rocks...).
Finally, the false summit was within reach! The skies were boisterously blue, and the views were shockingly limitless. Many years, the smoke has been suffocating long into October, but this day we had lucked out. We snapped some photos and then did the short scramble over to the indistinguishably higher "true" summit. I used Jas and my new Monocular Zoom Tube from Nocs to take photos.
To the North, we could see far into the Coquihalla Range and Anderson River Range.
To the SouthWest, we could see far into our home range of Chilliwack River Valley, Slesse, Rexford, the Cheam Range, and even beyond to Mt Baker.
After we'd eaten and had our fill of the views, we started back down the mountain, chatting and snacking until we reached the car.
Like I said, it doesn't happen as much as we'd like, but when I get a chance to hike with my brother Eric, I relish in our shared excitement for the outdoors and a chance to catch up on life. Love ya bro!
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