ACC Gazette Section Stories: Vancouver Island
Summit fever satisfied! Photo: Jules Platt
Kids & Youth Hut Trip to Hišimy̓awiƛ
Story and photos by Neil Ernst
Over the weekend of July 21-23, 2023, four families from the ACC Vancouver Island Section headed up to Hišimy̓awiƛ – the section’s hut on 5040 Peak for a Kids and Youth Trip. Our group included members from age five to… we’ll say more mature ages. The group consisted of Neil with sons Elliott and Kieran; a two-family contingent from Hornby Island: Meredith and Andrew with sons Olin and Killian, and Ian and Jules with kids Beckett and Opal; and a Saltspring Island contingent of Sonia and Sofia. This trip was five-year-old Sofia’s sixth trip up the hut, which, as anyone who has climbed the 700 steep metres up the Cobalt Lake Trail will agree, is pretty impressive. We were lucky to also have Nadja Steiner join us as the hut steward.
Our hike started with our group meeting at the Marion Main turnoff and arranging the carpooling for the drive up the forest service road to the trailhead. The road was in rough shape at the 4-kilometre and 8-kilometre sections, although our Subarus managed with some careful driving. At the trailhead our group shouldered packs of varying weights and set off up the trail to the hut. On our way, we navigated a few rock-climbing sections and enjoyed a swim in Cobalt Lake. After arriving at the hut, we spent the rest of the day running around outside, playing games like Catan, Uno, and Crazy Eights. The kitchen was the site of a delicate dance as each family cooked up a tasty meal while trying to accommodate the other families with stove time, utensils and counter space. Meals included “space food lasagna”, beans and rice, and vegetarian noodles.
The next morning the weather was overcast with heavy fog – what we thought of as “mountainous,” but we donned rain gear and emergency ponchos, and headed out with our sights set on summit of Peak 5040. Our confidence was rewarded with a timely break in the clouds just as we all reached the summit, enabling sporadic views of Triple Peak and Nahmint Mountain. I was going to boldly claim an unofficial record of the “lowest average age of party on 5040 Peak” but Sonia explained that in 2022 she reached the summit of the mountain with a party that consisted of kids aged four, five, five and six, along with five adults.
After our time on the summit, some of us then traversed across to the little bump south of 5040 Peak, where we practiced our glissading skills before returning to the hut for dinner and dessert.
Our group headed back down to the cars after a morning of cleaning and packing on the third day. A less eventful drive back down the FSR to the highway and some fond farewells concluded the trip. It was wonderful so see the club’s younger members do so well on this hike, and of course it is great to have such a wonderful location as our destination.
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