Mt Brunswick, in the winter

December 14, 2019:

I think this was my third time up Mt Brunswick and I still would go again. I like this mountain a lot. A good amount of elevation gain (1500 m), short drive from Vancouver and a bit of exposure along a beautiful ridge. And then you are up at 1788 m, which is pretty high for the North Shore mountains. I had to double check this, but in fact Mt. Brunswick is the highest of them. Forget about the Lions!

Lucas and I had pretty low expectations, since it was December and it had just snowed a bit over the week, making Mt. Brunswick a little bit of an exciting outing. And still, the planning was minimal, I suggested to leave early, he said: “Ok, see you in the morning!” We left the parking lot exactly at sunrise (7.30), because we wanted to be back in town early pm. I knew it took me 4 h in the summer, so we figured it would be more like 5-6 h, depending on how much snow we would encounter.

We encountered snow around 1200 m, but before that, we encountered two trail runners at the end of the logging road. I asked how high they made it and they said: “All the way!” and I asked how it was at the top and they said: “Well, we didn’t go to the summit”, which confused me, but I accepted it and we went on. Following their footsteps, we hiked through some winter wonderland and some really thick fog, the type that makes your hair quite wet, so it can freeze up really nicely later on. Lucas said he really likes fog and it feels kind of gloomy. I just hoped that it would clear up a little bit, because the views from the top are not nice with fog. Since we were still at least 2 h away from the summit I had high hopes. Lucas didn’t.

We eventually crossed the Howe Sound Crest Trail and continued on, the snow was knee-deep at some points, but overall quite good to hike in. We made it to the saddle and looked over to where Mt. Brunswick was supposed to be.

Then, I saw a little bit of cloudless sky in the distance.

We continued along the ridge and it was surprisingly nice and we made good progress. At some point we had to drop a bit along the ridge and the slope was steep and possibly icy, so I expressed some concern and wanted to pick a different route more suitable for winter conditions. Lucas said he does not want to take a detour and went on. Luckily it was good and we stayed on the ridge all the way to the summit.

I took this picture on the way back, but this is were we dropped to stay on the ridge.

We made it to the summit in no time and had a nice lunch and the the fog and clouds cleared off for a bit. Overall we were really lucky with the weather and the snow conditions. We did not need anything else than hiking boots, gaiters and poles (and 5:45 h)! I think I will go again next year!