Steven's Peak-bagging Journey

September 11, 2019

543m

Mission / Fraser Valley, BC

“Bear Mountain” is the local name of a small wooded hill immediately north of Mission that’s probably better known for its mountain biking trails. The same system of biking trails can also be linked for a hike to the (wooded) summit but in one way or another this is not really a worthwhile objective for anyone but the locals who live in its vicinity that use the trails for exercise. Mission is not very far away from Metro Vancouver and the hike is reasonably short that I could easily do it as a “before-work exercise”. I don’t really need good weather because there’s literally nothing to see other than trees, nor an early start. This September had been very rainy but among the rainy days I noticed a brief break, and made a spontaneous decision to take Kat out for some exercise. Of course I would need a new summit to motivate, and I randomly picked this one.

We didn’t bother to leave Vancouver until 8 am and made to the trail-head in just over an hour. The weather was cloudy but rain seemed to be holding off. The trail system was marked on my Gaia GPS map and is also well labelled by markers. There was a maze of trails, but by carefully studying the maps we did manage to link them up. The trail was wet and slippery but not steep. After a few junctions the grade eased and then we intersected the upper logging road system. There was a bit of uneven terrain and more confusing junctions. The true summit required a brief bushwhack off the highest logging road spur and is completely wooded with no view whatsoever.

After taking a short break we leisurely went down retracing the exact path we had taken on the ascent. The slipper rocks (from recent rain) meant we had to be extra careful, but nonetheless we made zero mistake hiking back to the vehicle. We then drove south for a good meal in Abbotsford before driving back home to prepare for my afternoon work.