Dragon’s Back (Hope)

September 29, 2023

437m

Hope, BC

“Dragon’s Back” is the unofficial name of a forested bump near Hope that boasts over 100 m prominence. This objective was undetected until in the recent years in which a trail had been built. The trail can be considered “well engineered” by BC standard so it has gained a lot of popularity since the pandemic. Kat and I had been talking about this objective for at least a couple years but we always opted for something else. We eventually decided the pull the trigger on this sunny Friday spontaneously. I did not get back home until midnight the day before, but we still left White Rock at 7:30 am. In under 2 hours we made to Hope and turned onto Silver-Skagit Road. The last 100 m to reach the actual parking lot was unpaved but I drove us there in the Corolla without a problem.

Within 15 minutes we made a mistake by taking the wrong branch. The junction was unsigned and I did not noticed the other branch. Thankfully it didn’t take us too long to realize the mistake as I do have a habit to regularly check the GPS screen. We wasted at least 20 minute there. The correct trail led us traversing across and undulating terrain with one substantial elevation loss, before reaching the prominence saddle of this peak. The final ascent to the summit was done in a loop. We opted to traverse in a clockwise direction. It was not clear where exactly is the true summit, so I bushwhacked across a couple contenders, but I do think the true summit is not far from the actual trail and beyond what I firstly thought was the summit. The best viewpoint is beyond the summit on the east side.

After a bit of detouring we found the correct path

Unfortunately there are lots of up-and-downs

The final steep grunt towards the summit area

Traversing towards the east side lookout

The best view is from this east side lookout

A view of Hope Mountain from Dragon’s Back

The south side lookout with view into Silver Creek valley

We soon realized that we weren’t doing particularly great on time because I did need to get back for work, so we hurried up on the descent. Kat did a great job trying to keep up and we dashed down to the parking lot in a single shot. I then wasted no time and drove us back westwards down the familiar corridor, making only one stop at a gas station for a deserved ice cream. I did get back in time for work.