“Eagle Mountain” (Abbotsford, BC)

December 15, 2023

315m

Abbotsford, BC

“Eagle Mountain” is the unofficial name of the smallest “P100m” bump on the lower slopes of Sumas Mountain. I had ignored it for years but it needs to be bagged somehow. The area is entirely developed for residential uses so this objective falls into the category of “urban hikes”. One can drive to basically the summit, but I wanted to at least gain some of the elevation on foot. My original plan was to park at the bottom of the hill to gain more or less the full 300 m elevation, but opted to park more than halfway up at Eagle Mountain Park due to time limitation. Cat and I did not leave White Rock until 8:30 am and we must get back no later than 11:20 am for another commitment. This return deadline did not pop up until the very last minute so I was forced to change the plan.

“Eagle Mountain” urban walk. GPX DL

Our first stop was actually the A&W in Abbotsford for breakfast as otherwise I would be too hungry to do anything. This costed us an additional half an hour, so our hiking time was limited to about half an hour. Even by parking at Eagle Mountain Park (~270 m elevation) and walking from there was pushing the limit, but I really did not want to drive to the top. There were a few junctions and I used the Gaia map to direct us to the summit. The walk was longer than I thought such that we were almost doomed to be late.

Breakfast in Abbotsford’s A&W
We found a dog that looked awfully like a bear…
Plodding up the residential streets
Looking back. We opted to walk instead of drive.
A zoomed-in view of Black Mountain in Washington
The mid-December sun is extremely low even in midday
To our surprise there were still some flowers
Me on the summit of “Eagle Mountain”
We even found some summit views…
A zoomed-in view of the peaks in Cheam Range
In the foreground is the forested McKee Peak, which I ascended twice…

On the descent I suggested running and this was a good decision. The descent was much quicker than I thought such that we finished the round trip in 37 minutes. I then sped our way homewards passing numerous large trucks (at times, dangerously) on the 16th Ave. We eventually got back at 11:23 am which was considered “okay”. About an hour later we drove out to Burnaby for lunch at our favourate dumpling place.

The existence of these trucks suggests they were expanding the living area.
Could see Fraser River and Grant Hill in the foreground
Mt. Robie Reid and Mt. Judge Howay dominating the northern skyline
Me exploring that expanded area.
Cat and I ran down the hill as we were not doing great on time…
As typical of an urban outing as it seems
A zoomed-in view of Mt. Baker catching some lenticular clouds
We linked up several smaller roads
Another photo of Cat jogging
Almost back to the car, parked at Eagle Mountain Park
Lunch a couple hours later.
Random funny photo near the restaurant.