Mount Woodside

June 9, 2019

946m

Agassiz / Harrison Hot Springs, BC

Mt. Woodside is just another forested hill with absolutely nothing attractive from a hiking and scrambling perspective. The best view from anywhere on this mountain is actually from the paragliding pad about halfway on the south flanks. Venturing beyond the paragliding pad falls into the category of “dumpster diving” because there’s literally nothing to see unless you like to hike up a logging road just to see a communication tower with lots of trash around… The actual highest point of this mountain requires about 10 minutes of bushwhacking from the radio tower and the true summit offers nothing but secondary growth forest to see.

I had planned to hike/snowshoe up Mt. Woodside in the dead man winter as a “before-work exercise” but this is such a lame summit that I never managed to actually do it. On the other hand, it does make sense to grab it while one’s already in the area with a few extra hours to kill. That was exactly the case for Adam, Connor and myself after finishing Mt. McRae earlier in the day. We decided to explore the logging roads on Mt. Woodside and Mt. Agassiz and it turned out that we managed to drive all the way to Campbell Lake. From there we bushwhacked up Mt. Agassiz and down in just over an hour. Because we were already there we had to bag Mt. Woodside as well.

Mt. Agassiz and Mt. Woodside from Woodside FSR. GPX DL

We parked at the entrance of the uppermost spur. It appeared that we could drive up the highest spur road as well but I was afraid there wouldn’t be a good turnaround spot in case there’s an obstacle. Walking the road would be around 1 km distance with 200 m elevation gain. In no time we made to the communication tower and grabbed some obligatory photos. We then checked the GPS and bushwhacked to the true summit that’s about 10 meters higher in elevation, then took a short-cut bushwhacking down to the road, and then back to the truck.

Walking up the uppermost spur towards Mt. Woodside

Our group shot on the communication tower on Mt. Woodside

Bushwhacking up to the true summit

Passing a pond along the way.

Peak-baggers checking GPS to confirm we indeed made the true summit of Mt. Woodside

On the drive down I decided to hike to that paragliding pad for more views which turned out to be a great call. Adam and Connor opted to stay in the truck researching for our dinner options. The viewpoint actually had the best view of this entire day and I lingered there for about 10 minutes before leisurely walking back to the truck.

Hiking to the paragliding platform viewpoint

Panorama from the paragliding platform viewpoint. Click to view large size.

Looking towards Cheam Peak in the distance

Looking down Fraser Valley with Sumas Mountain in the background

The rest of the drive down Mt. Woodside FSR was uneventful and then the next stop was a donair’s place in Mission. We all had a big dinner before resuming the drive back to Abbotsford. After dropping Adam and Connor off I then leisurely drove back home. This had been a somewhat long, but very productive day.