Sheridan Hill

April 22, 2021

138m

Pitt Meadows, BC

Sheridan Hill is one of the four officially-named highpoints in the vicinity of Pitt Meadows. The other three are Big Pine Mountain, Little Pine Mountain and Snake Rock. Sheridan Hill is the highest of the four and is the only one that boasts over 100 meters of prominence. Despite the low elevation, these four “peaklets” that poke above the meadow are obscured and seldom ascended even among the die-hard peak-baggers. The bushwhacking is not pretty in this area as one would expect, but the main reason is the private properties issue.

At least the upper slopes of Sheridan Hill seems to locate completely within the “private property” of a quarry and the lower slopes are residential areas with people’s houses dotted everywhere. There’s an access road on the south side of the summit that goes all the way to the very top, but I would assume this road is gated lower down. There might or might not have clear languages of “no trespassing” but I cannot tell as I didn’t access it from the bottom. The summit of Sheridan Hill is currently being blasted by the mining industry and in fact I wouldn’t be surprised if the very top of this hill had already been demolished, as the elevation reading in my GPS doesn’t quite match the official height.

Kat and I made the spontaneous decision to head there as we had about 3 hours to do some exploring. Those four peaks in Pitt Meadows came across my mind again. A few weeks ago we had attempted Snake Rock and got turned around by an angry local. I expected similar situation for Sheridan Hill but there’s no way to know other than trying it out ourselves. There’s zero “beta” about this peak on the internet. A quick Google search led to articles saying that there had been plans to expand the quarry, so this peak might not even exist in the future. For the sake of this reason I had to bag it before it’s erased from the maps.

Sheridan Hill ascent route. No GPX to the public due to legal issues

I directed the Google Map to a local road on the south-east side of the hill instead of the one that leads into the quarry. I anticipated there’s less chance of “no trespassing” or “private property” signs on this side as it’s rather residential. I sure wasn’t disappointed as I found a quiet spot to park that’s completely legal. From the truck we picked up a faint trail that actually led us into someone’s home but from the backside. Thankfully nobody was there nor a dog, so we were able to access the “quarry road” in the middle of it. There was no “private property” sign at our access point.

My truck parked at a convenient spot away from the quarry and away from the houses
Kat walking too leisurely on the connector trail
The short trail brought us into someone’s home literally from behind its backyard…
We simply just walked past the driveway of that house

We were lucky that nobody came driving up the road as we walked the road towards the top of Sheridan Hill. About 15 minutes needed to be spent walking up this road unless we ran. Near the top I could hear the sounds of the quarry. Instead of following the road into the quarry I led a route aiming directly towards the true summit scrambling on loose rocks and dirt. We topped out on the edge of the quarry about 10 meters under the summit and sure enough, someone saw and walked towards us. The traverse towards the true summit wasn’t straightforward we we hopped across endless loose loose boulders covered in dirt. The guy caught us but I was able to ran ahead to tag the highest point. We were told to get out of their “private property” but with the summit bagged I didn’t bother to argue (for the sake that we didn’t even see clue of “private property” anywhere along the route we picked), and instead, picked up another road and leisurely walked down. Accessing that road required scrambling on more loose boulders.

Onto “private quarry road” though from our entrance point there’s no indication of “private”
Me walking on the quarry road..
Near the top of this road. The summit is out of sight to the left
Kat has gradually learnt that to become a pure peak-bagger the true summit must matter
Starting the short-cut to aim straight for the summit
Scrambling on loose blocks blasted down from the quarry
Onto the summit ridge now. We were soon busted by someone from the mine site.
Western view from the summit of Sheridan Hill
A view northwards up Pitt River into some remote mountains
This view looking north from the summit shows the scale of this quarry.

While descending we were busted by another worker driving up the road saying that “we were in their private property”. All I replied was that we were walking down so if he was really bothered he should give us a ride out.. Thank to COVID I was sure that he wouldn’t give us a ride, so we just walked out. The last stretch of this route involved going back into the aforementioned home area. That guy was extremely upset that walked into “another private property” but I yelled loudly that we parked on the other side, so he reluctantly didn’t bother to fuss with us anymore.

Carefully working our way down
We scrambled down to the top of another quarry road
Walking down the road.
Back to that connector trail only 1 min from the truck.

After reaching the truck I immediately started the engine and drove the hell out of this place. I wouldn’t be surprised if that dude was driving around the hill to look for us, and none of us wanted any further conversation. I also wouldn’t be surprised if they are going to put in more “no trespassing” signs along the road as I’m sure that he did not expect the spot where we sneaked in from… I’d say I’m decently experienced in this “tresbagging” game but after finishing this ascent I’d say I wouldn’t recommend any bagger to head in there during the working hours. I would suggest to research the hours (and days) when the quarry is not in operation and avoid confronting with those guys, period. Bushwhacking straight up the hill is another option, but the forest surely didn’t look very friendly with lots of blackberry bushes and minor bluffs. Even that, the upper 30 meters of the hill is in open area next to the quarry.