Apex Mountain

March 21, 2019

2247m

Penticton / Keremeos, BC

Apex Mountain offers virtually zero mountaineering interest but is definitely a topographically significant summit in the Okanagan area of interior of British Columbia with over 1200 m prominence and 20 km of isolation. A service road essentially goes all the way to its summit. The nearby Beaconsfield Mtn. boasts a hidden gem of ski resort that shares the same as this peak (Apex), and the drive is about 1 hour from Penticton via some windy, but paved road system. Making an ascent of Apex Mountain was one of the primary objectives in this past spring break peak-bagging trip and earlier in this day I had already hiked up Beaconsfield Mtn. mostly in the dark.

Ascent route for Beaconsfield, Apex and Riordan. GPX DL

From Beaconsfield/Apex col I picked up the snowmobile tracks which connected to the aforementioned service road. In the winter time it’s difficult to make out where exactly that road went in a couple places, but the general direction was well marked on my GPS and the area saw fairly heavy traffic from snowmobilers and skiers. All I needed was following their tracks. The route wrapped around a northern sub-summit and didn’t come to the alpine until very close to the real peak. From there I again, simply followed the skiers’ tracks overcoming a few smaller bumps and made quick work to gain the summit. There weren’t a ton to see but I still lingered for a while soaking in the views.

Ascending onto the alpine, west of the northern sub-summit

This is a southwestern view. As you can see there isn’t really much to see…

Ahead would be the true summit. Still a few bumps to go over

The sun still hadn’t risen too high yet.

Summit Panorama from Apex Mountain. Click to view large size.

The highest peak center shot is Snowy Mountain

This is zooming-in southwards into Keremeos Valley

A very zoomed shot towards peaks in Cathedral Provincial Park

That obvious mine site is Nickle Plate Mountain

Green Mountain in the foreground. Behind not very visible is Okanagan Valley

Divident Mountain in the foreground.

Me on the summit of Apex Mountain

Another photo of me on the summit of Apex Mountain

Hiking back down the service road (and on the skiers and snowmobilers tracks) was very boring but at least this wasn’t a long plod. I didn’t need to cross back into the ski resort on the descent and instead, I just followed the service road traversing the southwestern flanks of Beaconsfield Mtn. with some slight elevation regain. That stretch took a long while.

The typical scenery in the alpine, on the way down.

Once back to Beaconsfield/Riordan col I made a spontaneous decision to hike up Mt. Riordan.