Steven's Peak-bagging Journey

November 27, 2022

591m

Vancouver Island, BC

Mt. Jeffrey is one of the lowly but officially named pimples near Malahat Summit on the southern Vancouver Island. This whole area is riddled with hills with names so can be a peakbaggers’ paradise in the “down season”. I had noticed Mt. Jeffrey by browsing the maps but I wouldn’t take the ferry to the island just to do these little ones. Instead, Nikita, Phil and I pulled the spontaneous trigger after finishing Mt. Landale earlier in the day. That hike turned out to be shorter than anticipated so we wanted to bag another peak to maximize our time spent on the island. It’s overall not a cheap trip to get here as the ferry itself costs over 120 dollars each way for three people.

I had been to this area previous to bike up Mt. Wood but this time we aimed for the smaller/shorter neighbour. The character is pretty much similar as we just needed to follow the (gated) FSRs all the way to the summit. I had my fatbike while the others would walk and the round trip distance seems to be around 5 km. The first half of the ride was quite simple but a couple junctions later the road had become increasingly steep and rough such that riding the bike was no longer practical. I knew I could handle intermediate level mountain biking trails so I decided to push the bike as long as I felt comfortable about the descent. There were a few zones that worried me but overall I determined that I could ride the way down without much of a problem. The final stretch was basically a trail instead of a road but I did push the bike all the way to the summit. There’s actually some views from the top so this wasn’t as dumpster-ish as I thought.

After taking in enough of the views we had to face the descent. The upper route was definitely challenging for my limited biking experience. I really took my time and even got off the bike a few times to avoid taking the jumps. Lower down the terrain became simpler and I started to become much faster than the hikers. Instead of riding my own way back to the truck I offered Phil to take the bike. Hhopefully he liked it and will plan to spend some $$$ to purchase a proper bike. I, on the other hand, leisurely walked the final 2 km back together with Nikita. We then drove north back to Duke Point to aim for that 5:45 pm ferry ride. I underestimated the Sunday traffics but we did manage to squeeze onto the boat, barely though by taking obviously the last possible spot on the line.