Strachan and Black

L ately I haven’t been doing many mountain hikes and activating them in the summits-on-the-air program. I guess I am feeling the steepness of the climb a bit more than before. I sure do enjoy the views and the radio activity, perhaps it’s just because my friend Ralph is no longer wanting to hike them. Hiking Mount Strachan is quite a slog especially in the heat. Mount Black is short but very steep. So why not do both in one trip, I know my friend John who is a heliskiing guide does both plus one or two more in a single day. Surely, I could do two!

I mentioned the upcoming adventure at my weekly coffee and Joe decided to join me; he was looking forward to seeing how I do the radio work on the summit. We set the date and hoped for good weather. Come Monday morning the weather was mostly overcast so it would not be hot, but the summit views may be limited. Joe was still OK with the adventure, and he arrived at my place for our 10am departure. He was also excited as he had never been in a long ride in a Tesla. We skipped a stop for coffee and made good time on the highway, even the most common spots for slowdowns were minimal. We arrived at the Cypress Mountain Parking lot and started to get ready for the hike. There were far fewer cars in the lot today than I normally encountered, likely due to the questionable weather.

Once parked we wandered over to the main building and there we purchased two lift tickets. Oh, did I forget to mention that this is the first summer that they are operating the lifts in the summer for easy access to the two summits. We got our tickets and made our way to the loading point for the first lift. Strachan requires two runs to get to the south summit. We chatted with one of the workers who said we were the first up for the day. It was a pleasant trip up; I quite enjoyed the views of the slope from a new angle. Soon we were approaching the departure of the second lift at the summit. It was quite socked in with cloud, no views today. On the summit we saw another couple who had hiked up the slope. They glanced at us wondering why we bothered to come up there.

Now on Strachan the lift takes you to the south summit but for my radio work I need to be on the north summit as it is higher, so we followed the ridge line towards the other summit and dropped into the gully between the two rises and then made our way up the wet slope to the north summit. Soon we had arrived, and we took a few minutes to rest and eat some lunch. I then set up my Yagi and put out a call. My first response was from a station in Everson Washington. Then came a mixture of Canadian and American stations. I had three club members reach me plus one station near Mount Rainier over 300km distant. I had been uncertain how it would go mid-week and whether I would reach the needed 10 contacts for the park’s activation. I need not have worried; it had been a very successful activation with 16 contacts in short order. Meanwhile, as I was making my contacts, Joe was trying to get his handheld to work. It was transmitting fine, but he couldn’t hear any responses, it left him quite frustrated with his new radio. We both felt it was likely a programming error.

Done with contacts and still too much cloud to see the view we started back for the lift down. There were several groups on the south summit when we got there, but most people were not bothering with the lack of view. The lift down offered some more interesting sights and angles. At the mid point we took a few minutes to visit the site of the military training plane crash. During the final descent the clouds parted enough for a view of English Bay. It was nice to see some of the surroundings. We wandered over to the Black Mountain lift. This one had a lot more activity as it is also where they have their coaster ride and people were going on that in good numbers. We got on the chair between chairs fitted with carrying up the coaster ride units. At the top we found the trail leading to the north summit. It said 900m! Not overly far but it had some elevation loss and gains along the way.

After slogging along the trail, we arrived at Cabin Lake. It is a small lake on the ridge between the two summits of Black. After a short break we continued on to the actual summit, the final 200m. Once on the top I set up my yagi and put out a call. I had an immediate response from a fellow SOTA activator. He was on a summit just east of Mount Rainier! Another 300+km contact. And he had 3 other hams with him. When done I had all four of the required contacts for an activation. I kept going and made a total of 12 contacts including one from Carolyn at home.

With more than enough contacts in the log we packed up and started back for the lift. On Black we did encounter a few more people but I think they all did the full hike. Though only 900m the trail was tougher than I thought it would be but soon we were back to the lift and on our way down.  It was approaching 4:30 and not a good time for traffic. Rather than just sit in traffic, we decided to grab a coffee and snack in the coffee shop and chat for a while. Whilst eating we were asked by a group of women to help with a small survey on pharmacy usage. The girls were friendly and looked to be college students so we both filled out their forms. 

Then it was off to the car and the drive home. We had managed to skip the worst of the delays on ‘The Cut’ out of North Vancouver and we made it home in a few minutes under the navcom’s original estimate of 1 hour 22. A fun day, my first double activation and for a total of 8 points! We both plan to do it again next summer. Back home I soon began to realize that my legs were not quite as happy with the adventure. It seems that the lesser amount of hiking was still enough to cause pain and suffering for two days, but as I often tell myself and others – no pain no gain. So, I am still looking forward to doing it again.