Bluenose Mountain Hike

Where:

• Bluenose Mountain

 

When:

• June 27, 2021

 

Who:

• Ed, Zac, Laura, Erin

 

Trailhead:

• Bluenose Mountain hike is about a 25-minute drive from Vernon
• from Vernon, take Highway 6 east for about 12 km, then turn left onto Learmouth Road in Coldstream
• turn right on Reid Road and continue to where it turns right and becomes Bluenose Road
• after 4 km, the road bends left, and the parking lot is on the left-hand side (there is a Bluenose trail sign on the right-hand side of the road)
• the trailhead starts from the far end of the parking lot, and you can continue straight to do the trail in a clockwise direction (which we did), or there is a faint trail to the right to do it counterclockwise
• there is also a trail on the left that leads to private property, so do not take this trail

 

 

Degree of difficulty:

• 325 meters of elevation gain
• 4 km distance to go to both peaks
• the trail is steep right from the start and then gets into some switchbacks up to a saddle between the two peaks
• at the saddle junction, we took the left trail up to the lower (west) peak
• after this, we descended back to the saddle and turned left to climb the higher peak
• at the higher (east) peak, we continued in a clockwise direction to descend through the forest
• going counterclockwise would have been challenging going down the steep loose scree as our group members fell a few times even on the less steep section due to the tricky footing
• the hike took us two hours, and we moved at a fairly leisurely pace

 

 

Interesting notes:

• there was nobody else on the trail, which was surprising as it was a beautiful day

• the west peak gives great views back towards Vernon, and the east peak provides great views of Lavington, Aberdeen Plateau, and the Monashee range
• on the east peak, we saw three hawks circling just below the ridge we were standing on, which was majestic
• Bluenose Mountain is also a great place to catch sunrises