We made it to Second Peak!

"I admire your ambition," said the man coming down the trail. We were in our first 5 minutes of hiking on the Mount Seymour trail with all 5 of our M's, and his comment, while not totally unexpected, still left us feeling a little bemused. I didn't know what to say, so I just smiled and said, "Have a good day." That comment set the tone for almost all the interactions we had with the people we met along the trail today.


Tarn - A photo stitch of the tarn that we passed. You'll want to click on the thumbnail and then select the 'all sizes' option to get the full effect.
Originally uploaded by Allan & Cheryl

According to Mary and David Macaree in "103 Hikes in Southwestern British Columbia" (which is pretty much the hiker's bible in the local outdoor rec scene), the full hike to the peak of Mount Seymour is:

Round trip 9 km (5.5 mi)
Allow 4 hours
High point (Third Peak) 1453 m (4766 ft)
Elevantion gain 450 m (1475 ft)
Best July to October

What those statistics don't quite describe is that the stated elevation gain is net 450 m. To get from First Peak to Second Peak, you actually give up a hundred or so metres of elevation and then gain it back and more.


Second Peak Panorama -This is a photo-stitch of 8 pictures I took - moving from NE, E, SE, S. The bump towards the right is Mount Seymour's Second Peak. Click on the picture, and then select 'all sizes' to get the full effect.
Originally uploaded by Allan & Cheryl

While we didn't go all the way to Third Peak, Cheryl and I are very proud of Melissa, Michael, and Madeleine because they walked pretty much the whole way to Second Peak and back. The kids handled some pretty steep terrain and got their share of compliments (as I noted at the start) from passing grown-up hikers.

We're especially proud of Madeleine because while she did run out of steam about half-way through the adventure, she got all the way back to the van with her humour intact.