Yesterday when Josh and Alicia were visiting us, I asked Alicia what would be a good trail to hike so that when we reached the summit, we would have a great view of the mountains and the sea. Alicia, without any hesitation said you have to go and hike “Mount Work”. So today without any further adieu, we set off bright and early this morning (10am for us), to go and hike ‘Mount Work”.
Mount Work Regional Park was about a 40 minute drive from Peddar Bay RV Resort & Marina, in Metchosin.
Mount Work Summit Trail is a 5.5 km moderately trafficked out and back trail located near Highlands, British Columbia. The elevation at the summit is 450 metres, or 1,476 feet or .28 miles.
The All Trails map gives you some perspective where Mount Work is in relation to downtown Victoria, B.C. Metchosin, where we are staying is south of Colwood on the map.
The trail started off easy enough. Nice and wide and very nicely groomed. We both thought this trail was going to be a piece of cake up the mountain!
Oh lovely, a nice wooden bridge and how easy is this trail so far?!!!
Ok, we’re starting to see a little bit of elevation and raised tree roots that we had to be cautious of.
Now we are starting to see more rocks on the trail and a narrower trail.
Hey! Where did our nice flat trail go?
Ok this is getting a bit crazy now! Are we there yet?
We aren’t even close to the summit yet and look how steep it is!
Really tricky footwork to get up this mountain!
Yes, we had to scramble up these rocks if we wanted to get to the summit!
Nice views, but still not at the Summit!
I thought we had reached the Summit and Richard told me there was a plaque at the summit so we had to keep going!
Are you kidding me?!!! How much further to the blasted Summit???
If you look closely there are 2 women having a picnic! We still weren’t at the Summit so we had to keep going up!
Richard had seen online that there was a ‘Summit’ sign, but we had already gone as high as we thought the mountain went and were on our way down on the backside of the mountain before we finally found the ‘Summit’ sign. After that really difficult hike there was no way we were going to miss the SUMMIT!
I think my cheeks were pretty rosy by the time I reached the Summit. I know the sweat was rolling down my back in my Smartwool long sleeved base layer!
A tad overdressed I think by the time we reached the Summit of Mount Work!
When I went on Victoria Trails guide instead of All Trails, the Victoria Trails guide rates Mount Work as ’Difficult’ and a 2.5 hour round trip hike. We did the hike in about 2 hours 40 minutes with a bit of time spent at the top to rest, eat a couple of granola bars and drink some water. There were quite a few brave hikers on the trail today and lots of people with their dogs. We also saw a few female hiking groups too, who seem to regularly choose a different trail to hike each week after listening to them do a summary of the hike back in the parking lot. The Summit trail at Mount Work runs directly north and south spans the entire length of Mount Work Regional Park. The trails to the summit lead through natural glacial rock formations.
Wow! What a view! The mountains in the background are the Olympic mountains, which are in Washington State, USA.
Let me rest a bit please after that gruelling hike to the Summit!
A truly stunning vista! Looking south to the Olympic mountains.
The view is the other way Richard!
Another shot from the Summit.
We knew that the descent was going to be very treacherous so I put my camera away and just stayed very, very focused on where my feet were going coming down Mount Work. We didn’t want any missteps after making it to the Summit! As the trail got flatter, and easier, we were finally happy to be getting back to Kramer, the Kona! That was pretty intense for our first real hike on the Island! But as I always say “Go Big or Go Home!!!”
After our hike we were pretty tired and didn’t feel like any more activity for the day, but we decided to drive over to Bear Mountain to see what the views were from the top.
Mount Baker was visible from the top of Bear Mountain today. Mount Baker is a 10,781 foot active glacier-covered andesitic stratovolcano in the Cascade Volcanic Arc and the North Cascades of Washington in the USA. Mountain Baker has the second-most thermally active crater in the Cascade Range after Mount St. Helens. Mount Baker is located 48km due east of the city of Bellingham, Washington. Mount Baker is one of the snowiest places in the world! In 1999 Mount Baker set the world record for snowfall in a single season 95 feet of snow! It was beautiful to see Mount Baker on this sunny, clear +12C day!
The City of Victoria, B.C. in the distance on the water, with the Olympic Mountains barely visible in the background. Such stunning scenery! We didn’t really like Bear Mountain, other than for the views. They are building houses all over the Mountain, but knocking down trees to build the homes. Houses crammed in next to each other, with not a tree in sight! Yuck!
While we were at the top of Bear Mountain someone asked us if the cargo ship in the distance was the one that lost 109 cargo containers last weekend during the bad storms or ’weather bombs’ they had on Vancouver Island. We weren’t sure if the ship we could see, was that ship or not.
Cargo ship in the distance. I wonder if it is the ship that lost 109 cargo containers in bad weather?
We decided after visiting Bear Mountain to drive home via the Esquimalt Lagoon. The lagoon is the more scenic way to get over to Metchosin Road, rather than go through downtown Colwood and Langford, which always have a lot of traffic.
Sure enough as we got to the Esquimalt Lagoon we could see that yes indeed, the cargo ship is still smoking from the fire that it had onboard! The ‘MV Zim Kingston’ caught fire last Saturday near Victoria. The crew was advised to abandon ship after it caught fire. The fire was caused by a combustible chemical powder spilling from a container that had been damaged in the storm last Friday. The ship was from South Korea. Last Friday shipping containers started falling off the vessel due to the heavy swells near the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The lost containers were drifting parallel to shore from the southwest coast of Vancouver Island near Tofino. Three containers were washed up at Cape Scott on the northern tip of Vancouver Island. The containers were carrying Christmas decorations, sofas, poker tables, games, stand up paddle boards, yoga mats, and refrigerators.
Debris washed ashore from the shipping containers that were lost overboard last weekend. ‘Chinese checkers’ anyone?
The refrigerators from the cargo ship landed near Courtenay, B.C. With the issues in the supply chain right now, I wonder how many of these refrigerators were ‘pre-sold?’ Oh my!
I’m sure there will be a big, expensive bill for the shipping company to clean up the shoreline on Vancouver Island from this mess!
As we drove home we remembered that we had seen a sign for homemade pizza on Friday and Saturday evenings from Glenrosa Farm Restaurant. Glenrosa is the closest home located next to Peddar Bay RV Resort. Glenrosa Farm Restaurant used to host dine in meals, but since Covid has started making take-out Napoletana style pizza on Friday and Saturday evenings. The sandwich board at the end of their driveway was what prompted us to look into ordering our dinner from them this evening. Glenrosa is a working farm, and they grow their produce for the restaurant. The 100 year old fruit trees are harvested every fall and the apples and pears find their way into pies and desserts!
We could see this yellow farm house from the road and the last time we stayed in Peddar Bay, they were closed. We’re happy they are open, even if its for take out pizza!
Richard has ordered the Dolce Diavola and I have ordered the Staycation! If you look at the ingredients in these pizzas, they are very unusual and we can’t wait to try them out! Richard called over to Glenrosa and he is picking up our pizzas at 6:25pm this evening! We’ll have pictures for tomorrow’s blog and a full review of our pizzas!
I think we deserve a nice meal of pizza after such an intense hike today up Mount Work! It was nice to get our hiking legs going again after so long being away from the Island. There is nothing better to do on a sunny day on Vancouver Island, than to hike up a mountain!
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