Johnson Peak
Coast Mountains, BC, Canada ● 4 Aug 2024
Still recoiling from the disappointment from failing to reach point 2024 in the Darrans, it seemed necessary to find another one to summit. The obvious choice was to travel to Canada, where I found Johnson Peak, just a few hours from Vancouver. A loop over Johnson peak and Mt Outram made for an enjoyable day walk – my first in bear country. GPX file.
Taking advantage of some jetlag, I parked at the base of the Mt Outram track and started walking down the highway at 6am. It took a little under an hour to reach the base of the spur to Johnson peak. I started up the riverbed, but it was full of trees, and lo-and-behold there was a pretty good track right next to it. This track headed up the spur, but soon veered off to follow a contour west, so I made my own way up the spur.
Starting the day
It was immediately sweaty work, made only worse by the fact that any break more than a handful of seconds resulted in a swarm of mosquitos. Surprisingly, these only got worse with altitude. Some sections were easy going, while others were quite slow, largely due to a large number of dead trees. There was no track per se, but decent sections had seen traffic, and I even saw one cairn.
About halfway up the ridge, looking roughly south
Within no time I popped over a small false-peak around 1800m, and found myself looking at the summit of Johnson peak. This last section was really pleasant – sparse trees made for easy walking in what felt like a meadow.
View of Johnson peak from 1800m
Celebratory summit selfie
Looking east towards the sub-summit where Hope Slide came down from
Unable to enjoy the summit for as long as I would have liked to because of the insects, I continued along the ride to the east, towards Mt Outram. This had been well travelled, and had steep drop offs to the north, which were fun to skirt around.
Looking towards Mt Outram from the summit of Johnson peak
Looking back towards Johnson peak as I continue on towards Mt Outram
Instead of following the ridge all hte way around to Mt Outram, when I reached the first saddle I dropped down through some bush and tallus towards a lake, then regained the ridge on the other side. This was partly to avoid scrambling up an exposed looking section, but more importantly to refill my water and have a swim.
Looking down on the swimming lake. Johnson peak is on the left of the frame
The final scramble up to Mt Outram was a really enjoyable scramble. From a distance I wasn’t sure if it would be possible to get up, but as I got closer to the top, an obvious route forward kept appearing.
View of Johnson peak from Mt Outram
The descent took a while as I had actually climbed a decent way, but it was following a good track. The only excitement was meeting a coyote (which at the time sure felt like a wolf). I was happy to be the owner of some recently-purchased bear spray as a slowly walked forwards, repeatedly declaring “I am big and scary”, a strategy which worked wonders.