Tag Archives: Elsay Lake

Elsay Lake, 16 Aug 2016

Backpacking, ,

Rob M. at Elsay Lake:
“Last report was 8 years ago by Tim G. By golly, it’s in our backyard, and backyard is where I dialled this – leaving behind my sleeping bag mattress, bug net, camp stove and tent.

Michael proved that you can purchase carefully vetted, off-brand items online that are quite good. His ultralite 8 peg, single pole, low profile wedge tent with interior bug net and floor was impressive. I went with 8×10 SilTarp and light GoreTex bivy. Tamara was sporting MEC’s first ultralite 2 person tent, the Spark 2, weighing in at about 1.5 kg. Its brilliant colours and transparency effectively make it a night lantern.

The lake hike begins with the ease and familiarity of a hike to Brockton Point on Mount Seymour. Just before the ascent to Pump Peak, the trail suddenly digresses east towards Theta Lake. This is the beginning of a rad series of changing micro terrain. The first half follows a cirque-like feature below Runner Peak – a steep 300-m descent through boulder fields, rockfall and a narrow rock-filled gully. The second half is a more genial 300-m descent some of which is through beautiful arboreal forest some of which reminded me of Miyazaki’s anime forest scenes.

BC Parks has a well maintained hut on the north east shore of the lake. It sleeps about 9 in its loft, is surrounded by well established tenting spots and is out of reach of the shadow cast by Mount Elsay towering 600 m above the lake. The shallow lake itself is stocked with fish and was warm the day we were there.

An awesome and challenging place for chillin’ and fishin’.”

Mt Elsay, 14 Sep 2014

Day hike, , , ,

Chris M. on Mt Elsay:
“Rob, Colleen, Pierre-Andre and I made it to the summit of Mount Elsay. We did a clockwise loop that took us through various types of North Shore terrain.

We left the main trail at the low point between Jones Peak and the true summit of Seymour. The footbed was clear as we made our way downhill. After going down some boulders we reached the snowfield below Runner Peak and took our first break. Then it was up to a rolling ridge and over towards the junctions – one goes down to the right and leads to the Elsay Lake trail, the second branches left towards Mount Bishop. We ignored them both and went straight. Straight up that is! The final section isn’t that long but the trail builder doesn’t like switchbacks. The summit provides views in all directions with plenty of spots to relax on. Which we did.

On the return trip we went down over the large boulder field towards the Elsay Lake trail. Wonderful large boulders. The others didn’t enjoy this section as much as I did, sadly. At the bottom was the only running water we saw all day and it was just a trickle. Here we stopped to admire salamanders in a mud pond. Once on the Elsay Lake trail we turned south back towards the parking lot. A Korean Group has put in a lot of effort and really brushed large sections of this trail. Once up past Wes’s Staircase we joined into the regular Seymour weekend parade below Pump Peak. It took us about 9 hours and I highly recommend this hike.”