Bear, Red & Red Steelhead Mountain - January 29th 2022

 I really wanted to do a hike and I was kind of hoping to do two of the remaining peaks in Mission so on Saturday I left at 8:30 with just Jebby and got to the trailhead at 9. I had already mapped out some routes on Gaia and decided on a whim to do Bear Mountain first. I wanted to try running as much as I could (turns out not much) so I started running and quickly ended up hiking.

The entire mountain is covered in a network of mountain biking trails, logging roads and hiking trails so its pretty much a pick your own adventure. I had chosen what I figured was the shortest route that looped and I pretty much followed it. We passed a few people on their way down without event. There wasn't really any views until I got to almost the very top. Once there I got a nice view East and could make out Dewdney Mountain very obviously. To the Northeast I saw a few small peaks I wasn't quite sure what but I figured out once I got back they were Kenworthy Peak (which I did a few weeks back) and Cardinalis (which I intend on doing quite soon). See two pics below.

Cardinalis on left, twin bump peaks of Kenworthy in foreground / right

Dewdney - I've done the grind at least a dozen times but never been to the true summit... soon..

After that it was a short jaunt to the top. The trail I picked followed a logging road to the top but I made a quick change to go up another trail which was nicer. At the top I thrashed up the embankments on the side of the road and tried to find the highest bump. Pretty hard to tell but I'm calling it. I toyed with the idea of bush wacking back to the road in a straighter line for some fun but I knew I didn't have a lot of time and so I retraced my steps.

Jebby and I at the top of Bear Mountain

The view at the top....

I was able to run a lot of the way down, the whole way up until the logging trail rejoined the mountain biking trail and then I walked down to save my knees. On the way down I made a few calls, it was about 10:30 and I knew I had to be home by 1:30 at the latest, this gave me 3 hours to do Red & Red Steelhead Mountain. I figured it was doable. When I called Sam she didn't sound so convinced though...

I crossed the road and went straight up Red Mountain. Once again I made a small deviation on my path to avoid going up the logging road that the gun club used. I made very good time but the hike was uneventful. The sun started to really come out and I got one nice view on the south flank (see below).

Looking Southeast towards Mission, Bear Mountain on left, Heritage Mountain way in back

I was setting goals for myself to make sure I was back by 1:30 and I wanted to be at the Red Mountain summit by 11:30. I ended up getting there a few minutes early and it was super unremarkable so I quickly kept going.

Jebby at Red Mountain summit

The last section was a small logging road that joined Red and Red Steelhead peaks. It descended about 40 metres and then went up 80 metres to the summit of Red Steelhead. The last 10 metres or so was kind of an annoying crappy trail but I got up. I wanted to be there by 12 and I got there by 11:50. I took a short break, ate some food and water, called Sam again and boogied down.

Red Steelhead Mountain Summit

Going down was boring and hard on the knees especially since the descent I chose was a steep one. On the way down I saw a few people going up and some mountain bikers working on the trail but interestingly enough, no mountain bikers. I ended up getting down back to my truck at 12:30 and made it home for 1:00. Successful day!