Mt. Cheam and Lady Peak - August 13th 2023

I really wanted to test out my new e-bike on some logging roads so I picked these peaks. I knew the approach was somewhat long and notoriously poor quality but after that the hike was relatively short and easy so off I went. I left home a little later than I wanted at 7:15 and parked my truck right at the junction of Foley Creek FSR / Chipmunk Creek FSR and headed up. In hindsight I easily could have driven quite a bit farther but the whole idea was to test the bike so oh well.

One of the difficult road sections

The next ~50 minutes consisted of biking up the FSR and it went... ok. I definitely had to use the throttle quite a bit and pedal like crazy on the steep sections so it wasn't as easy as I hoped but it still did a good job. The limiting factor turned out to be the battery and it was probably 90% full when I started so I wasn't amazed at the performance but not super let down either. In total I went up 10km and 800m on the bike which put me ~80% of the way to the trailhead before the battery totally died. At this point I found a tree and locked it up and started walking. Luckily for me I was able to hitchike the last 20% with some friendly strangers and hit the trailhead at ~9:15.

Looking at the Cheam route from Lady

I wanted to make some good time because I had only been planning on bagging Cheam but spur of the moment I decided to tag Lady as well so I ran most of the way to the split between Lady and Cheam. I decided to do the harder one first and went up Lady so right away there was barely a trail. Gaining the Lady ridge involved some loose somewhat steep scree and ledges but nothing too bad. Once on the ridge the rock quality was much better and there was some exposure to the north but never anything too serious. I caught up to two other scramblers and overtook them pretty quickly. About 5 minutes before the top I came upon some melting snow that I was very glad to have found because it was a very hot day and I had only brought 1.5 L that was dissapearing quickly. I filled up and finished the rest of the scramble.

A view of the valley from Cheam

Chris Gulka had told me on a previous scramble that the true summit of Lady was skipped by most people because it involved a boulder-y move and when I found what he was talking about initially I could see why as it was a bit sketchy with some exposure. However I wrapped around the other side where it wasn't exposed and pulled some easy jugs and made it up no problem. I stopped and ate some food and waited for the other scramblers to catch up and then headed down. I only rested for maybe 5-10 minutes since I still wanted to make time.

Looking back at Lady from Cheam

The way down Lady went quick, I was able to move pretty quickly and there was a faint goat trail near the bottom that connected to the Cheam trail so I didn't have to lose ALL (just most) of my elevation which I took. Soon I was on the Cheam highway with dozens of other hikers and it was one foot in front of the other until I got to the top. Not much to say but it was very hot and also very beautiful.

Looking down the Cheam route... I didn't take many pictures

By the time I got to the top of Cheam it was 12:15 and I wanted to get home quick so I basically just ran straight down back to the parking lot. I made it down by 1:15 which was pretty damn fast. I wasn't looking forward to the 3km or so back to my bike however some friendly guys from Vancouver gave me a ride back to my bike and the bike down was fantastically fun and fast. I even overtook them on my bike as they needed to slow down a lot more to navigate obstacles than me. Eventually though when we made it to the smoother sections they got ahead of me again.

Looking up the Lady route from lower down on Cheam

My bike had regained a bit of its battery (how?) so the slight uphill at the end I was able to scoot up no problem which I was thankful for as I was a bit tired. I got back to my truck right around 2 and bee-lined it for home. A very fun and succesful day. I was very glad to have finally gone up Cheam which is so famous and although my bike didn't quite make it I'm happy I didn't try to drive all the way as the road is quite rough especially near the top. Next time I return (and I probably will to attempt a traverse at some point) I will drive much farther up, park and bike the rest of the way.