Trip Report: Mt. Harvey Vancouver BC
It's mid August (Aug 13 to be exact), and there's still loads of snow in the North Shore mountains - it's been a very late start to the summer (a hot July was non-existent), but we decided to make the most of it nonetheless. Having hit several meters of snow on Brandywine mountain the week before, we decided to bring our crampons and ice axes for a jaunt up Mt. Harvey, a rocky massif to the west of Vancouver's landmark mountains - The Lions. Not knowing what kind of conditions we were going to encounter, and seeing as the Lions were still covered with snow as we could see from below, we decided to hit the trail at 8:30am.
We started out from Lions Bay, and made our way up the service road (same start as for the Lions). About an hour in, we turned off the main road and began the steep 1500 meter ascent. Fortunately there was virtually no snow, so we were able to make good time, and arrived to the ridge by about 10:30am. After a short break, we resumed our hike across the ridge, with the occasional awesome views of the Lions (which strangely enough were still covered with snow despite being lower in elevation!), and to the south and west over Howe Sound.
After a 45 min climb up the ridge and a short rock scramble, we were on the summit of Mt. Harvey (5626 ft). We hung around on the summit for about 30 min in hopes that the view would clear, but unfortunately the clouds did not burn off. It was a beautiful summit with great company nonetheless! (and much less crowds than the popular Lions hike). I was rather surprised how pleasant this climb was without snow - when we came up last Nov, not only were we in snowshoes nearly the whole way, but also breaking trail which proved to be quite the challenge given the elevation gain!
Anyone looking for a good challenge and rewarding views, Mt. Harvey would be highly recommended!
Here are my GPS waypoints:
Turnoff from main trail: N 49'28.125 W123'13.233
Harvey Ridge: N 49'28.037 W123'12.418
Harvey Summit: N 49'28.523 W 123'12.008
