Mt Unnecessary, Howe Sound Crest Trail

My guidebook describes the Howe Sound Crest Trail, which runs 29km from Cypress Bowl ski area to Porteau Cove on the Sea to Sky Highway, as a "scenic high level route." I've also heard it described as "extremely rugged." After hiking part of it, I think I'd say that both descriptions are accurate. Jodi and I had the weekend free and some beautiful weather, so we decided to head up to Cypress, start hiking the HSCT, and see how far we could get.

SATURDAY/SUNDAY: We got off to a slow, lazy start on Saturday morning and only started hiking after lunch around 1pm or so. We had to pay to park in the day lot, which I thought was kind of a bad deal. We began by walking through the Cypress ski area, and then began to climb. Our first objective was the summit of St. Marks, which was about a 500m climb from the parking lot, but first we arrived at a lookout with great views of Bowen Island. We continuted climbing, first coming to some meadows, and then back and forth through switchbacks up St. Marks. We got to the top with fantastic views down to the Sea to Sky Highway, and over to the Lions. At the top of St. Marks we also ran into quite a bit of snow still on the trail, which slowed us down in some sections.

We dropped down steeply from St. Marks, and at the bottom of the descent came across a sign stating "Improved Trail End," much to Jodi's dismay! The climb up Mt. Unnecessary was pretty rugged - we were climbing over big rocks and roots on a very unpolished trail. Having big backpacks (we didn't pack particularly light - i.e. full glass jar of pasta sauce!) and extremely hot weather didn't help much, and it was a tiring climb up to the top. Because of the late start, it was basically dinner time by the time we got to the South Peak of Unnecessary (again, lots of snow on the ground), so we decided that was as good a place as any to camp for the night.

The Lions were close, but they weren't going anywhere, and we planned to come back another time on a day hike to see them up close. We found a flat snow-free rock to pitch our tent on, and we had an incredible sunset view of Howe Sound looking out the tent.

The next morning I tried to cook pancakes on the campstove and it turned out disastrously! We retraced our steps back down Unnecessary and St. Marks to the Cypress parking lot. We discovered a KitKit chocolate bar left on the car dashboard had completely liquefied (but it was still sealed in its wrapper).