Gallagher Hill - 387M
187M Prominence
49.888108 -124.511033
February 9, 2025
I had no desire to be stuck inside with a broken truck for another weekend. This is when I thought to myself I would take a shot at my 4 bump challenge that I came up with last week. The Idea was that I would bike around my local town of Powell River to approach, and then hike up and bag the 4 closest summits to town in a loop, before ending back up where I started. I had no idea how long this would all take, but these somewhat lousy bumps in the local geography don't enthuse you to get up too early. At 8:17 I got on my bike and began to bike North towards The first hill of the day. I biked for just over half an hour in the bitter cold up past Cranberry lake and up past the water reservoir before leaving my bike at the trailhead for "Tower Trails". I could not bike any further due to the snow that is lingering on from weeks ago. The trail is a little steep at first, but eventually mellows out as you level out on a sort of treed in plateau. The Tower Trails go south at the top of the plateau towards the Cell tower that overlooks the neighborhood of Cranberry. Instead of following that trail I went North and headed towards the Gallagher Hill summit. The trail seemed to skirt around the actual summit, so I had to bushwhack for a few minutes in order to find my way up to the true summit. At 9:22 I was on the first summit. I thought I had been up all these summits multiple times before, but it turns out that for many of them the commonly accessed viewpoints sit below the true summits. Gallagher Hill was probably the most uninteresting summit I have ever been on, completely treed in, no landmark, nothing. Just a small piece of orange flagging tape. Would not recommend. I made my way back down the same way I came up, and only briefly got lost when I took a wrong turn in the trail network. I flew down the road and found myself at Cranberry Lake. The lake was frozen over in a quite spectacular way, with interesting streaks across the ice in all directions. The lake rarely freezes over anymore during the winter, but this cold snap has brought freezing temperatures in town for weeks.
Valentine Mountain - 251M
131M Prominence
49.881907 -124.5394
February 9, 2025
Once at Cranberry lake I started making my way towards Valentine Mountain. This was the shortest biking segment, but it was straight uphill. I biked up past the cemetery and made my way to the trailhead. Once at the gate I thought that I would likely have to ditch the bike, but the trail was well tramped and I managed to bike all the way up to the stone stairs. The stairs were glazed over in ice and quite slippery. I hiked past the viewpoint and towards the summit bump. From where I parked my bike it took 5 minutes before I was up on the high point. This is far from the first time I have been up here, I have been coming here since before I could even walk, it is one of the classic quick and pretty hikes in Powell River. I took a quick stop and snack break. I looked across Mowat Bay on Powell Lake towards Gallagher hill which I was on top of almost exactly an hour ago. Valentine mountain may be the smallest of the three, but it is still a valid P100, and it has some good views. It also holds a special significance for me as my parents were married on the summit 26 years ago. I made my way back down to the bike and ripped down the snowy trail back into Cranberry to start making my way towards objective no. 3.
Scout Mountain - 375M
228M Prominence
49.900175 -124.548938
February 9, 2025
I bombed down the Cranberry Hill at tear inducing speeds, and found myself in Townsite. I then biked across the Wildwood bridge and took a turn towards the Shingle Mill marina. I biked past it and left my bike in the bushes at the base of local climbing crag Higgyland. The popular Sunshine Coast Trail takes you from this point North all the way to the end of the Okeover arm to Sarah Point and stretches to Saltery Bay in the South direction. The trail is well maintained, and is always a pleasure to hike on. the mossy and rocky terrain of scout mountain was quite snowy and iced over in spots though, so I did have to be mindful of my steps. Similar to the rest of these peaks, there was a lookout and a bench below the summit area with some nice views looking West. The summit had similar views but slightly more treed in. I jogged my way back to my bike down by the Shingle Mill and and hopped on my bike to make my way back to my starting point.
Hammil Hill - 273M
116M prominence
49.813559 -124.45997
February 9, 2025
9km later I passed where I had started and making my way South towards Hammil Hill. Star joined me for this last segment. My legs were starting to feel it as I am not used to biking this much. I much prefer hiking. We biked down Padgett road through the valley and took a turn up Daisy road. Previously in the summer I had been up to the lookout on my bike, but the snowy conditions made us ditch the bikes at the yellow gate. We hiked up the uninteresting gravel roads until we arrived at the lookout, which overlooks Texada Island and the straight of Georgia. We took a few minutes at the viewpoint then continued our way up to the summit. The last little bit of trail to the summit strays from the boring gravel road and into a much more pleasant forest. The vibe is then immediately killed by the ugly fenced in radio tower and some very mysterious and strange wooden platforms. We made our way back down in the same way we came up, got on our bikes and then pedaled back from where I had started 6 hours and 1 minute before. Not the most interesting day for me, mainly because I had been up all these summits many times before, aside from Gallagher hill, which I am not sure I ever bothered to hike to the true summit. Additionally, I definitely did not want to write a separate report for these four little nubs, so here they are all in one.
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| Chilly morning biking |
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| Trailhead for Tower Trails |
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| Snowy trail up Gallagher Hill |
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| Gallagher Hill summit, nothing to smile about |
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| Frozen Cranberry lake |
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| Dropped off the bike before the Valentine Mountain stairs |
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| The Paper Mill from the viewpoint |
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| Gallagher Hill from Valentine Mountain summit |
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| Frozen stairs |
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| Scout Mountain summit |
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| Scout Mountain summit, Wildwood below |
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| Looking back at Gallagher Hill (left) and Valentine Mountain (right) from the S.C.T |
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| A sign on the Sunshine Coast Trail |
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| The way up to Hammil Hill |
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| The lookout before the Hammil Hill summit |
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| The radio tower on the summit |
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| Hamill Hill summit |
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| Star observing one of the weird platforms |
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