Strata Mountain, Mount Allan Brooks

Strata Mountain - 1443M

223M Prominence

49.70782, -125.36672

June 2, 2025

Mount Allan Brooks - 1511M

291M Prominence

49.71614, -125.34297

June 2, 2025

6H 3M C2C, 5H 30M Moving

800 M Elevation gain

20KM

For the day between Steamboat Peak and Triple peaks on my Vancouver Island trip I was left to do something solo. I didn't want to push it too hard and I also wanted to keep it safe and do something easy. I had initially planned to do Mount Joan in the Beaufort range, but upon arriving at a locked mosaic gate I was forced to choose something different. I turned further North in the Beaufort range and drove to another FSR, only for it to be gated again. Defeated by the gates, I chose something that I knew was open, the road up to Mount Washington and the Paradise Meadows. I parked the truck and finally got going at 10:34 AM, I started making my way through the meadows along the established trails. My goal was to climb Elma, Allan Brooks, Strata or any combination of the three. The trails were immediately snow covered with some melted out patches over boardwalks. I was able to follow melted out footsteps in the snow until around lake Helen Mackenzie, but around the time I met up with the lake any form of trail evidence was gone. The trail is not even flagged, and in the summer it relies on a clear, well trot footpath to ensure people stay on trail. I know this from my previous climb of Albert Edward years ago, when I followed this same trail on the approach. I relied quite heavily on my Gaia map to try and keep me going in straight line through the forest. It was hard even to just pick a landmark and follow it due to the quite heavily treed area. Fortunately the snow was quite supportive, and I made my way toward Strata mountain first, since it was the furthest away from the truck. I got one quick glimpse of Strata on the approach and it looked like it may pose some challenges in climbing it due to the multiple steep rockfall faces that cover the East side of the mountain. Fortunately I consulted the topo map and the picture I took well enough and was able to draw a pretty straight line up the South East Face. The views at the top opened up through sparse trees and I got a great view of Castlecrag, Albert Edward, Frink and Alexandra peak. I didn't linger too long and made my way back down the same way I had ascended. Once I was back at the base of Mount Allan Brooks South ridge I decided I would go for it, since it is the taller and more prominent out of it and Elma. The ascent up the South ridge was very similar to the ascent of Strata, with no real issues aside from the occasional careful step between melted away trees/rock and snow. The summit for Allan Brooks was much more defined with a cairn, a sign, and a summit register. It offered similar views to the East like Strata. I hung out on the summit for a good 20 minutes since there was a nice dry rock to lie back on and take in the views. On the summit I decided that I was unmotivated to climb Elma, since this day was already quite unmotivating from being solo and in the trees for 95 percent of the time. To shave off some time, I descended the significantly steeper East face, which had sections of snow at around 35 degrees. This brought me back down on the main trail part way around lake Helen Mackenzie, from here on out I was able to return to the truck following my footprints from the morning. I kept attentive to my steps but still fell through to the boardwalk and other melted out spots on the trail. It was a pretty uninteresting and lonely peak bagging day, but still a good way to keep busy for a day between 2 more interesting objectives.