Mount Menzies

September 12, 2025

Mount Menzies

Mount Menzies - 1232M

1022M Prominence

50.23041, -125.49674

September 12, 2025

2H 45M C2C, 2H 35M Moving

510M Ascent and descent

10.25KM

Today was the last day of my second vacation trip of the summer, mostly because the rain was finally forecasted to come. I had plans to do something more interesting today, and originally even had plans to do an Island Qualifier this weekend but plans quickly fell through. I spent the night camped out at McCreight lake campground which was a lovely but small free campsite. This campsite was right on the lake and across the lake was a direct view of McCreight peak, which sits just south of Mount Kitchener, which was my original objective. When I woke up at 7 there was a light drizzle of rain and I could see the clouds quickly dropping over McCreight peak, so I gave up on the Kitchener Idea even though it is a quick ascent. I then made my way back South towards Campbell River and turned up on an FSR that would take me up to the start of the Mount Menzies route. I hadn't really planned to climb this peak so all I had was a winter route downloaded, which turned out to be pretty useless. Regardless, I parked the truck at a fork in the FSR when I noticed two consecutive cross ditches. I decided that this would be a good place to park and it probably wasn't really worth going any further. The access to this point was pretty good, and the FSR is easily drivable with a 4x4 such as my Tacoma. I started walking and quickly hiked the rest of the logging road, past a wooden bridge that would definitely not be passable with a vehicle and to the start of a mountain biking trail. Just after the mountain biking trail started I dove into the forest to start bushwhacking my way up to the Summit of Mount Menzies. The bushwhack was chill at first and a nice old growth forest, but it quickly transitioned into denser shrubbery up to the summit. There were many sections with boggy areas or small marshy ponds. The underbrush, moss and grass was quite damp, not due to rain but due to morning dew, and I very quickly was soaked. I tried to draw as direct of a route as possible through to the summit, which was quite hard to do without being pasted to my phone GPS constantly. There was never a view of the summit and all the surrounding forested bumps were quite deceiving as terrain. occasionally I would come across some flagging, and occasionally I came across what I thought was a trail. I think many of these trails were probably just game trails though. After an Hour and a bit of bushwhacking I made it to the summit with the compulsory green pole of a low elevation peak near civilization. The views were quite lacking as it was still quite cloudy, although I got quick glimpses of the coast mountains and the cloudy Prince of Wales range which I ducked out on this morning. With some reception on the summit I looked to find a different GPX route to see if there was a more efficient route. I followed a bit of a different route on the descent, and it actually appeared to follow a trail much of the time. Calling it a trail is definitely an overstatement though, as I was constantly loosing it and having to check my route. Following this trail definitely saved some time and was more effective than the ascent though, but not by much. Thankfully this is a short trip on a small peak and the misery was soon over and I could walk the logging road back to my truck and head back to the ferry and be home by dinner time. I see why this is much more popular in the winter, and I would highly recommend anyone do it when there is snow on the underbrush.