[justybug]

Was visiting friends in Canada, decided to try for Mt. Cheam as i'd been thinking about it for years. From Chilliwack, follow Chwk. River Road roughly 28k until the Forest service road turnoff (ARMY FSR), then traveled up miles of dirt road in pretty good shape. Then traveled up miles of dirt road in nasty shape!! (about another 12 km. on Chipmunk FSR) (Starts out on ARMY FSR, THEN CHILLIWACK BENCH FSR, THEN CHIPMUNK FSR) My van has enough clearance for this one, just not the 4x4. so I added a couple of miles of road climbing to my day. The trailhead for the Mt. Cheam trail has ample parking for plenty of cars. The nice guy at Vedder Mt. Supply where i bought my topo map strongly urged against ANY valuables being left in the vehicle, although if someone makes it up that road and still feels like being enough of a jerk to break into the car, they were going to anyway.. Trail starts out fairly flat and level, then drops into a nice little valley at the base of the saddle between Mt. Cheam and Lady Peak. Apparently some quad/motocrossers have decided to have a blast in this little valley, so it's a bit marred by their tracks. fortunately there's plenty of other nice things to look at. Once in the valley, the trail quickly starts heading up with some decent gain. You will follow the base of Lady Peak for awhile, and just before the little hump in the middle of the saddle, there's a small cairn in a wash that has a boot path discernible heading up. I'd been staring at Lady Peak the whole time, and it looked much more fun to climb than Cheam. So i headed this way instead. This gets a bit steep, and stays that way. You will be making your way through a scree field, marked with some cairns. There were a couple of people on the way back down as i was heading up, they suggested aiming for the low part of the ridge visible to the left of the peak, then scrambling up the ridgeline the whole way. Otherwise you're climbing up through the shifting scree the whole way. On gaining the ridge, you are greeted with the pleasant surprise of 2 glaciers tucked away on the back side of Lady Peak, and adjoining Knight Peak (and i've misplaced my map, so can't name them for you..) Quite a sight, and sound too!! The ridge is fairly stable, but offers a lot of exposure. You can work your way up on the downhill side quite easily. When you reach the top, there is a summit logbook in a PVC tube, i lacked a pen, so signed with a rock and some dirt smudged through. There's a great view of Mt. Baker, Slesse Peak, and the possibility of a shot at Rainier on a clear enough day. You can also see all the way into Vancouver. Nice little scramble, I'd like to check out the rest of the Cheam range next time up. Total gain was around 750 m over 3.8 km. (from the trailhead) Total time for me was about 6 hours, but I did have to add an extra 4 miles of road hiking due to my vehicle not making it to the parking area at the trailhead.. 4 wheel drive is a necessity!!! HIGH CLEARANCE TOO!!!

[justybug]

pics working now, sorry about the confusion.