Cheam Peak, Great for Radio Contacts

Last month my friend Ralph got bitten by the bug to operate his small portable radio on a summit of a local peak. He had been reading about the SOTA (Summits on the Air) organization and felt like giving it a try. So we picked the next date I was available to do a backcountry trip and we planned to operate for a couple of hours from the summit of Mt Cheam. Mt. Cheam was our first choice as it was already a registered peak with the group and the access and trail were not difficult though the hike was still 4.5km each way.

Ralph hadn’t done any mountain peaks so he really didn’t know what to expect or what was needed. The first thing I had him do to prepare was for him to hike some of the steep roads in White Rock. I figured if he couldn’t do them then there was no way he would do a summit. He tried a couple of the steeper roads in White Rock and felt it was fairly easy. So that confirmed, we met a couple days before the hike to review his supplies and backpack. My son Geoff gave him some tips and helped him to finalize the items he would be packing up. So we were ready and good to go for Saturday, the weather looked good if not too hot, so we felt sure we would be on the slopes come the week-end.

To beat the heat of the day we set out from my house at 6:30AM and made for the nearest Starbucks to load up on our requisite caffeine. Then it was on to the open road. I had estimated that we would be starting the hike about 2.5 hours from when we left the house so when we arrived at the start of the logging road after just a bit more than an hour Ralph thought we would be quite early. He really didn’t know logging roads! The mainline was quick but soon we were onto the Chipmunk Creek FSR and it was very rough and had numerous patches of bad potholes. Needless to say, the speed of the drive dropped considerably and it took almost an hour to get to the parking area and that was with passing a couple of SUV’s.

Having arrived, the lot had only a few cars in it and we picked the spot closest to the trail head. We got our gear in order and items locked up that we were leaving and by the time we wereready to start it was 2.5 hours from our home departure. The day was still cool and we made good time along the first segment which follows the old logging road. Then we dropped down into the bowl – Spoon Lake was full of debris and still had ice in it. Continuing along we started the intial ascent which was fortunately still in the shadow of Lady Peak and so we avoided the heat during the steep part of the hike. We made really good time upto the top of the open knoll where we took a breather before continuing on to the col between Cheam and Lady Peak. By now a few groups of young people zipped past us on their journey to the summit. Though slow we made steady progress and reached the summit after 2 hour 20 minutes of hiking almost bang on to my 2.5 hours estimate.