Awesome day trying to conquer Mount Becher!
On a super gorgeous Saturday morning Rod, Shawn and I..(ooh and sierra my dog) decided to head to the top of mount Becher. None of us have done this before and we are all a little out of shape from a lazy winter but we all thought we were up to the task. In order to get there we have to drive to the top of Forbidden plateau rd (just West of Courtenay bc) then climb up and over the top of forbidden plateau in snow shoes to access the base of mount Becher, this is supposed to be about a 5 hour round trip.
Armed with snowshoes (our first time!), plenty of food, snacks, and drinks (including beer of course)and CRAZY CARPETS for a quick and easy ride home! We were ready to go!
After hiking up for about 10-20 minutes, I think we all thought that we wouldn’t be able to handle another 20 minutes let alone 5 hours! We kept going at a turtles pace stopping and resting every 20 or 30 paces, I think sierra was getting impatient with us. In fact we were going so slow that an older gentleman that had passed us going down the mountain on skis, managed to ski all the way down, climb back up to the top of the Plateau, and then ski down again, in that time we managed to go about a go about 100 meters!.. He assumed we had been to the top and were on our way back, it was a little embarrassing. Once we got to the top of the Plateau we were feeling pretty good and started to get a pretty good pace on but once we hit the Strathcona park border when we realized the majority of us had hit our limit! (We were not even quite half way to our destination!)
Just about the time we were ready to turn around the whisky jacks came out to say hello. We must have spent about an hour with them feeding them trail mix from our hands and HEAD (see the pics.) It was pretty awesome!!
The way back home was CRAZY FUN AND FAST, Crazy carpeting down a mountain, face first is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!!! All and all, it was an awesome adventure even if we didn’t make it to the halfway point BUT we plan on conquering that mountain soon!! Anyone want to join us for a second try??
Things we learned
• Jeans and a cotton hoody is not a good idea when hiking up a snowy mountain, especially if you are planning on crazy carpeting down! (We were drenched)
• Tie your boots tight And bring a small shovel with you. ps. if anyone finds a boot halfway up the mountain could you please let me know.
• Its only $12 to rent snowshoes for a day!
• Whisky jacks are not a shy bird!
• There is at least 2 BIG bears up there.. saw some very fresh tracks!
• Bring sunscreen!! Woohoo first sunburn of the year in April!!
Anyone reading this post, done this hike before?? Got any tips, or stories??
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