Brohm Hill - June 20 2024
Garibaldi Névé, Squamish, British Columbia
435m
This day started out quite strangely. Typically, a Thursday would be a nothing day by default for me as a typical M-F worker. However, after a couple busy weeks, my boss gave us a couple days off. I held on to mine for a coming weather window, which was this Thursday and the Friday following as well. However, most of my friends are also weekend warriors, or were otherwise occupied, so I had to come up with things to do all by myself. With a rapid rise in temperatures and thinning snowpack, glacier travel was out, but I also didn't want to get just any random peak, so I decided to try for a peak that's normally done over 2 days in winter, but in 1: Snowspider Mountain.
That turned out not to be a great idea, as while the road was driveable as far as it could be, the hike along the valley on its north slopes I needed to make to get to the hut and start my ascent route was fraught with mud, creek crossings, bushwhacking, and inconsistent snow too infrequent to skin but too deep to totally ignore. All this made for inefficient travel, and with a 5:30pm meeting I had to attend for my building's strata council, I had to turn back if I was going to ensure I was on time.
So, with that plan dashed, I pulled out one of the "secret p100s" I'd found by perusing contour maps near Squamish, which was definitely over 100m of prominence (my personal minimum threshold to submit a peak to the database without a pre-recognized name), but nobody had bothered submitting to peakbagger before 😅. Since it is just south of Brohm Lake, and Brohm Peak is already taken, I've decided to call it Brohm Hill.
I initially wanted to approach it from the Brohm Lake Day Use Site parking, but once I got there, I found signage indicating the trail I wanted to use to get to the base of the peak had a bridge that was out, so I'd not be able to get there 😅. Thankfully, one can also approach from the south, from a small parking area south of Cat Lake's exit. Compared to the jam-packed Brohm Lake parking, this was also nearly empty, which made things easier. By the time I got there, it was already quarter to four, so I just grabbed my phone and headed out, foregoing any equipment since this was supposed to be fairly short and sweet.
After a minute or so on an old FSR (gated), I forked off onto the Alder Trail, which was thankfully well-maintained and free of alder 😄. I took that until it merged with the High Trail, although I got deceived by an old trail just before that junction was supposed to appear, which wasted a minute or so.
From there, I took the High Trail more or less until it topped out at the col between Brohm Hill and the next-highest roll beside it, and then dipped into the forest for my bushwhack to the summit proper. With a little jogging mixed in with stopping to text, routefinding, or following old trails, I made my approach in about 20 minutes.
The bushwhacking wasn't too bad, which was good since this was one of the rare days I decided to wear shorts and a t-shirt, which I generally avoid on hiking days because of bugs. I ascended the first slope right in front of me, then had to descend about the same amount of elevation, and cross a still pond/creek before starting up once more.
While I wouldn't call the forest mature old growth or anything, it also wasn't a new growth alder-fest, and there was more dirt or just deadfall-hopping than having to walk through fallen branches totally covering the ground, or needing to actually fight through thick bush. In about 15 minutes, I got myself to the first summit-y point, though I saw a couple other points which I suspected were higher, so I couldn't quite celebrate just yet.
When I started walking towards the other 2 candidate peaks, I got a good view at all 3, and decided that the last one (furthest east) was probably the highest point, and the one I tagged first was probably the lowest.
I tagged the second fairly easily, then took a couple minutes getting to the third, as it was a bit further away, and had more deadfall to navigate to get to. I was happy to see some semblance of a view, and actually be able to stand on a rock at the top of it, so I really hope this one is the true summit just for those reasons.
From the top, I took a different way back down, not following any particular path, just following the path of least resistance going "broadly the right direction". I did have one tedious deadfall-laden gully to get through, and just before I exited the forest, I had one large bluff I went skier's left around, but that ended up depositing me right at a walking bridge on the trail, so all worked out pretty well.
Once back on the trail, I went down at a leisurely pace, actually chatting with my mom on the phone for a good portion of the walk (cell reception is consistent the whole hike). That bumped my time up by half an hour, bringing the C2C to 90 minutes even. Definitely not an impressive time, but it also wasn't an impressive peak. It did, however, take just enough time to get me a p100 and still be on-time for my meeting that evening, so I call that a win. Plus, it's technically a first internet ascent (someone has probably been up there already, even if they didn't leave any evidence to that end)!