Brunswick Mountain - October 13 2024
North Vancouver Area, Lions Bay, BC
1788m
While Brunswick is a big enough objective that many (most, even) do it as a standalone trip, I am a fairly efficiency-minded peakbagger, especially in this region, so I actually did it as part of a traverse from Porteau Cove to Lions Bay, which began with an ascent of Mount Hanover. This trip report picks up from where that one ended off, having just rejoined the HSCT (Howe Sound Crest Trail) from the ascent route for Hanover, right around 1340m elevation, between Brunswick Lake and Hat Pass. Check that out to see more details on how I got to this point.
Now that I'd already done closer to 2000 than 1500m elevation gain for the day, I was moving a bit slower, so I spent about 25 minutes hiking up the ~150m of elevation to Hat Pass. Unlike the entire day to that point, it was finally late enough in the day, and on a popular enough trail, that I actually encountered other people! Since this was the last day before a fairly intense storm was rolling through, along with being the likely last good weekend before snow would start falling on the peaks, there were lots of parties doing both day hikes and wrapping up camping traverses, so I got my first human contact since I started at 3:40am 😅
At Hat Pass, I made the easy decision to not go for the extra peaks of Hat, Fat Ass, and Wettin. While, honestly, the first 2 wouldn't be a major detour, and I probably could've handled them along with my other plans, Wettin is a decent bit more out of the way, and it doesn't really make sense to only do two of them. If I had no plans for the evening, I'd probably have done it, but I told my dad I'd try to be down before dark so we could eat together, so that meant Brunswick came first, as the most prominent peak on the docket, and also being on the way to Magnesia Peak, which I wanted to clean up as the last peak south of Hat I needed on the crest, which would allow me to not need to return to that area (at least until I decide to go for Harvey's Pup, which isn't much of an objective as a pure peakbagger, but offers some climbing cred, so I'll probably get to that eventually).
So, I continued on, and in another 10 minutes, I found myself at the base of the Brunswick offshoot from the crest. I took a few minutes to empty my shoes, which had managed to accrue a decent amount of debris in the previous 10 hours, and then gather my willpower before making the ~300m push for the summit.
Once I gathered myself, the presence of many hikers on the trail with me provided ample motivation to keep moving and ensure nobody passed me 😅, so I quickly broke out of the trees and onto the summit ridge, gaining over 200m in about 25 minutes
A few minutes and one narrow+rocky traffic jam later, and I was at the "hiker's summit", where many people stopped before a short descent (<10m) and a small hike to a set of benches just before the true summit. Like a good peakbagger, I continued on immediately.
Once I got to the benches, I hung out with the couple who was hanging there for about 10 minutes, just chatting about random stuff. I am absolutely terrible at names, so my apologies for forgetting them 😅, but we had a good time, and I got some rest in while we hung out. They eventually started making their way down the mountain, though, and as it was now nearly 3pm, I left my pack at the benches and went to tag the summit, as I still had quite a long ways before I'd be down in town, and I didn't want to be too late. Stupid fall/winter and sunset times getting earlier every day...
The summit traverse was literally a couple minutes from that point, and was mostly hiking with a few easy scrambling moves. The ridge can be narrow at times, but is never really that technical, so most people comfortable with the idea of scrambling should be okay to do this. At the top, I took a couple pics, got bewildered by a dude who showed up from the far side and just dipped (maybe there IS a traverse from the Hanover side after all?), then started making my way back.
Carefully tracing my way back across the ridge took about 20 minutes, as there was a little traffic, and also my legs were tired 😅
Another half hour of fairly steep hiking down from the ridge to the main Howe Sound Crest Trail (and a little beyond before I realised I was on the Brunswick approach trail and had to backtrack uphill), I found myself back on track, and started making my way towards the final peak of the day, Magnesia Peak, where this trip report continues, just before 4pm.