Conical Hill/Duncan's Hat - August 10 2024

Georgia Strait Islands, Bowen Island, BC
266m

After driving down the old forest road at the base of Apodaca Peak, I started to make my way towards my last peak of the day before meeting my dad for dinner (the titular Conical Hill). However, shortly after I started driving down, I noticed my stereo had some very strange, loud feedback. As soon as I got on the road, I noticed some pull and strange sounds coming from my car. Soon, I recognized that my driveshaft was making some very strange noises! After a few minutes of moderate panic, I realised I had to get myself down to the ferry no matter what, so I slowly limped my car towards the trailhead, figuring that the extra kilometre or so wouldn't be a big difference with the ~10 I was already going to minimally subject it to. So, after taking a bit longer to drive than I'd budgeted, I parked and got hiking at 7:24. My dad's ferry was supposed to arrive basically then, but was delayed, so I had to make it quick to not keep him waiting.

I went only with my poles and no pack, hoping to be fast+light on this short hike. The approach to the start of the "summit trail", if you can call it that, was quite prompt, gaining only about 10m over half a kilometre, which I disposed of in about 5 minutes. There was a sign once I got heading west asking people not to take motorized vehicles inside, so I suspect there's a way in with wheels from the east if you're so inclined (not that this is a big objective you need to micro-optimize).

Once I got on the Duncan's Hat trail proper, it got decently steep, though remained well-maintained and flagged. I was pretty gassed, so my movement wasn't particularly swift. I gained the first 70m of the Duncan's Hat trail in 10 minutes, where the trail cuts to climber's right, and starts making its way towards some bluffs that lead to the summit. Despite seeing some rock, you never need to scramble, this is a pure hike.

After that, it was another 5 minutes or so for the last 50m of gain, which deposited me on the summit. The true summit wasn't much to look at, but if you went past it and towards the lake, there was a nice lookout. Since I was in a time crunch, I didn't go all the way down for the best views, but I still saw enough to be satisfied.

Reversing my steps back to the car was very simple, and took just under 15 minutes. My dad called me about halfway down to let me know the ferry had arrived, so I pushed it a little bit, but thankfully this is quite close to Snug Cove, so I didn't keep him waiting for too long 😅

Once I got there, I finally got to take a look at the car in more detail to see what was wrong, and it seems on Apodaca, I bent the housing for my driveshaft's carrier bearing going over a rock 🙃 Oops

Thankfully, after some mildly successful "percussive maintenance" before dinner that got us home that night, I spent the following Sunday fixing it for real, and with the help of some ratchet straps and mallets got it back in working order 🙂. I found out that there are bolts for a skid plate there, and Jeep makes the plate, it just wasn't on my particular car 🙃 Thanks Stellantis!

With that, my weekend's adventure was over. I'd say it was pretty successful, though I missed out on any peaks Sunday, Saturday was fairly productive volume-wise, and I still got a p600 and a p100 to go along with the 2 smaller peaks I tacked on. The most important part was getting everything I'd not fancy walking to from the ferry, so I can easily jet over as a passenger some afternoon and get Mount Collins to clean the island up whenever 🙂

If you're visiting the island, I would say Mount Gardner is by far the best peak of the bunch. Not only is it the high point, it has good views, a great trail, and no bushwhacking! But if you're a hardcore peakbagger, why not just get everything and feel "complete" 😄

GPX Track + Map