Dinkey Peak - October 8 2023
Fannin Range, North Vancouver, BC
1117m
This TR is the last in a little trashbagging trip I made in the Mount Seymour area, and it picks up from that of Dog Mountain.
At the time I left Dog Mountain, I was feeling pretty tired, but I was determined to get back, and also determined not to let the tourists who hike Dog Mountain to do anything as disgraceful as pass me, so I pushed as hard as my tired body was willing, and got to First Lake in a bit under 25 minutes, which isn't that impressive when you consider it's a bit under 1.5km to do so, even if there is a small amount of undulation in the process. I at least did succeed in not letting anyone pass me, for whatever that's worth 😅.
Once there, I forked to the left towards Dinkey Peak, as opposed to the right trail that goes right to the parking. This brought me back to seclusion, and let my overcompetitive brain relax, and I slowed down a bit, taking about 15 minutes to gain only 70m up to the Mount Seymour Trail, where I was to hike for a few metres before splitting off to get the last peak.
The trail up to the Dinkey Peak lookout (which was also the marked summit on my maps) was very easy, and took less than 5 minutes. I took some photos, but after checking my contours, I realised the true summit was indeed in the forest beside me, so I sighed and went up for one last spurt of elevation gain.
The walk up to the true summit was pretty simple, although I spent a couple minutes walking on various rocks to ensure I got the "true summit", since there were a few that all looked quite similar. I got a few more pictures, but the views were honestly worse than the viewpoint, so I headed down fairly quickly thereafter. Plus it was getting pretty dark at 6:45pm, and I didn't want to bother dignifying this trashbagging day with needing to pull a headlamp out 😃.
The walk down was annoyingly rocky, so I couldn't really run down, just walk, so it took me 15 minutes, taking me to almost 7:00 on the dot.
I was pretty happy when I finally got off the trail and into the car, being more tired than I expected. I got some cheap gas in the city (Squamish is usually, but not always cheaper), stopped by my dad's place to steal some Gatorade, and headed home for a nice big meal.
Overall, would I recommend this peak, or any of the others I did on this trip? Not really, no. If you're not that fit and want to say you walked somewhere for some views, I guess. Otherwise you'd have to be on the other end of the spectrum, and a dedicated peakbagger who'd link a bunch (probably even more than I did) to make a productive day out of things. For me, it largely served to help get me closer to my 100 peaks in 2023 goal, which was at least served well by the day's activities. Hopefully the next outing will include some more impressive summits, though, some of these do feel a bit "cheap" 😅.