Kenworthy Peak - June 11 2023
Chehalis, Mission, British Columbia
553m
After bagging Red and Red Steelhead Mountains earlier, we had time for one more bump before heading home, so after studying the maps, we decided that Kenworthy Peak would be the one easiest to fit in before we had to head out. We drove up to the gated (of course) FSR at 350m, accidentally went down a driveway (sorry) trying to find a way around the gate, then gave up and started heading up just after 3:30pm.
The first half hour was really not very notable, we just walked along annoyingly sunny FSR until we reached a point where the road started looking deactivated (just growth, not obstacles, once again gates are the only thing stopping you from driving a ways in). This is just above 500m elevation. The trail that forks off to the right here brings you to a false summit, but naturally that was not of interest to us, so we pushed on into the overgrown road
We spent another 5 minutes on this road, which required minor bush-slapping but was otherwise trivial to navigate, even for me. However, for the first time that day, we started getting lots of insect attention. Even as I'm writing this I'm trying to resist scratching my arms, as I wasn't smart enough to wear long sleeves. Bring bug spray and/or long clothes for this one.
From here, we were close but not at the summit, so we bushwhacked around for about 10 minutes until we got to the highest-looking bump in the forest. We hastily snapped some pics and got out to minimize the degree to which we were getting eaten alive.
The descent (once we were back on the trail) took just over half an hour, and was about as uninteresting as the plod of about the same length it took to ascend it. Maybe bring a bike, tbh a lot of the "peaks" in the area would benefit from a bike, you can take advantage of the roads which are gated but driveable. While no individual peak on this day was notably nice, I did step up how much I managed to move in a day (close to 15km, about 600m of elevation gain), so that's progress at least. And I got to turn 3 more dots green on peakbagger. Plus we got to hang out for the day, which is always nice.