Mount Spencer - June 22 2025
Spencer Cluster, Port Alberni, BC
1454m
After bagging Victoria Peak the day prior, I had basically a full day left on the Island before my late-night ferry back home, so I had some time to kill, and therefore, peaks to bag! My original plan was to stay in Campbell River, and get some peaks a bit further north, since I was already there, and it would be efficient from a driving perspective. However, when I woke up in the morning, I checked the forecast, and it was looking a bit drier further south, so revising that plan, I did a search for p1000s in the "close enough to Nanaimo to be reasonable given my ferry schedule, and doable if things get damp". Mount Spencer looked appropriate, with a high road, and seemingly largely hiking terrain. So, after a chill start to the day, I started driving south to Port Alberni, enjoying the 110km/h limit south of Campbell River, which makes for fairly efficient travel 🙂
I actually picked up a hitchhiker on the way, which was a nice karma point to collect 😄. After dropping them off in Port Alberni, I made my way down the Bamfield (paved), then the Corrigan FSR and 100 branch thereof, then the 130, and the Mount Spencer Spur. The Corrigan FSR and 100 branch are in good shape, but the 130 and Spencer Spur are more degraded, see Francis' site for the full details, that's truly an excellent resource for BC forest road updates 🙂.
The drive, aside from the technical obstacles, was actually pretty harrowing since the clouds were super-thick, and the visibility was maybe 1 or 2 metres, at best 😅. It was a great relief to pull off at 1250m, where the road reaches its highest point. There, I rued my lack of rain pants, as while it technically wasn't raining, I was just in a cloud, and the plants were already covered in water, so it was going to be a wet day after all. Oh well 😞, I was all the way here, may as well just suck it up and get er done. So, after slapping my shoes and rain shell on, I got moving at 1:30pm.
Travel in the cutblock was easy, with a few game trails and generally weak bush to get through, but oh boy, was it wet. I moved a bit slow just because I was trying to avoid getting soaked, but that was definitely a lost cause. Within a few steps with bushes brushing against my legs, my pants were thoroughly wet right through the fabric 😞
After 5-ish minutes of fighting through that, I emerged into the mature forest, which was much more pleasant, with far fewer bushes.
Sadly it didn't last in quite that state, as I had to contour east to get on top of the false summit. With how wet and partially-snowy things were, staying on top of the ridge seemed like the right call, so I attempted to do just that. Still, at best, there were maybe trails in some parts, open forest in other, and at worst trivially easy bushwhacking, only made annoying by the soaked leaves, which only applies if you go in the same conditions I did (which I cannot really recommend).
In about 20 minutes, I got to the top of the false summit, and found a decent-looking path down the ridge, which was nice. I have a feeling someone half-developed a route here, but just never got it done, as in some places, there was a good enough trail not to be just a game trail, but it wasn't consistent, and also not fully built out.
About halfway down, this trail ended, and instead I was greeted by a decently steep face that wouldn't be really walkable at all 😅. I even found an old encampment or something with an old rope people probably used to get down, though I wasn't in the mood to try and rig it up, so I ended up just finding the most doable-looking piece of forested slope, and skidded my way down, veggie-belaying myself off the steep face until I hit the col.
That terrain was quite annoying to navigate, but I ended up picking up some flagging way down to skier's left, close to the small pond just below the col, so I tried following that. However, it kinda just disappeared in the flat terrain, so I veered back towards the ridge, playing it safe, and hoping if a trail did exist, that I would pick it up again. Previous trip reports were also on the ridge past the col anyways, so I was pretty sure if it existed, I'd find it again.
Once I started gaining elevation again, the terrain actually became pretty nice, being mostly open with just a few trees, and short grass. This lasted until the ridge turned westwards near 1350m. Not the longest stretch, but I was happy to take it!
Once I got above that point, the terrain got a bit steeper, and the flagging was mostly consistent, with only a few gaps. Those usually coincided with patches where the trail kinda died amongst a group of thick trees which required some solid bushwhacking to get through. These were consistent, but interspersed with decent travel, so it wasn't terrible, just annoying.
It took about 20 minutes to dispatch with the terrain past the col, gaining a bit over 100m, until I hit the small snowy flat spot above, which guarded the final push to the summit. Beyond it was a small bit of steep forest once again, followed by, surprisingly, a real scramble! It wasn't a long scramble, but at least on the route I chose, it was solidly class 3. If you're not just blindly bashing up, though, it's a class 2 ordeal for sure, I just didn't really care, and just went up whatever was in front of me. On the plus side, I was kinda above the clouds at this elevation, and the rocks were fairly dry! That was cool.
That put me right at the summit plateau, basically. I just snapped a few photos and headed down, though, since there were basically no views in the clouds, and I was eager to move on from this mountain and try to get another before I had to catch my ferry 😅
Views around the summit plateau
Weirdly, there was a cairn, but not on the high point. There were a few candidate rocks clustered around that couldn't been the highest, so I made sure to tag em all, then headed down.
Retracing my steps to the col took around half an hour, as the terrain was still definitely imperfect, and the flagging was poor. Combined with bad vis, I got off-track in a couple spots, and had to backtrack to avoid worse bushwhacking.
I got a bit too far to the east side of the col following flags, which seemed to disappear down that side of the mountain, so I had to do a little random exploring to get back towards the false summit, but that was in relatively easy terrain, thankfully. Once I got back, I decided not to try and follow the flag I'd seen on my way down, as those weren't going too well for me, and instead just went straight up the steep face below the old debris I found on my way in. This required some class 4 veggie-belayed scrambling, but I managed somehow, and with only 10 minutes of fighting the slippery, steep forest, I found myself back in good terrain.
Back on the false summit, I failed to precisely find the ascent route I'd used, but the terrain was easy enough that it didn't really matter. I ended up getting a bit more to skier's left of where I came up, but I also found some slightly better paths through the forest, so it was worth following, I think.
The cutblock was still soaking wet and annoying, but with this alternate route, I had better game trails to follow, so the footing was easier. However, right at the end, there was a pretty dang steep bank dropping onto the road, which was annoying to deal with. I had to poke at the ground until the overhanging dirt collapsed, and I could dirt-ski onto the roadbed below 😅
With that, I was soaked and annoyed, but the hike was done, and I had another p1000 under my belt! It did take a ridiculously long time given the distance/elevation, though, 2 hours and 40 minutes! I didn't even bother trying to get changed given the conditions, so I just wiped any dirt I could off of my clothes, and hopped into the car and got the heck out of there.
I tried to tack Mount Underwood onto the trip on my way out, but sadly I had those plans foiled by a stupid gate, so that plan was dashed. Instead, I just set my goal to getting a shower (found at the Nanaimo Aquatic Centre), and a good meal before I made my way home. That was much more pleasant than further soaked bushwhacking and driving around only to find more gated roads, so I'm glad I made that call. The ferry being late for the already-nighttime sailing wasn't the most fun, though, I ended up getting home at like 2am 🙃. At least I was clean, though, because this hike totally ruined my attempts to be in decent shape for the ride home. Definitely recommend going either when there is a good snowpack, or none at all.