Newcastle Ridge - August 3 2024
Vancouver Island Mountains, Sayward, BC
1342m
After bagging Hkusam Mountain, the easiest ultra of Vancouver Island, Kelly and I were looking for a little more "value" for the ferry+drive out. So, we set our sights on the p1000 peak just on the other side of Sayward from there, Newcastle Ridge. Matt Juhasz had recently put up beta of a road going most of the way, so we figured it would be a perfect bonus peak which wouldn't keep us away for too long. So, we followed his excellent driving directions through the many forks of the logging area to the base of a high cutblock, and started our way up at 2:43pm. We could've driven further on a lower fork, but we weren't sure of the terrain above, but we knew Matt's route worked, so we just took the known quantity. The road was driveable in most anything except to get up the final cutblock, where there were a couple decently-sized cross-ditches you'd want good clearance+angles for.
Grunting up the cutblock was pretty easy, as unlike some bushier areas, it was just stumps and larger branches, so the footing was fairly solid. In about 5 minutes we found ourselves at the edge of the forest, and made a few fairly bushy pushes through the plants in the front to gain access to the mature growth beyond.
The forest after that point was fairly benign as BC forests go. The plants were thin and fairly sparse. Not quite old growth or Oregon/California levels of easy, but still mostly weaving and brushing branches aside vs real bushwhacking. We got through the steep terrain and to the upper edge of the forest in about 10 minutes. Another minute or so of pushing through the bush on that side brought us to the edge of a large tarn/lake, which looked quite pretty. We both remarked that with more time, we'd have gladly taken a dip.
From this point, we basically just followed the terrain towards what looked "where higher terrain was", which was largely up and to the left. We saw lots of pretty ponds/lakes along the way, with no real bushwhacking to speak of, just walking through some beautiful grassy hills.
In about 10 minutes, we reached a spot where there were 2 hills that seemed roughly equivalent. I had read Matt's TR in more detail, so I knew the true summit was neither of them, so I picked the one closer to it to ascend, while Kelly was following Matt's track more closely (which went up the other one first while still discovering the true high point). That bought me a couple minutes to soak in the views while he made his way over to my spot 😄
Kelly's high point and my own, respectively
Some views while I waited
Once we met back up, we could easily see the high point further to the east, so we made our way over in that direction. Again, not much to say about the terrain, other than "there was a tree near the top which was very cairn-shaped, which I thought was one for a while until we got close enough". Once we were there, we had a nice 10-minute break and enjoyed the scenery. Unlike Hkusam earlier, there were no bugs, there WAS a nice breeze, and we got to enjoy ourselves much more.
Once we left the summit, it was a pretty easy descent, as we took a more direct route. Once we got back to the forest, after one course-correction after realising we missed the final lake, we shot down the forest, not really following our track but somehow ending up at the same egress point. A quick cutblock descent and we were at the car, under 25 minutes from peak->vehicle, and under 75 minutes round-trip with lots of photography stops in the alpine. A very high-value summit indeed.
Peak 1300/Seismic Peak
I'll give this peak a mention, as we did nab one more on the way out. We scoped out a p100 on the way in, which I noticed had a road all the way to some towers at the top. So, on our way down, we quickly took that fork to the top to nab one more summit. The buildings were right on the summit, so we climbed the ladders (the towers said no climbing, but no such warnings were on the buildings themselves) and enjoyed some extra views before actually heading back to Nanaimo. You may as well come here if you're in the area, it's a 2wd-able peak, and still has great views!