Prior to leaving work on Friday I spent some Google time looking for hikes in the area we would be camping in that had some elevation gain. The closest I could find was Plateau Mountain, and lacking a better knowledge of the area this is where we decided to go. We didn’t have a map, and only a vague idea of where to go once we got out on the road, but we somehow managed to find the start of the hike without any turning around.

You start out on a road that is blocked off by a locked gate, and walk up at a relatively easy incline… on the road. This continues for a while and I say “well, it is great to be out here walking but this hike better not all be on this road or this is going to suck”. We continue walking on the road and reach the top of the ridge with no difficulty at all. The road continues off to our left and directly across from us is our goal, Plateau Mountain.

Yeah, the road we were on took us up 90% of the elevation gain we were expecting to have to work for, and there wasn’t an obvious alternative to the road to continue on to the top of the mountain. At this point I think we agreed this hike was sitting in the 2 or 3 out of 10 category for challenge, fun, views… all the stuff you hope for when you go on a hike.

There was eventually a pretty cool view of the valley to the north, but, call me spoiled from the other hikes I’ve done, it was just ok (aka not worth the minimal effort to get there – maybe I was just sour on it from “road hiking”) and further on didn’t look like it was going to be much better.

We short cut the final corner past a creek and get to a Petro-Canada facility on top of Plateau Mountain where we (meaning me) decide to cut to the edge of the plateau to make this a bit more interesting… and this is where we went off the beaten path.

We decide to call it quits with the direction of the road and turn our efforts towards getting back to where we came from. This meant descending the side of plateau mountain and then hiking back up the other side. There are no obvious trails from where we are sitting, so we decide to head down what we thought was just a runoff chute as it was in the general direction of where we were going. This switchbacks after a while and it becomes very obvious this was at one point the access road up to that Petro-Can facility. Unfortunately it decides to head in the same direction the road did (ie. not the direction we wanted) so we left this behind and began cutting across the slope on animal trails.

Down at the bottom we see just how steep the opposite side is, and pause to consider that maybe walking back on the road wouldn’t have been such a bad idea after all. Much too late for that, so onwards and upwards we go… taking about 30 steps at a time before we need to take a break. Then 20. Then 10… Then 5. The incline was insane, and without hiking poles and a LOT of determination I doubt we would have made it up the route we chose. More than once I had that sense of vertigo when I started off from a rest position (either sitting or propping myself up with my poles) where a little stumble would have meant a looooong way down before I stopped.

Eventually we make it to the top, and then get back to the road and then to the car. All told the hike only took 4.5 hours, but I bet over half of it was going down and back up the valley between Plateau Mountain and the road.

In my final analysis, I’d give this a 6/10 for the entire hike we did (10.5km on the yellow route), but blah out of 10 if you stick to the road the entire way.