Here’s Roxy with a trip report from 5040 in April.**

5040 Peak April 29 2012

Chris and I were aching to do a ski tour and get into the alpine so we settled on 5040 Peak in the HWY 4 area for the weekend’s adventure. We drove up from Victoria on Saturday night, hoping to drive up the Marion Creek Main until we hit snow line and set up camp for the night. There are two main approaches to 5040’s summit; the Northwest Ridge which starts at about km 6 at the hydrometric station on the Marion Creek Main, and the much nicer looking Cobalt Lake route which starts at about 9.5 km and is the route we wanted to go up. Unfortunately, we hit snow at about 3.5 km and so we had to set up camp there for the night (the snow line was super low on the western side of the pass, down to about 200m!). So this meant that doing the Cobalt Lake route would add an extra 6 kms each way and over 300 m of extra elevation gain. Oh well, at least we had skis so the way out wouldn’t be so bad!

We started skinning up the road before 7 am to help contend with the extra approach. The sun peaked out for a few brief moments but then decided to keep us in a fog for the rest of the day. After a couple of hours, we reached the end of the road and the welcome sight of this huge avalanche runout coming out of the gulley parallel to the one we were about to head up. Good thing we had avalanche gear?

It was a bit tricky finding the flagging for the Cobalt Lake route but we weren’t too concerned since it was pretty much just head up the drainage staying on the south side of the creek.  Chris did locate the flagging however, and soon we were hiking up slash and then steep forest for about an hour before we hit beautiful open old growth forest and we were able to put our skis on.  We didn’t need ice axes or crampons to boot up the steep bits, but if it froze the previous night and the snow was hard I would defnintely recommend having that gear.

Once we got to Cobalt Lake, we stopped for a quick lunch and we were lucky enough to have the fog lift for just long enough to let us see our objective and pick out a route.  It seems that most parties (especially in the summer) head around or across the lake east to a bench which gives easy access to the southern part of the summit ridge.  However there was lots of avalanche activity in the basin and some suspicious cornices so we decided to head north into the trees, staying far left of the cliff band.  This small ridge popped us onto 5040’s west face directly below the summit.

From there Chris decided to cut large switchbacks and skin up to the summit, but it was a little steep for my ready-for-retirement skins so I bootpacked the final 50 m or so to the top.  This photo of me coming up onto the summit gives a good idea of what the conditions were like – no views that day.  Once at the cairn that was apparently the top, we put on jackets, had a quick snack and turned to descend.  Since we had no idea what the runout was like, Chris decided to walk his skis down to where I left mine since he didn’t want to risk a bail on the steep part.  It was very weird and disorienting skiing through the whiteout in terrain you didn’t know!  We stuck close together and didn’t open up until we got back to the relative safety of the trees.  From there on it was fanatastic turns down!  I would definitely go back, but maybe later in the season when the logging road approach wouldn’t be so long 😛

Our approximate route in red, and logging road hike to 5040 Peak:

** Roxy Ahmed is a graduate student at UVic who probably spends more time in the mountains than she should. On any given weekend you can find Roxy climbing or skiing the mountains of Vancouver Island and beyond.

The post Roxy’s 5040 Ski Tour Trip Report first appeared on Pack & Trail.

***

This trip report is for Mt. 5040 which I hiked back on July 5th.  This hike has easily been my favourite of the summer and I strongly recommend it as a medium difficulty day-hike with some spectacular views.

We headed out on July 5th at 7am from Nanaimo to conquer the 5040 peak.  The summit had previously eluded us when we called off a day-hike in white-out like conditions the previous week.  Now with clear skies we were determined to reach the top.  To find the trailhead we used the guide on SummitPost and headed for the Cobalt-lake trailhead.  After a quick stop at Tim Hortons we made our way to the Marion main line. 

As it mentioned on SummitPost, this logging road was not labelled with any signs, but it was very easy to see as we approached it.  Once on the road, we locked in the 4×4 and started heading up.  Initially the road was in pretty good condition.  Following our guide, we made our way to the bridge where the Northwest route starts.  However, we chose to do the Cobalt lake route and continued along the road.  This trail is shorter as you start at 600m elevation compared to 400m.  From here the road began to deteriorate rather quickly with lots of large, deep, washouts.  On this particular trip we were in a big F250 4×4 with plenty of clearance.  But the previous week we had been able to reach the Cobalt lake trailhead with an AWD Subaru Outback.  Although we did scrape it up a bit on the way back down.

After measuring the 3.5km from the bridge we arrived at the trailhead at about 8:30am.  Finding trailhead was a bit tricky as it was just a piece of flagging tape next to the road about 5m back from the pullout where we parked the truck.  After gearing up, we headed into the logging slash for the first part of the trail at about 8:45 am.  This part was actually very easy.  The trail is well carved into the slash with lots of flagging and not much elevation gain.  Overall it was a nice walk to start off the hike.  After about 15 minutes in the slash we reached the forest where the trail got very steep.  The hike up through the forest lasted about 45 minutes, including a brief stop on a small rock bluff halfway up.  While this is probably the most physically demanding part of the trail it was still very well-marked with no branching to get confused with.  At the top, after a final scramble up a rock bluff, we reached the sub-alpine where the snow began (~900m).

Once in the sub-alpine the trail disappeared under the snow and the flagging became much sparser.  However, the route is still easy to find as we just headed north along a ridge that follows the creek draining from Cobalt Lake.  This stretch lasted about half an hour with us reaching Cobalt Lake at about 10:30am.

At Cobalt Lake we took a break for some sandwhiches and planned out our route to the top.  Once we were ready to go, we crossed the creek and headed west along the shore of the lake and up a steep hill to another ridge.  From there, we headed north along the ridge before the final steep hill to the summit.  On Summitpost, it mentioned two possible approaches to the last hill.  Either directly up (very steep), or a traverse east and around the summit and coming up on the other side.  We took the direct approach and were able to do it with ice axes but no crampons.  On the way down we took the longer route and it was much easier but a bit longer.  It was just under an hour and a half from the lake to the summit (~1550m) and we arrived around 12:30pm.  At the top, we took in the spectacular views, ate some lunch, and signed the guestbook before sliding down the snow on our way back.

While the amazing views are the main attraction for this hike, I wanted to point out a few other benefits of this place.  For one, it would be very hard to get lost.  The flagging and trail up to the sub-alpine are very good.  Through the sub-alpine up to the lake you just follow the creek.  And anywhere above the lake you will always be able to maintain a visual of the lake which would allow you to get your bearings even without a compass or GPS.  There was also no exposure to cliffs which is nice if you are not very comfortable with heights like I am.  And finally the hike has a moderate level of difficulty that I am sure the average hiker would be able to do.  I hope this is of use to anyone considering the hike.

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