Hiking Mt. Cheam, Chilliwack, BC

Mt. Cheam summit

I sat on the patio of my in-law's house in Agassiz, BC on a late August afternoon drinking a beer.

"You see that mountain there?" my father-in-law said. He pointed to a great grey hulk of rock that jutted up into the sky, dominating the view from the deck. "That's Mt. Cheam and we are going to climb it tomorrow!"

The view from the patio

"Great!" I replied. This announcement came at the end of about two weeks of hiking and camping we had done through Jasper, Wells Gray and the Fraser Canyon. Still a little sore from the Tikwalus Hike we had done only a few days before, I was not sure if I was up to another relentless uphill slog. He was pretty keen on the idea though so I could not refuse.

The following day we hit the road for the trail head. We took my Jeep Grande Cherokee as he had learned that to get to the trail head, you must first negotiate about 20 kilometres of forestry roads, of which the last 10 kilometres was pitted with something called "water bars". I had never heard of them before but he informed us that apparently when the forestry roads are abandoned, they go along with a backhoe and carve out these depressions to allow the water to flow across the road without washing the road out all together. Some were apparently deep enough to "turn a Volkswagen on its roof and drive over". Needless to say he had decided we would not be taking his Ford Explorer, but rather my Jeep. He would "never take his Ford down a road like that!" I agreed but in the back of my mind realized that I still needed to use that Jeep to drive the 1200km back home after this vacation all the while pulling a trailer. But, that's what Jeeps are made for right?

The trail head with Lady Peak in the background

So off we went bright and early the next morning. We got to the much anticipated forestry road and came across our first water bar almost right away. I stopped and got out to take a look. Not too bad if I took it slow, and so we made our first crossing. After our initial success my nervousness eased and we carried on. They were all pretty much the same, some a little worse than others but taking it slowly we only bottomed out once.

"How many of these water bars are there?" I asked after the first kilometre.

"Oh, my friend says about 25 or so," he replied. Turns out there actually around 111 according to my wife and son who were counting as we plugged along.