Spent some time working in the Vancouver Island Alps this weekend. Climbed Triple Peak via it's Northern Route.
The 2wd (HC) logging road up Marion Main gets you to just over 700 m, and then a steep climbers trail gets you to a beautiful alpine lake (1050m) in an hour, followed by snow and rock to the top (just over 1500m). Amazingly, there is still a couple of good chunks of snow from last winter - mostly in acre size patches, starting at 1200m. To get to the rock climbing, the snow steepens and ends in a large moat. Need to be careful where you exit onto the snow as the most lip is overhanging quite a bit. A belay is recommended.
From there it's 5 pitches of 4th and low 5th basalt, breccias (really good quality), and the odd vertical heather slope to the top. My climbing mates tell me there is quite a nice view from the summit - coast to coast. If we hadn't of chosen the one day of fog and drizzle in the past month, I would've been happy to see that.
Brian Gould
Mountain Guide
Mountain Guide