Lang Bay to Walt's Hill on the sunshine coast trail

SCT Day 5 - Lang Bay to Walt's Hill

7/17/2023

The view East from Walt's Hill, SCT British Columbia

Refreshed, clean, and fully loaded down we awaited our shuttle pick up at the hotel for what would be one informed the longest stretches of remote backpacking we’ve ever done.

7 days of food felt like a ton of bricks in our packs, but it was the minimum of everything we could bring. Our base weights were the lowest ever despite the food weight. We had dialed in our clothing, stripped any non essentials, and fought for simplicity. Even though I wanted to bring one more shirt or one more snack, I resisted the urge knowing anything in my pack would be traveling miles and Miles uphill. …simply not worth it. It would be a real experiment in minimalism.

Tent pad, North East of the Walt Hill Hut, SCT British Columbia

Possibly one of the best campsites ever, SCT British Columbia

The first portion of our day was typical up and down through valleys and around logging operations. We encounter a trail reroute but another couple on the trail recommended we ignore it and take the trail as the logging operation had moved away from the area. Combined with the fact our shuttle driver mentioned that the reroute should be over or nearly over as the logging had moved out of the area recently. We went for it and did not hear or see any logging activity and saved ourselves a few kilometers of walking on dusty gravel roads.

We ran into the PAWS crew descending after some routine maintenance on Walt Hill and found out a lot about how their volunteer system works. We thanked them for their outreach and returned to our climb. The also showed us the last water source before climbing Walt's Hill. They asked us about logging activity and we shared our experience with the reroute and they said they would be walking it to reopen it anytime now.

To shorten the brutality, I’ll just say that the climb up Walt’s Hill with fully loaded packs was hours and hours straight up. We kept pushing, sweating, and grinding until we eventually broke the peak and were rewarded with one of the most amazing views we’ve ever seen.

Walt Hill sits high up on the last ridge on the very edge just shy of the top. The hut looks out over Taxada Island, the Strait of Georgia, and Vancouver island to the West. Behind the hut you can find outstanding to the East of Lois Lake and Horseshoe Lake with the mountains around Squamish and possibly Whistler on the horizon.

We found a some what hidden tent platform to the North East of the hut and were rewarded with a completely isolated campsite on the very edge of a bluff looking out high over the lakes.

It was single handed my the best site we’ve ever camped at. We set our tent safely on a flat spot tucked in the brush and made the tent platform our patio kitchen for the evening. There we feasted our eyes on miles and miles of wilderness.