Mount Elsay & Elsay Lake
- Kaitlin
- Aug 25, 2022
- 2 min read
August 25, 2022
Distance: 21km round-trip
Elevation gain: 1256m
Time required: 11-12 hours total
I first went to Mount Elsay in 2020. Back then, I didn't know that navigation apps like AllTrails or Gaia existed. I used to hike purely with written directions. It's wild to me today to think about that. But it just goes to show you the effects of 'comfort creep' - the benchmark of what we consider comfortable (and the level of discomfort we're willing to tolerate) is always getting pushed further and further as our lives get easier and technology continues to advance. Although the idea of not using GPS is unthinkable today, it didn't even exist in its current form until about 30 years ago. Even though I was quite late to the game, hiking with no GPS didn't used to bug me. I never even thought about it. You can't miss what you've never had.
Tangent aside, two years later, I tackled Mount Elsay again and also tacked on Elsay Lake.
The trail starts from the top of Mount Seymour, past the resort. After only 1km on the main Mount Seymour trail, there is a trail junction for Elsay Lake. This trail winds its way through drainages, meadows, and talus fields. The landscape is quite diverse and very beautiful.
After 3 hours and 15 minutes, I arrived at Elsay Lake. There is an emergency shelter at the lake that anyone can stay in. I met a father and son who had stayed the night there.
After checking out the lake for a little bit, I started heading back the way I came.
2.5km from the lake, there a big boulder field on the west side. This is a shortcut route that takes you directly to Mount Elsay. Once climbing up the boulder field (it's long), the trail reconnects with the main trail leading from Mount Seymour. From here, it's a climb through the forest and then a short scramble to the summit. It took me 3 hours and 15 minutes to reach the summit from the bottom of the boulder field on the Elsay Lake trail.
After a nice long break at the summit, I went back down to the parking lot via the regular Mount Elsay trail (the one that winds around Runner Peak and Mount Seymour and then reconnects with the main Mount Seymour trail in between Tim Jones peak and Mt Seymour peak. This took me 3 hours and 20 minutes.
It's funny that 2 years ago, I had found Mount Elsay very difficult. Now, I did both Mount Elsay AND Elsay Lake and found it average. Not easy, but not overly difficult. I'm now used to 11 hour days and doing over 2000m of elevation gain doesn't seem all that challenging to me. Talk about about improvement!
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