Eagle Mountain Adventure: Trail Report

Me, Colin, Craig, Al

 
There's been two items on my bucket list for a really long time. One: to summit Mount Beautiful and run the Lyndsay Lake Loop, and Two: to explore the single track trails above the Powerline on Eagle Mountain in Coquitlam.

I knew there were some awesome mountain bike trails on Eagle that are kind of a secret and not well used since they're loosely marked and quite extreme in some areas. A couple of the trails show up on Google maps, so I set out with some friends to go see what we could see.

Heading into the trails with no real set destination, course intent and the freedom to let the day unfold is always extremely fun. Being in new territory is "relaxing" since you interact with the trail and the terrain as it comes to you.

We were prepared for 3 or 4 hours with at least 5 hours as a backup and started at 9:30am from the Equestrian parking lot in Buntzen Lake. Al, Colin, Craig and I set out up Eagle Trail switchbacks to the powerline where Al was having some flashbacks of his Diez Vista 50k experience.

After we hit the lookout, we headed east and found a trail head. It wasn't much of anything - no markings, quite grown over, and very unassuming. Then, a few steps in, and whammo! Jackpot!! We hit a huge fallen tree that had notches on the trunk for grip that led to a tight little bridge on an incline of about 30%. The trail went up and up, and after some time, saw some guardians along the way, of which Happy the Dwarf seemed to be the leader (see the video linked to the bottom of this trail report). The trail known as "Full Pull" would be amazing as a downhill experience, but the climb was also super enjoyable.

Love Creative Signage!

I was using my gel and water fueling strategy today, and felt great on the climbs for the whole day. We reached a lookout that was jaw dropping, but then Colin deflated that balloon as he cheekily pointed at Eagle Peak and teased Mount Beautiful in the mix. Fine, he was right. Let's push the day and get to Mount Beautiful with a Swan Falls descent. Our day just got more interesting.

Colin Wasn't Impressed .  . . He Wanted Peaks! (pictured is Craig)

We headed up some small jeep access roads and hit a connector to the top of Halvor Lunden trail. Our way to here was circuitous and the simpler way would be to do the reverse of our route (Swan Falls ascent and Halvor Lunden descent) or a HL out n Back. Doing the mountain bike trail exploration first is fun, but added almost two hours to our excursion.

We got onto the Lyndsay Lake trail network and followed the most direct path. We started hitting snippets of snow, and enjoyed the environment immensely. We all mentally adjusted our timelines as we knew 5 hours would be more likely for the outing (We ended up being out for 5:59:24).

Lyndsay Lake

As we left Lyndsay Lake, a sign said "Eagle/Mount Beautiful Peak 2.8km." Well, that 2.8k was a long hike! Super steep, with lots of ankle deep or mid-shin snow that made for exhilarating, albeit pace stifling, travel.

Once we got through Hemlock Pass which is a gulley between two peaks, the profile was amazing with little look outs all over. We were approaching full stoke levels!

Craig coming out of Hemlock Pass

The summit of Mount Beautiful was something else. The day was perfect and clear and we could see for miles in 360 degrees. Mount Baker to the South East, and Diamond Head in Squamish to the North. Diez Vista "peak" to the west looked like a speed bump in comparison to the elevation we were at. We took our time and took it all in, staring out over different viewpoints and absorbing the wonders of nature in our backyard.

Al Looking West towards Vancouver (That's Diez Vista on the bottom left)

The Boys, Looking North East

Looking North towards Dilly Dally and Squamish

Once we were ready, the way down was initially tricky to find, and we slid down lots of small snow banks in an almost "tele-ski" manner. Once we ht the Dilly Dally/Swan Falls junction, we took Swan Falls. It was slow going, and not very runnable as not only is it extremely steep and unforgiving (slip on a fast descent and it could be game over in some areas) but also my hip injury (it's locked up but recovering) wasn't up to the constant jumping and drop off impacts. I had to consciously land on my left leg, which was in essence like single leg hopping down a mountain. I was agile but muscular fatigue was setting in. Thankfully the nutrition plan was holding up, and aside from one moment of hunger at the peak, I felt energetic all day.

This is the angle of Swan Falls Trail! Eep

One of many rope sections of the day  . . . hardcore!

About 3/4 of the way down (did I mention how steep it was?) we hit the main falls, and cooled off. a few more rope descents, and some torn shoes for Craig, and we kicked out onto the Buntzen Reservoir. We walked to North Beach, Colin took a swim, and we ran back to the Equestrian parking lot with a nice push at the finish.

I was super stoked to have knocked this one off the bucket list, and was excited with the detour to Mount Beautiful Peak. It's a challenging trail system, and one that relies on giving yourself enough time to complete (which we did). We did run low on water, but fresh snow melted into handheld bottles remedied the shortage at the top of the mountain.

The Strava File (Click the Link)

There's still some additional exploration to do on the Eagle MTB trails, so I'll be heading back there in the weeks to come!

Here's a video of the day as it unfolded. This Summer is gonna be awesome!