Wild Coast Magazine / Spring 08
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The sun made one concerted attempt to break through the cloud cover, almost managing to cast a bright glow over Victoria for a moment, but today the clouds won, and soon the world was back to a dull overcast.
A typical island winter day.
No salamanders, lizards or garter snakes will be sunning themselves on the Mount Wells bluffs today. Instead a sheet of ice covers many of the open slopes and crevices on the route leading to the park’s namesake peak. Hiking takes an especially steady foot.
Only one trail officially crosses the park, and it begins with a wide, groomed pathway and a few sturdy wooden stairwells. But the manicured nature dies away as the elevation rises, and on the upper reaches the trail reverts to a mix of loose rock and scrambles up exposed granite.
While just about any fitness level will work up a sweat reaching the peak, it’s hardly an ascent that can be called tough by Vancouver Island standards. At 352 metres, Mount Wells can be reached in less than half an hour from the parking lot, about 230 metres below, making it one of the simplest hikes to several rewarding viewpoints that extend from Mount Baker (on a clear day) and Juan de Fuca Strait on the south to Goldstream Provincial Park and neighbouring Sooke Hills to the north.
The views are only one of the attractions of the summit trail. The mature trees at the lower elevation eventually give way to exposed rocky bluffs at higher levels, where the right conditions have led to an odd mix of what appears to be both a sub-alpine and a coastal bluff ecology. Expect delicate spring wildflowers such as camas and shootingstar to bloom on the hills in May, alongside wind-stunted pine and twisted old Garry oak.
This region was also once the only known location of the prairie lupine in Canada, but the last flower was recorded in 1996 on the east peak of nearby Mount Braden. It was also eradicated at two other sites in BC, but hope remains the lupines will return, as the seeds are known have a long dormant stage.
Because of the delicate nature of the ecology on the bluffs, much of the summit is cordoned off to protect the surrounding terrain, which clings to life on thin soil cover easily kicked aside by unthinking visitors.
(Mount Wells is a particularly tough candidate for mixing recreational use and ecological preservation, as casual trails lead up the west slopes to the base of steep rock walls popular for rock climbing. In fact, Mount Wells has a reputation as one of the best climbing areas in the Victoria region. This recreational use has created bare rock once populated by plants such as fescue, camas, selaginella and cladina.)
One of the oddest features of the park is the massive concrete piping that extends from the parking lot alongside Humpback Road at the beginning of the trail. The old flow line is a remnant of the drinking water supply system for Victoria when the nearby Humpback Reservoir was still in use. The system was built in 1915, and connected with Sooke Reservoir through 44 kilometres of the concrete piping. A steel pipeline from the Humpback Reservoir continued to Fountain Circle in Victoria. The system was shut down in the 1990s, and today the only apparent use for the pipeline is by young visitors who prefer the challenge of walking on top instead of along the path. Such pint-sized adventurers help ensure at least the top of the old pipeline remains free of moss.
Mount Wells Regional Park is the most accessible of a number of protected areas to the west of Goldstream Provincial Park. Sooke Hills Wilderness Park, to the west and north of Mount Wells, is officially off limits to the public to act as a buffer for the Greater Victoria water supply area, a vast tract of land that surrounds remote Goldstream and Sooke lakes to the northwest.
A trail or two heads through the gates and the fencing meant to block entry to the Sooke Hills, but for the most part geography helps the wilderness park fill its goal, as Mount McDonald presents a formidable barrier when viewed from the top of Mount Wells.
The disused Humpback Reservoir, meanwhile, is now a prime candidate for a future park of its own.
Mount Wells is one of those rare trips where the drive can be as scenic as the hike. Humpback Road begins at the entrance to Goldstream Park, a rare divided residential corridor lined with huge old trees planted by the owner of the Goldstream Hotel, John Phair, to give railway passengers a scenic arrival to the hotel at the turn of the last century.
Getting there:
From the Island Highway take Sooke Lake Road west to the Goldstream Provincial Park campground entrance, but turn south onto Humpback Road, which is divided by some wonderful old trees. The road continues through some narrow and twisting sections for about 1.5 km to a parking lot outside the Humpback Reservoir. Humpback Road can also be accessed from Sooke Road. This makes Humpback Road a scenic bypass to the Veterans Memorial Parkway, and is recommended for up-island travelers heading to Sooke or visa-versa.
Copyright Wild Coast Magazine
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Watershed views