Over the last several years, Jim, Fay, and I have been climbing peaks in the Cheam Range in BC, Canada. As of 2018, the three of us had summited 5 of the 7 peaks in the Cheam Range. Our last two peaks, Lady and Cheam, have been on hold due to injuries, surgery, forest fires, and covid. Finally, we were all healthy and ready to complete our goal. It was only fitting to do the climbs over Fay’s 81st birthday.
The crux of the Lady and Cheam Peak climbs is the abandoned road approach. Fay decided this was a job for her Tacoma 4×4 truck. Thank goodness Fay is a very experienced at driving these kinds of roads. I actually had to close my eyes a few times. These roads freak me out.
Once up the road, the climbs are quite nice. We opted to climb Lady Peak on our first day since it was the more difficult of the two.
Both climbs start on the same trail which passes through a beautiful basin with a very small lake: Spoon Lake. We met a few people just hiking into the lake.
As we hiked up the trail, we kept stopping to take in the view of the Washington peaks right across the border: Mt Baker, Tomyhoi, and American Boarder.
We got super lucky on the weather. It rained the 2 days before we got here which cleaned out all the high smoke. We did see several plumes in the area, but nothing got really bad.
After an hour of hiking up the trail, we came to the climber’s path that broke from the main trail and headed straight up the basin toward Lady Peak. Soon, we got a good view of Cheam Peak, our goal for tomorrow.
The climber’s path ended in a talus basin surrounded by minor cliff bands. We chose a route which climbed straight up through some trees. It’s hard to remember at 81, Fay is most comfortable scrambling up tree branches.
Soon we gained to the ridge and the real fun started.
We followed ledges along the ridge crest. One side of the ridge was reasonable while the other side was shear cliffs.
Fay did most of the leading along the ridge.
These days most of her climbs are brushy peaks. She was really enjoying doing some rock scrambling for a change.
After an hour of scrambling along the ridge, we came to the summit block. It looked very intimidating but once we walked up and touched it, the route became solid blocks. Super fun class 3 scramble.
There were two equally high horns. One more accessible than the other. Fay and I decided the one that was easily accessible was the summit while Jim was determined to climb up and see for himself.
In the end, we agreed that mine and Fay’s was higher. That didn’t stop Jim from enjoying his boulder.
Eventually Jim joined Fay and I for a good long summit break.
Sharing another birthday summit with Fay had me reminiscing about our other birthday trips.
Summitting Triumph Peak on Fay’s 67th birthday. She told us it was her birthday on the summit. She didn’t want to jinx the climb.
On Fay’s 70th birthday, Jim and I hired a guide so we were pretty sure we would summit North Early Winter Spires.
Fay’s 75th birthday came when she and I were doing the Hanging Gardens Traverse. Just the two of us.
Eventually, we all agreed it was time to head down. It took us a bit of time to downclimb the class 3 section. We had a panic rope with us but the hand holes were excellent so none of us were nervous. We just had to take it slow.
The rest of our route down was more efficient than our up route. We ended up have time to take another long break at the notch between Lady and Cheam.
We were back in the parking lot heading down the road before 6pm. We were back in our campsite just before dark. We ate dinner with our headlamps on and were in bed soon after. Since Fay was going to drive the road again the next day, we let her set the pace the next morning.
Not sure if driving the road two days in a row made it any easier. At least we knew where the real bad spots were. I think we were all most worried about running into traffic on the road and having to deal with passing someone. We completely avoided this until our final decent and there was a truck with a broken axil on the shoulder. Luckily, they were able to move over just enough to let other vehicles pass. We had only a few inches on each side.
Our hike up Cheam Peak was very leisurely. We were all savoring our time together and enjoying the view of Lady Peak from here.
Even though Cheam Peak had a trail to the top, the final summit ridge was quite fun. There were two memorials on / near the summit. First was the bench dedication.
The second was just below the summit on a ridge outcropping.
We spent a good hour on the summit relaxing. These days, I savor ever summit I do with Fay. I know that one of these days it will be our last. I try to never take these moments for granted.
