Curran-Squarehead-Joan Traverse - August 30, 2014 - by John Young

After making our way up the rough logging road, the 10 of us started hiking at 9:48, under not bad looking skies. Mt. Joan's summit looked to be covered in cloud, but other than that it looked like a good day. We headed up the Curran trail, which Ken Rodonets has done such a fine job of maintaining, and by noon we were heading over the Curran-Squarehead col.

The group enjoyed the nice rock on Curran, and views of Georgia Strait. We omitted the "true" summit of Curran, as we figured it was going to be a long enough day, and the summit isn't much anyway.

The col to Squarehead was a bit bushy in places, and going up to Squarehead was a bit of a rock scramble that raised the heart rate of a few people. We finally lunched on Squarehead, about 1:30, and it started to rain as we headed over to Joan. The rain was brief, though, and at the Squarehead-Joan col I gave people the option of skipping out the Joan summit, shortening the trip by an hour total, but the group voted to bag it. And we were glad we did! Yes, the view was somewhat obscured by cloud, but that made it even more spectacular, as we could see Port Alberni poking out from beneath the clouds.

We then began our descent, and it showered some on the way down, but didn't really begin raining until we reached the vehicles just after 6 p.m. Another fine day in the mountains with an enthusiastic bunch. Especially nice to have 3 guests along and 3 fairly new members.

Participants: Matt Lettington, Dean Williams, Christine Rivers, John Proc, Fran Proc, Tyler Proc, Mary O'Shea, Mo Goreyan, Alana Stott, John Young