After our first trip to Strathcona Park, we were hooked. It’s a truely beautiful stretch of land and offers a lot of remote backcountry trails although it’s right in the middle of Vancouver Island. So, we decided to come back and tackle another mountain: Mount Myra towers at a height of 5938 ft / 1810 m above the park although it’s – by far – not the highest peak in Strathcona. Nontheless, you should take 2-3 days to climb it (return) and be prepared for snow on top during all seasons. We hiked it over the course of three days because we wanted to give Freya enough breaks.

One thing you can say upfront about Mt. Myra: It’s a bloody knee cruncher (!) of a hike. The first few kilometers lead you up an old bobcat trail and are just loose rocks. So steep! We honestly couldn’t decide if we hated the strenuous up or the slippery down more…

Gesa had to carry the big pack because Sebastian had injured his back the week before… Oh, how she sweared on the way up!

Last obstacle before the hike would become more enjoyable…

The only thing that kept us going was the hope that there would be less moskitoes up top because the little pests were all over us as soon as we had shouldered our backpacks. Far from it though:

The bastards kept following us. All. the. way. up.

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