It has been many months since I last visited Mt. Wells. Tonight my Wednesday hike cohorts and I headed up the mountain, if you can call it that, for some fine views and I guess a workout. No, I’m not talking about boot camp at the top, just the workout associated with scaling the mini-mountain. Pardon me if I’m offending you by referring to Mt. Wells as a mini-mountain, since it is kind of big. On the other hand, if you are a mountain climber, pardon me for referring to Mt. Wells as a mountain, since it is not really that big.
As with previous outings at Mt. Wells, we started from the parking lot at the reservoir on Humpback Road and headed up the main trail to the top. I haven’t done enough looking around the bottom of the mini-mount to know what other options there might be, but I suspect that there are some other trails in the area. According to the GPS data we gained about 240m (about 720ft) over 1.5km – a respectable uphill. I have never had a bad hike at Mt. Wells, and this one was no different; it was a great night to scale the mini-mount.
GPS Data: 3.0km – 1h28m – GPS route
A 3km hike at Mt. Wells near Victoria, BC. Click on the map to see detailed GPS information on the Garmin website.
Not sure why, but I think slugs are cool and I've been thinking I need some photos of some of these slimy bastards for a while now. Slug #1, I shall call you Aristotle and shall use a storm-like naming convention for any of your brethren that I might capture on SD card in the future.
At some points, the trail up to the top of Mt. Wells is steep and rocky - duh, it's a freakin mountain.
Handy-dandy, pseudo-hand rails are now present on some of the exposted trail. This is the view looking north towards the reservoir from maybe 1/2 to 2/3s of the way up.
A lonely rock hanging out on the upper slopes of the mini-mount.
Ahhh, Mt. Wells nature. Me like.
The lonely, and possibly dead, tree that greets visitors arriving at the second peak. Ugly, but cool.
A couple peeps from the group talking shop I think. Again, the view is to the north over the reservoir towards Finlayson Arm.
The Olympic Mountain Range viewed from the top of Mt. Wells.
Lots of purple flowers out on the mini-mount. They look nice.
Heading back along the trail we came up on. This was taken at the top of peak #1.
Looking north from peak #1 at Mt. Wells towards Mt. Finlayson and beyond it Jocelyn HIll in Gowlland-Tod Park.
Just wondering how long it takes to get to the top?
About 30-40 minutes to get to the top. Of course this kind of depends on fitness and desire to do it fast or slow. I bet some super fit trail runner could get up there in about 10 minutes.