Instead of doing Campbell River Lookout, due to heat and unexpected circumstances, we decided to do a Beech’s Mountain Loop. This is a challenging hike, but not as much as Campbell River lookout. We had an early 8:15 start from South Chinese Mountain parking lot. It was a lovely 15° but with smoky skies. On the way up, Norris showed us a short alternate route instead of going up the washed out creek. When we got back on the main trail, we continued to the junction of Beech’s Mountain and South Chinese and had a short water break. This is a excellent spot to listen to frogs in the early spring. Once we got onto one of the open ridges we were surprised to find a big Canadian flag in one of the trees. There are great views on the open ridges to the west, but the smoke hampered some of the pictures. We continued the steep ascent and took a break on the large open rocks where you have great views to Rebecca Spit and the mainland mountains. After this, we had lunch on the top of Beech’s Mountain, where we enjoyed the views and shade after the steep climb.
There was a steep descent then to the old road that comes up from the Nugetzi Lake turn off. This trail is not well used, but was flagged well. The old road is quite washed out with many loose rocks, but was a nice walk in the shade of the trees. We came to the turn off that goes to North Chinese Mountain and were surprised to find that it has hardly been used the last few years. I had an old track from 2014 that we followed. We came across a few old flags that marked the trail, but there is much blow down and salal and would not recommend it to anyone that does not like bush whacking. There are many large bluffs along the way that give great views. When we came to the last bluff before North Chinese Trail, we were surprised to find that someone had brought up a large, old fishnet and strung it between three large trees over the top of the bluff. I actually think this could be quite dangerous as it is 8′ above the rocks in some places.
We continued on to North Chinese trail and descended back to the parking lot and our vehicles. It was starting to warm up now so we were quite pleased that we had left early.
(6.5 km, 3¾ hours, 420m ascent)
Les
Thanks to Jim, Carrie, Les and Norris for the photos
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Hike – Beech’s Mtn Loop – 27 Aug 2025
Quadra Island Outdoor Club 