Mount Albert Edward (Strathcona, BC)

Mount Albert Edward is the 6th highest peak on Vancouver Island, and a mountain I have wanted to climb for a quite a while. It has astonishing 360 degree views of Strathcona Park including the Golden Hinde and Mt Washington, and you can see as far as the Pacific Ocean. Unfortunately, we got fogged out at the top, but the journey was still worth it and the trail was beautiful. You can do this hike in one long day, or you can choose to split it up in a couple of days and camp in the backcountry. We chose to do the hike in 2 days, where we stayed one night in Circlet Lake.

Hike Information

• Difficulty: Difficult
• Elevation: 2063m
• Total Trail Elevation Gain: 1,727 m
• Distance: 33.5km round trip
• Time: 12 plus hours or overnight

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The Trail

The first 10.5 km to Circlet Lake took us through the beautiful Paradise Meadows trail. The trails were really well kept and easy to follow and there were boardwalks going through the marshes and the really muddy areas. There are several different options of paths to get to Circlet Lake and on the way there we chose to do the fastest route. On the way back we chose a slightly longer route that was about 13km, but we didn’t have to backtrack and it made it more of a loop.

The trail is pretty flat for the first 6km in, and at this point you will reach a quaint ranger station which is a good spot for a break. We stopped and had a snack and had a deer approach us which was really neat. The last 4.5km to Circlet has a bit more ups and downs, but it is still fairly easy and a nice hike.

We paid our 10$ backcountry fee at the parking lot and at Circlet we chose a tent pad spot and set up camp. It took us about 3 hours to get here from the parking lot. After eating lunch and setting up we started our journey up to the summit.

Circlet Lake to the summit is about a 12km round trip and has about 1100m elevation gain. This part of the hike seemed a lot longer to us than the 6km! We were practically running the whole way up with no breaks and it took us  3hrs to reach the summit. The first leg of the trip was a straight ascent to the ridge. At this point there was a A junction where you can choose to go to 3 different peaks- Castlecrag, Mt Frink or Albert Edward. The fog really set in here, but we chose to keep going.

We walked the snowy and rocky ridgeline for the last 3km to the summit but we couldn’t see anything. The trail was fairly easy to follow until we came to the junction but after that there wasn’t really any trail markers.

You have to follow the rock cairns on the ridge to navigate your way to the summit. The very last upward ascent was grueling, but we felt amazing that we accomplished our goal when we reached the summit. We didn’t have any views at the top, but we were happy nonetheless. We signed the capsule book, and fairly quickly made our way down.

From talking to other people it is really easy to follow the trail on a clear day because you just follow the ridge. However, the fog got even worse as we hiked down and we kept getting lost because we could not see the cairns in front of us. We had to follow our maps app to find our way down and we found it quite stressful. I would highly reccommend to never do this trail alone or without a GPS because it is quite easy to get lost off trail.

With all of our wrong turns it took us about 3.5 hours to get back to camp, and we felt so relieved to have dinner and to have a good sleep. We were a little upset to wake up the next morning to a perfectly clear blue sky, but it made our walk back to our car pleasant. There was no way our knees and legs would allow us to make the climb up again!

We didn’t get any views on our trip so after walking back to our car we decided to drive up to the alpine lodge which was only 5 minutes away and take the chairlift to the top of Mt Washington. This cost is 22$ and it was pretty cool because we could see Mount Albert Edward in the distance!

Directions to the Trailhead

From Nanaimo it takes 2 hours to the Raven Lodge parking lot. It is here in Strathcona park that you start the hike and pay the backcountry permit fee. The beginning of the trail starts here just in front of the parking lot and is obviously signed. 4 wheel drive and/or chains can be necessary in winter, but no special measure are needed in summer. Follow directions to Mt Washington Ski resort and turn off to Raven Lodge.

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