Golden Ears
Golden Ears is a mountain just to the north of Maple Ridge and if you look at it right, it’s a pair of ears that get lit up by the sunset. Maybe? Anyways it’s a very steep and technical up and down hike with some amazing views at the top.
Day 1: Alouette Lake 👉 Golden Ears Ridge
The trail starts with a steady up hill for 5km+ through the trees until the Alder flats campground. We went from the East Canyon, but it’s roughly the same from the West Canyon Trail. They are trails either side of the same river and eventually meetup at a bridge before the campground.
After that it gets steep and just goes up and up. It’s got a few stairs on it, but it’s mostly up over rocks, roots and the like. You don’t get over 900m of elevation gain without some steep technical sections (bear in mind its over 1300m elevation change in total).
The ridge is about 1,390m elevation and at this point there’s an emergency shelter with toilets and bear cache. There are 6 tent pads, but plenty of space for people to spread out, which is good, because there are only back country reservations, not specific reservations for the ridge. Meaning that it seems to be always busy.
We then attempted the summit, but at about 50m elevation from the top, I was feeling a bit woozy and uncomfortable. At that point I decided to sit on a ledge and enjoy the view while my friends summitted. No regrets, exposure and vertical climbing is just not my thing.
There were no bugs and the camping on the ridge was just amazing.
Day 2: Golden Ears Ridge 👉 Alouette Lake
There isn’t much more to do at the top of the ridge than head back down, so we did that. We went up on a Friday and headed down on a Saturday. It started to get really busy with lots of people heading up. I bet it gets busy up there on a weekend.
Not much to say about the downhill, other than its steep 🤷♂
Overall, stunning views and would do again. Highlighted the tent (little red arrow) as seen from near the summit, looking down onto the ridge 👇
