The Coronation: 1000m Wildflower Hike

Join Mary and Rachel for a day out bagging ~1000m of elevation gain in the Sooke Hills all while enjoying the wildflower show. It’s a full eastern Sooke Hills hike:  starting at the Mt. Wells parking lot and heading up and over Mt. Wells and coming down the west side. Then up McDonald, across the big southern exposures, hitting all the bumps, and returning around the south end of McDonald and the full lower eastern extent of the mountain. We should see lots of spring flowers – saxifrage, calypso orchids, shooting star, spring gold, blue-eyed Mary, orobanche, larkspur, camas, fawn lily, clover, maybe even groundcone or coralroots. Always great to be out in the hills, we can elect to celebrate the coronation of King Charles (or not!) out of doors.

Distance: ~11km

Elevation gain: ~1000 m

There will be route finding, bushwhacking, and some scrambling. We will be off-piste from time to time.

Time: 8:30 – 4:30(ish). Plan to be out until 5pm.

Start-end: Mt. Wells parking lot on Humpback Road

Group: 8 people