Rodney Newcombe is the kind of person who enjoys type-two fun. As in fun that pushes you to your limits and isn’t really all that fun in the moment, but you look back on fondly.
Think running a marathon, or say, bushwhacking through dense vegetation so wet that “it’s practically like swimming” to the top of a hill that doesn’t even have a view.
That’s how the 30-year-old Esquimalt resident described a recent hike up Homer Hill in Sooke.
“No trail. Soaked head to toe. Yeah, not the greatest,” he said.
Still, he chose to keep going, because he had challenged himself to hike all 47 peaks in the Sooke Hills that are named in Gaia GPS, a mapping software used by hikers and other outdoor adventurers. (The challenge actually started as 48, but Newcombe has since learned that one of the peaks is on private property, so he removed it from the list.)
“At one point I was just like, although I’m not going to necessarily enjoy the summit at all, it will just be more the fact that one day I’ll have all of these done,” Newcombe said.
Some of the hikes, like Empress Mountain, the tallest in the area, are well known, while others are off the beaten path, literally.
About half of the peaks have trails leading to the top, but the others require route-finding skills, bushwhacking and a choose-your-own-adventure attitude.
Newcombe often had his wife or friends tag along at the beginning of his challenge, but when the hiking turned more into bushwhacking, people weren’t so keen to join.
So, in order to tick off multiple peaks in a single outing, he took up trail running, sometimes stringing three goals together in one 20-plus kilometre day.
For Newcombe, who spends a lot of time ski touring and hiking in the backcountry of Strathcona Provincial Park, the challenge provided a way for him to get his outdoor adventure fix closer to home, and keep up his fitness levels for bigger objectives. It was also a perfect pandemic goal when heading up Island was discouraged.
Newcombe was inspired by Ben Puszka, who compiled the list of peaks and completed his own challenge in 2020.
Puszka, 30, started hiking in the Sooke area in 2017 and often repeated the same hikes. When he started to get bored, he used Gaia GPS to create a spreadsheet of every named peak north of Sooke Road and east of the Sooke River. He realized he had already completed about 20 on the list, so he figured he might as well try to check them all off.
There are a handful on the list that are “pretty unremarkable,” Puszka said, but he still enjoyed the challenge of trying to reach them.
Puszka placed summit registers at a few of the more remote peaks, and was surprised when he returned to one recently to find more than 30 people had signed it, many of whom referenced his list and wrote that they are also trying to complete all the peaks.
He’s met a handful of people who recognized his name because they’ve seen the list he shared to a few Facebook hiking groups.
“It’s very surprising and pretty humbling to see how many people have taken this, I guess if you want to say, challenge on. It’s kind of cool,” he said.
Despite the proximity to Greater Victoria, Puszka said he ran into very few people on many of his hikes and it feels like being out in the wilderness.
“It just felt like exploring more than going for a hike,” he said.
Newcombe wouldn’t recommend the challenge to people who don’t also enjoy a bit of type-two fun.
Puszka agreed the challenge isn’t for everyone, but said “there is a peak for everybody.”
The list of 47 peaks, including elevations.
Empress Mountain 682
Emperor 625
Screen Hill 620
Emperor North 600
Puzzle Peak 580
Ragged Mountain 578
Thunderbird Mountain 550
Mount Manuel Quimper 546
Mary’s Peak 542
Black Bear Mountain 540
Sooke Mountain 524
Pinnacle Peak 520
White Rock 500
East Clapper 500
West Clapper 500
Pleasant Peak 480
Mount Braden 479
Monument Mountain 463
Castle Peak 454
Land’s End 446
East Rampart 440
West Rampart 440
Mount McDonald 439
Plateau Peak 426
Trafalgar 420
Devastation Hill 420
Homer Hill 420
John Stick Peak 405
Malcom Mountain 403
Crows Nest 403
Lunch Peak 400
Corner Hill 384
Mount Brule 378
Mike Hill 376
Sugarloaf 363
Mount Wells 352
Buck Hill 342
Larkspur North 322
Larkspur South 322
Todd Hill 320
Rick Peak 320
Townsend Hill 309
Flatty Hill 265
David’s Delight 256
Alan’s Alp 252
Elephant Hill 240
Tony’s Triumph 229
>>> To comment on this article, write a letter to the editor: [email protected]
