Easy vistas


Soames Hill viewpoint

An easy vista? Well, maybe 'easy' is understating it.

There are, after all, 434 steps to reach the top – not to mention the various additional dirt scrambles, roots and climbs up exposed bedrock.

So you may need a break on the way up. Or six. No matter. In the end it is more a good workout than a torturous climb, and the reward is a view that will make it all worthwhile.

At the 240-metre summit are several chances for eagle-eye viewpoints over the north entrance to Howe Sound and across to the many islands that dot the waters off Gibsons Landing.

Gibsons Landing may be familiar to you if you are one of the earlier generations of Canadians who grew up watching The Beachcombers in the late 1970s and through the 1980s.

If you do remember Relic and the others, you'll know that few things are as ingrained as deeply into the Canadian psyche as that television series based out of Molly's Reach.
Gibsons, naturally, has cashed in on that fame and so the present-day waterfront restaurant Molly's Reach is usually busy with customers, probably a good majority of whom are more than a touch gleeful to be sitting at the namesake location that figured so prominently in an era when the world was so much simpler.

The simplicity follows on a trip up Soames Hill. You need no fancy equipment, no trip planning and no special skills. Just sturdy shoes and the tenacity to reach the top.

Soames Hill trail map