Eight of us showed up for another of Bob's exploratory hikes. The destination was Sheep Mtn which is a smaller peak to the east of Coffin Mtn. These peaks are east of the forestry trunk road as it wends it's way south of the Johnson Creek Trail (The Hump). We left one car where the Ridge Creek backwoods road meets the forestry trunk road (just before it crosses to the west side of the Livingstone River), and then started up the Beaver Creek backwoods road that leads to the col between Mt Livingstone and Coffin Mtn.

At the point in the above photo we headed off to the southeast requiring crossing some marsh and some bushwhacking. Eventually we happened on a fairly well used trail (hunters?) that probably could have taken us all the way from the Beaver Creek route. This took us up a small ridge between Sheep Mtn and Coffin Mtn right up to the col between the two. From there it is an easy walk east to the summit of Sheep Mtn. And the mountain lived up to it's name with a large herd of sheep.

We were at the top at around noon.

It was a little too windy to comfortably lunch there so we walked down to a second peak lying to the north and then back to the shelter of some trees. Bob's plan was to descend the south ridge of Sheep Mtn to the Ridge Creek road. Meanwhile several of us were looking longingly at Coffin Mtn only about 250 m of steep OT5 above the Sheep-Coffin col. In the end the "mutineers" numbered seven and Bob continued on the planned route alone. The climb up was toughest at the start where there was snow on top of slippery grass.

But we seven all made it up to the summit within an hour of leaving the col.

After a short break we headed down the south ridge of Coffin Mtn.

We dropped off to the west a little before the end of the ridge with a nice clearing and the backwoods road in sight. This was steep, but not as bad as where we had climbed up on the east side.

Once down on the trail we still had a full hour of walking along the Ridge Creek road. Bob was well ahead of us and had actually walked up to the other car and brought it back by the time we finished a little before five.

Many thanks to coordinator Bob (especially for allowing us to alter the trip plan), participants: Janice, her guest Lindsay, Sim, Greg, Mel, Peter and Carl (scribe).

Note from Bob. The descent off the southwest ridge of Sheep Mountain is quite enjoyable, mainly on a gentle grassy slope with some trees and is protected from west winds by Coffin Mountain. This could be a potential ascent route for the mountain.