Recent Windstorm Topples Mt. Tzouhalem Cross

The windstorm that blew through the Cowichan Valley on November 6th not only took with it hundreds of trees and knocked out power for thousands, it also toppled the cross that has stood atop Mt. Tzouhalem ever since 1976.

By sheer coincidence, just 5 days later Paulette and I decided to hike to the top of Mt. Tzouhalem for the final time this year. We had no idea, at the time, that the cross had been blown away in the storm.

We started up the mountain on a nice, cool but beautiful sunny day. It’s a long, hard climb to the summit but we made it in about an hour. We were both starving and luckily Paulette had packed sandwiches and bottled water so we could have lunch at the top. Being hungry, we decided to stop just 100 yds. from the site of the cross even though it as a flat level path through a clump of trees.

The photo of the damaged base I took this October 20th

Our logic was that we’d been to the cross site a dozen times and there really wasn’t anything new to see and we’d found a beautiful spot to look out over the Cowichan Valley below. Also, I just happened to check my Apple Health app and noticed that the climb had taken 5,500 steps. With the same going back down that would mean I’d achieve my goal of 10,000 right, so why do any more?  After all, we’d been to the cross site just a few weeks earlier on October 20th.

Completely oblivious to the fact the cross was no longer there we began the long trek back down the mountain. About halfway down we met a group of hikers who were heading up packing a lot of ropes.  Paulette knew one of the women and she told us they were on their way to “retrieve the cross because it had been blown away in the storm”. 

Duh!  Did I ever feel dumb.  We were just 100 yds. away and I would have loved to have been able to get a shot of that but there was no way we were climbing all the way back to the top.

Instead, I was able to pick up the rescue story from a local website along with 3 photos. One showed the empty cross base, the other the cross caught in trees and the final one the hikers bringing the cross back up to the summit. Many thanks to Claire Spencer, Kieran Hartford, Amoray Aloisi, Michael Fransen, Warren Spencer and Dale Spencer,

Luckily, when the wind blew the cross off its base it landed only 30 ft. down in a gully and was caught in a group of trees. If it had been blown just 5 ft. in the other direction it would have fallen hundreds of feet down a sheer cliff making it very difficult to recover. I guess now it will be up to the conservation society to fix the base, make repairs to the cross and somehow fasten it securely.  I’m sure they’ll do that and by the time we hike Mt. Tzouhalem again next year the cross will be back in place.

We enjoyed the hike but it would have been much more interesting if we’d taken the time to just walk over to where we normally stop at the top. Still, it was a nice fall day, the sun was shining and we managed to get our entire exercise regimen done in one fell swoop.

Zooming in on some fall colours from the top of Mt. Tzouhalem

We did have a little excitement nonetheless.  On our way down we encountered a tree that had fallen right across our trail. It was not there on our way up!  Looks like we were lucky as it obviously snapped from damage caused by the wind and I’m sure glad it didn’t hit us as that would have hurt!

Thanks for visiting!