Eagle Bluff Lookout
Rating: moderate (tricky route finding)
Time needed: 3-4 hours
Length: 10 km
Elevation gain: 520 m
Eagle Bluff Lookout is a beautiful viewpoint that looks down on Buntzen Lake, with views out to the Mount Seymour Range. The route described goes out on the Mossom Creek Trail and takes in an old log cabin.
This route is a little tricky to navigate, so, without a map, a straightforward “out and back” along the BC Hydro service road is recommended.
Start the hike from Eagle Mountain Drive, where the service road to the gas treatment plant heads up. Follow this until the bend in the road and then follow a gravel road beyond a gate on the left.
After about a kilometre, look for a boulder-strewn trail on the right, just before Noons Creek. This is the “Dentist” mountain bike trail. Dentist soon splits and then converges again as it continues uphill. After crossing over a creek on a bridge, it’s about 200 to 300 m to the (indistinct) trail junction for the Mossom Creek Trail.
Mossom Creek Trail soon widens and, after crossing a creek, takes you past an old log cabin, which is in relatively good condition, if a bit spooky. Keep following the Mossom Creek Trail for another 2.5 km as it twists and turns through a labyrinth of other trails.
The Mossom Creek trail is used by dirt bikers and sometimes stands out from the other trails by the presence of tire marks and churned up, muddy ground.
Mossom Creek Trail eventually leads down to the main BC Hydro service road. Follow this northwest for just over a kilometre to the viewpoint. After taking time to admire the view, follow the gravel road all the way back to the gas plant road.
--Steve Chapman is a Coquitlam Search and Rescue volunteer, a member of the Burke Mountain Naturalists and the creator behind a detailed new map of Tri-City trails. More info on safe hiking: www.coquitlam-sar.bc.ca.
