Yellow School Bus Sunshine Village
Tuesday July 15th 2014
Citadel Pass from Sunshine Village is an easy 18 km round trip.The bus up from the parking lot at the Gondola Base takes only 15 mins. Locals get a special discount on the 15th of July and 15th August of $16. Regular fare is $27. Buy your ticket at the base and keep your stub for the return. They run on the hour up and the half hour down. To return you must show your stub to get a token which books your place on the bus down. Don’t worry if you just missed a bus beer and refreshments are available in Trappers Bar and the deck is a relaxing place to wait.
Trail on right to Rock Isle lake
The short trail to Rock Isle Lake view-point is 1.8 km. Larix Lake & Grizzly lake are another 4.9 km loop. Another trail takes you from Rock Isle Lake up to Standish Lookout to Twin Cairns above the Wawa lift ridge then onto Simpson path trail and back to the village. 4.4 km
Trail winding away across the landscape
First place of significance is Quartz Hill. Trails lead up on either side of the Col for better vantage points.
At Douglas Lake
Next up is Howard Douglas Lake.This looks like a great place to have a swim on a hot day as it has a nice sandy couple of meters before dropping off. There is also a good looking back country camp site hidden in the trees with a small biffy.
Heading towards the Pass on the left. Citadel Mountain upper right
After the lake Citadel Mountain looms in front of you and although at first it looks like you will be heading to your right the pass is on the left of the mountain.
Un-named Lake under Citadel Mt
Although the views are great we had a day of smoke haze from fires from the north.
Lake from higher up on Citadel Mt
At the top of the pass we stopped for lunch before returning the same way. A few of us decided to go up Citadel Mountain, so we gave ourselves a 30 min time frame. We managed to get up just pass the first rock face and the photo shows views from there.
Distance return 18.5 km Time return 6 hrs ( inc 30 min lunch ) Elevation Accumulated gain 860 m Elevation to Summit 425 m Summit height 2545 m
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