Sheep Mountain Lookout

BOU AVENUE
Sheep Mountain Lookout

With heavy rain in the forecast for 2 July 2018, Leslie Pryslak, Zosia Zgolak and I chose to do a short, non-committing hike up Sheep Mountain Lookout just south of Elko, British Columbia (BC).

From the junction with Highway 3, drive south on Highway 93 for 3.8 kilometres and turn left onto a gravel road. Almost immediately, turn right onto a rougher road and drive south parallel to the highway for 1.9 kilometres to a Y-junction. Take the left fork which crosses the flats before climbing up to a locked gate. Park wherever it is convenient before the locked gate.

From where we parked in the flats, we hiked up past the locked gate and essentially followed the well-defined road (ignore any side roads) all the way up to a communications installation near the high point of the ridge. The lookout site is a short distance to the south past the installation while the true high point of Sheep Mountain is in a clearing to the east beyond a barbed-wire fence. Strangely, the actual gazetted summit of Sheep Mountain is on a lower point about a kilometre to the northeast, but we did not bother to go there. Instead, we snapped a few photographs at the lookout site and returned the same way back to my car before driving home to conclude a fun-filled long weekend of camping and hiking in the East Kootenay region of BC.

	Zosia and Leslie hike smartly up the road to Sheep Mountain Lookout.
	Zosia and Leslie go past a communications installation near the top.
	Leslie, Zosia and Sonny enjoy some sunshine at the site of Sheep Mountain Lookout (1206 metres).
	Sonny hops over a barbed wire fence to try and ascertain the exact location of the highest point (1208 metres). Photo courtesy of Zosia Zgolak
	From the true high point is this partially open view to the south. Most of the mountains on the horizon are on the American side of the US-Canada border.
	Total Distance: 8.1 kilometres Round-Trip Time: 2 hours 30 minutes Net Elevation Gain: 319 metres GPX Data