After the nerve-racking drive, the hike itself almost seemed anticlimactic.  From where we parked, Zosia and I easily walked up the remainder of the access road to the trailhead in less than two hours.  The hike from the trailhead to the summit was also fairly straightforward although a few sections such as a boulder slope do require a little bit of route-finding.  The broad summit is occupied by the fire lookout, a helipad, and a couple of green rockets.  The door to the fire lookout was not locked, but some caution is required to open the wonky trap door leading to the upper floor.  After poking around inside the fire lookout, we eventually went back outside to have a lunch break.  Somewhat surprisingly, another hiker joined us at the summit a short time later.  He had managed to drive his jeep all the way to the trailhead and consequently had a much shorter ascent on foot than us.

Following our lunch break, Zosia and I left the other hiker at the summit and retraced our steps back down to the trailhead where we looked with envy at the hiker's jeep.  The rest of the walk down the access road to our parked car was uneventful, but the subsequent drive out was another tense ordeal as we cringed every time my car went over another water bar along the decrepit access road.  Adding to our anxiety, my car's "check-engine" light suddenly came on well after we had returned to the good gravel roads.  Although the car still appeared to be operating normally, we scrapped our plans to explore the area further.  Instead, we would camp for the night at Granby-Burrell Creek Recreation Site before driving out the next day to a garage in Castlegar to have my car checked out.

	Sonny parks his car about four kilometres short of the trailhead for Bluejoint Mountain. Photo courtesy of Zosia Zgolak
	The flagging here marks the start of the route as published in AllTrails.com.  This is a little less than two kilometres from where Zosia actually started hiking up the road.
	This doe is trying to distract intruders from discovering a fawn hiding in the nearby bushes.
	Zosia continues climbing up the road through an old burn.
	Zosia sits on a bench beside the trailhead at road's end.  Behind the bench is an interpretive sign, and the fire lookout is also visible in the distance.
	Zosia follows cairns up a boulder slope on the south ridge.
	Zosia pauses briefly before the final short walk to the summit.
	Zosia checks to see if she can climb up a ladder on the outside of the fire lookout, but it is easier to access the balcony from a staircase inside the concrete tower (via an unlocked door on the far side of the building).
	Zosia and Sonny stand on a rock near the summit of Bluejoint Mountain (2320 metres).
	This is looking back down the south ridge of Bluejoint Mountain.
	Here is a zoomed-in view of Big White Mountain to the west.

Some intriguing mountains to the northwest invite further exploration.

 

	The ridge to the north of Bluejoint Mountain runs all the way to Mount Sloan about 21.6 kilometres away and forms the bulk of the southeastern boundary of Granby Provincial Park.
	The spectacular peaks of Valhalla Provincial Park can be spotted on the northeastern horizon.
	The view to the southeast includes many of the peaks of the Rossland Range on the left horizon.
	Inside the fire lookout, Zosia finds an operations and training manual dated from January 2008.
	Zosia is impressed that this jeep was able to make it all the way up the rough access road to the trailhead.  The jeep belongs to another hiker who arrived at the summit after Zosia and Sonny.
	Total Distance:  10.4 kilometres Round-Trip Time:  6 hours 4 minutes Cumulative Elevation Gain:  617 metres GPX Data