Elevation Gain: 3,055m
Distance: 41.69km
Total Time: 2 days
Date: September 27th, 2025
(Stats include the The Deacon, Orthodox and our traverse)
Stone City Mountain is a large rounded dome that forms part of the Cathedral Rim Trail in Cathedral Park. It wasn’t on Alex and mine’s radar at all, but after descending from Grimface we had made the call the hike 500m of elevation back up to where we just came in order to avoid the never ending dead fall in the valley below. As a bonus we’d get to hike up and over Stone City Mountain.
Our ascent started from our base camp in some lovely meadows below Grimface Mountain. We ascended up the south slopes of Grimface trending left a ways and then countouring a ridge high point until we linked up with the trail below “Smokey the Bear”. I’m still not sure what Smokey the Bear is as there’s clearly no summit in its vicinity. However, it did sport two massive clefts that were worth the detour to see.
Once we were on the trail it was smooth sailing up to Stone City where we did a quick drive by and then continued along the rim trail towards Quinscoe Mountain. Just before the trail starts the climb up Quinscoe we diverted off trail and countered around the south side and dropped in the forest beyond. At the bottom of the forest we had to negotiate a short section of bog, but that lead us to the gloriously cleared Centennial trail.
The trail was a highway and we spent the next 9-ish kilometeres cruising all the way back to the car. A very worthwhile detour to avoid the Wall Creek deadfall again.