Elevation Gain: 1,823m
Distance: 33km
Total Time: 1.5 days
Date: January 16+ 17, 2026
Nine Mile Mountain is a 1700m peak located above The Hazeltons in the Bulkley Valley. An old mining road runs from town all the way to the summit and it appears to be a regular snowmobile destination. The broad summit offers no real challenge but it’s centrally located among a host of aesthetic pointed peaks. If not for that, Andrea and I would likely have looked elsewhere for a safe summit with the snowpack we had. We had higher ambitions for more interesting peaks, but snow and weather always had the final say. Regardless, the views promised to be worth it and we decided to make a weekend of it by hauling up the tent to catch a sunrise and maybe sunset.
The big mystery, to us, was what any given approach would look like around Bulkley Valley. We had no sense of what’s plowed or not and sleds rule the lands here. Not possessing a tracked chariot for ourselves, we were relegated to what could be reasonably skied up in one or two days. Nine Mile Mountain was on the upper end of tolerable road walking, but with plans to camp over night we could break up the journey across two days. As a big plus, returning by skies is usually a speedy affair and makes the road approach all the worthwhile on return.
We had a relaxed start on Friday morning and reached Hazelton after sunrise. To our surprise, the road was plowed further than expected and we eliminated a few kilometres of extra road walking. The road ended at a private property and forked off to a tracked out road. We setup skis here and started the walk down the road. For the first few kilometers it was an easy plod on continuous snow, but as we gained elevation above two mile creek, the snow quickly dwindled down to rock. We kicked off the skis and walked on foot until hitting the snow line around 800m. From here we had an easy ascent all the way to treeline.
Golden hour was near and we elected to save the summits for the following morning. The next step was finding the best camp spot to catch sunset. Quadrants were consulted, angles were calculated and viewpoints were surveyed. Through trial and tribulation we found the best spot we could perched near equidistant between Nine Mile and Peak . Not only did we have phenomenal views of the area, we had an inversion layer covering the entire valley. There are few views better than an inversion forming a sea of peaks.
After setting up camp we settled in to watch the sunset and make some dinner. Andrea threw out the idea of an early-ish start to catch sunrise and I couldn’t say no. We set alarms for 7am and woke up to a sunlight dance across the valley. Dozens of photo breaks later we eventually found ourselves part way up the board summit ridge to Nine Mile. It was an easy skin up and we found the summit marked with several radio repeaters.
We rested for a little while and then skied down the ridge into the meadow basin below. Here Andrea and I split off where I went for an undulating traverse of Peak and Andrea opted to hang out at camp. The traverse was none too interesting but I enjoyed the extra time spent out in the alpine. The Rocher de Boule range off my right side captured my imagination. A lifetimes worth of summits were laid out across the valley. I reached the summit soon after where another group of radio repeaters resided and then attempted to ski back. It was a trying affair as there were far too many bumps to glide back to camp. I reached Andrea after some huffing and puffing over the numerous rolls where she had just about finished packing up the tent.
The final trial of the trip was the road on the return. The snowmobile tracks had turned to rock hard ice and our legs cried in agony as we tried to slow our velocity down the endlessly steep mining road. Eventually the snow ran out and we walked the remainder of the road to the creek where more continuous snow allowed us to skin back.
