As you can see, I'm new and this is my first TR. So feel free to give any feedback. I also know there is not too much on this mountain, but I feel the urge to write a TR and get some answer to my questions below.

It was sunny above the fog, and the ferry is cheap (33% off till the end of the month), so 3 of us randomly decided to go to Bowen Island and hike up to Mt. Gardner. It was our first time to this mountain and we obviously underestimated it for a bit. The first mistake was not bringing snowshoes (but even on the ferry, a guy who lives over there and walk his dog up all the time said we should be fine without snowshoes). We hit the snow right away after the ferry into Crippen Regional Park. Killarney Lake was beautiful. I even crawled in a good few yards on the ice and was surprised how thick it was. (Maybe I wouldn't say this if it gave away...)

We followed the guide in 103 Hikes to the North Summit. Turned left on to Skid Trail after entering the gate. Snow got deeper and deeper as we went up. We turned onto Handlogger's trail later and soon regret our decision of not bringing snowshoes. The trail was not very well marked and it was our first time on it, so we had to be careful in the snow. We found the trail markers were either 200 feet apart or 2 or 3 together within 10 yards. Fighting through the knee-high powder every other step wasn't too much fun. Then, we finally reached to a point of exhaustion and decided to bushwhack up. To our biggest surprise, there was another much better trail almost parallel with the one we were on below just a few steps up (I mean it, literally...). Soon after that, we made a left turn and found footsteps, followed them to the telecommunication compound. (We had no idea of where we were at that time.) We had lunch there and continued our unsuccessful attempt to seek the summit. We continued on the trail where we turned left to the tele compound, and found the big service road. We decided to trek up on it, until we reach a mini-end, where the power towers went left to right down, and a mark said "view point" continued into the woods. In our last try for the summit, we decided to follow the power towers all the way up. But after about 20 minutes, we found we still had a long way to go (~30-40min to the top). My friend ahead of me found a clear view of the summit, where the power towers were planted all the way up, in a narrow "shaved" line on the mountain. We had to play safe and turn back because it was already 15:15. We made a quick descend along the power towers and the service road, and found both point where we turned onto Skid Trail and Handloggers' Trail.

My questions are... Did we not go far enough to reach the Alan Garton Memorial Trail? Is the summit we finally saw (where the power towers were planted all the way up) the South Summit? We didn't see any obvious "magnificent" viewpoint... and why are there so many trails on this small mountain??? lol Thank for the answers in advance!

My map doesn't have trail names, but I know where skid trail is. Did you turn right to get onto handlogger's trail? If so you might have been better off staying left. That's the way I went up when I did it in the summer and it takes you up to north and south peaks. There are viewpoints along the trail that goes around north peak, and the big viewpoint is at the towers on south peak.

We did turn right on Skid Trail at a junction where there is a sign on the left (or straight) said "Skid Trail/South Summit" (or something close to that...). We turned right, and meet the service road, followed the road for a short distance, and found the Handloggers' Trail (aka the struggling for us... haha)

You took the tourist route. [] I'm sure it was very nice up there in the peace and quiet. I think I'll wait for the snow to melt somewhat, though, before going back myself.

And rereading my earlier post, I can see I got north and south mixed up. Dang ocean is on the wrong side! (I'm from back east.)

Thanks for the info, Anemone! It was our first time, so guess I was considered as a tourist. :P And yes, according to the book, the North Summit is the one with views, the South one is covered with trees. So... what is the local's route? Do you continue on the Skid Trail/South Summit trail? I was just trying to follow the book's guide. I'll go there in the summer to find out where I went wrong...