One of the early visitors to Yew Lake was Eilif Haxthow, who, along with Eric Ahlberg and other Scandinavians, operated the ski camp at the old Nasmyth mill site on Hollyburn Ridge during the 1924/1925 and 1925/1926 ski seasons. In his Hollyburn journal, Haxthow describes trips he made to “Cypress Lake” to check on his trap lines. (Sometime later the name was changed to Yew Lake.) Haxthow built a small log shelter near the lake. “After that Bill and I have done some trapping by Cypress Lake. We started a little late in the beginning of January to build a small timber cabin amongst the big tree on the north side of Cypress Lake and have a trap line with about 20 traps. The cabin was needed since the trail there was seven miles through difficult terrain. It took a long time to check the traps, so we had to have a place for overnighting. It was not a wholly unmixed blessing to take those trips in the rain and the wet snow, just before we had our little cabin finished.” Haxthow also hiked to the top of Black Mountain as did Hollyburn’s first ranger, Scotty Finlayson. In his memoirs, Scotty noted,” By 1937 I was also assisting the regular West Vancouver Police in uniform at dances at Horseshow Bay on Saturday night. At daylight I would change to hiking clothes and climb over Black Mountain and cross to Hollyburn Ridge for rent collecting from cabin owners. I would usually have a nap in the sun on top of Black Mountain before completing the trip.” Another frequent visitor to the mountain was Hollyburn chronicler, Pollough Pogue. According to some, Black Mountain got its name because of a charcoal-black scar which marred its south-facing slopes, the result of a large forest fire years earlier. The devastation caused by this fire is recorded in photos taken by Gerry Hardman and Jim Graham. Fortunately the fire did not disturb the forests surrounding a group of jewel-like lakes on the Black Mountain plateau. It is these lakes and the stupendous views from Eagle Bluff, Do-nut Bluff and the North Peak that still draw hikers to Black Mountain. The trails on Black Mountain are described in the classic hiking guide, “103 Hikes in Southwestern British Columbia”, by Jack Bryceland and Mary and David Macaree.