BC Hike & Canoe August 2022

Top Choices: Gwillim lakes (Valhalla) & Cathedral Lakes. Good Choices: Manning Park in bloom and Kokanee Glacier Park

We got off to a late start and were too late for our ferry reservation out of Duke Point, but the ferry wasn't full, so we got on anyways. The crossing and drive through North Vancouver was smooth sailing. At one point, traffic on Hwy #1 came to a complete stop, however we arrived in Hope in good time. We had shwarma sandwiches at Sharon's Deli before pushing onto Coldstream campground for the night. We began our training for the hiking trip with a 9km walk along the Lightning lakes. A fair sized tree fell over during our walk. We stopped in at the Lightning Lake campground and took hot showers before heading back to Coldstream. The highway was nearby but traffic was light and did not disturb.

We drove up to the Three Brothers trail head at 800m and put the backpacks on for the undulating 12km hike into Kicking Horse Camp on the Heather Trail. The flowers were out, later than most years due to the late snow-pack. We were entertained by a couple of South African women and surprised by the late arrival of a park ranger who camped out for 2 nights, to do some trail work.

We left the tent up and made a day hike to Nicomen Lake. We enjoyed the flowers and views of the distant Cascades but could have done without the hot descent and the return ascent from Nicomen lake. Our visit coincided with the Fat Dog race and we cheered on a number of runners competing in various distance between 50 and 120 miles. We on the other hand were just starting our walking season and felt that our 20km hike was enough for us.

Our exit from Manning Park was a transition day; we hiked out the 12km and drove down the hill to near the Manning Park Resort to good cell phone reception. We booked transport for Cathedral Lakes, drove into the Lightning Lakes campground and had showers, filled up with potable water and hit the highway. Our first stop was Princeton for burgers at the Copper Pit, followed by food shopping at Save-On-Foods. We continued to the Ashnola river and camped at the Horseshoe Canyon rec site. It was 33C and the rocks radiated more heat. We sat in the shade waiting for the sun to go over the hills. There were no other campers but we had two visitors; a guy collected the camping fee and then a conservation officer who reminded us of the recently imposed campfire ban.

We left the Horseshoe Canyon rec site and drove the short distance to the Cathedral Lakes Lodge base. We had a booking for the 2:00pm shuttle (the early one was sold out) but we hoped that there would be space on the first daily departure. There was room for us on the 9:00am shuttle and we joined 4 other campers in an old Chevy 4WD. We brought folding chairs and beer with us on this glamping trip. I had made a rookie mistake by putting one of the beer cans in my pack. The thin aluminum can ruptured and although I caught on quickly, my clothes bags got a good beer soaking and my pillow (clothes bag) provided a brewery smell for a few days onward.

On arrival, we walked over to the nearby near empty BC Parks campground and set up camp at a primo lakeside property. Tony the contract ranger was enthusiastic and recommended an afternoon hike around Scout Mountain. He also looked at our planned hikes for the next two days and suggested a minor change. It was a warm afternoon, the 10km hike was pleasant. We could see the fire smoke from the Keremeos Creek fire on the horizon. We were hot by the time we got back to camp, so jumped into the lake at 2070m. It was hugely refreshing and we made a note to repeat this after hiking days.

Meanwhile, I had left some food behind in a provided food storage bin (wire mesh - no bears in the upper parts of the park) and when we got back, a squirrel had got in and ripped into the peanuts.

Goats started walking through the campground around 6:00 am. We had a fairly early start to our day (7:00am) and by 8:30 a.m., we had spotted 24 goats (campground, a group at the west end of Glacier lake, and another group above Glacier lake). Rain was in the forecast and as we reached Cathedral Rim, clouds obscured our views of distant peaks (Baker & Rainier). The rim provides easy, wide open hiking with the North Cascades nearby. We did part of an unofficial trail to the "Cleft", before descending on the Ladyslipper trail.

When it started to rain, we took cover under an overhanging boulder and ate lunch, allowing the showers to pass. We walked by Ladyslipper and Pyramid lakes back to camp. We walked 15km with 700m of ascent. It was a little cooler than the previous day, but that didn't stop us from taking the plunge into the lake. A few more campers had drifted into the campground that day.

We had a longer day ahead of us and we hit the trail by 6:45am. We walked by the attractive Lake of the Woods campground where a few goats were wandering around while the campers slept. The trail dropped down to Lakeview Creek and we made our way up on Goat lake trail, arriving at Goat lake well before 9:00am. Initially, the route up to the Boxcar was a little obscure and squishy but it soon settled down and we were above treeline by 9:30 am. We headed up the prominence known as the Boxcar for some great views of surrounding peaks. We dropped back down to a ridge and then towards Mt Lakeview. The route was open and reminded us of walking in the UK. We ran into "Bernie from Montreal" (he was out on a 2 week back-packing trip) near the summit. We met another hiker at the high point.

We stopped to fill up our water bottles at a beautiful creek on the way down. The trail dropped down to Lakeview Creek and by the time we had to ascend to Pyramid lake, our legs were feeling heavy. Our splendid hike was 19km with 1050m of ascent. The end of the day swim in the lake reinvigorated us. A few more campers had arrived and our section of the back-country campground was fully occupied.

In backpacker vernacular, it was a "zero day" (no hiking) but we covered some distance (400km) by vehicles.

It all started with the morning goat show at the campground, with the goats sniffing around looking for human urine (salt and minerals). It was a busier shuttle going down (8 in our vehicle) to base. We all off-loaded and went our separate directions. We stopped at the Horseshoe Canyon rec site and had a bucket shower before continuing onto Keremeos. We stopped in at the Benja Thai restaurant in Keremeos for tasty pad Thai lunches. That was followed by a stop at the Lakeside Laundry on the east side Osoyoos. We noted that we could have been more efficient and had lunch at the neighbouring Osoyoos Pho restaurant while waiting for the washing.

By 1:00 pm, we still had some driving to do and we pulled into Steve's No Frills supermarket (excellent choice) at 3:50pm. We must have spent an hour in the air-conditioning, before setting out for Slocan. A huge thundercloud was moving in near Slocan and we drove into the Little Slocan rec site fully expecting to sit in the car for an hour to wait for the rain to finish. However, after a short burst of rain, a terrific thunderstorm didn't hit till 9:00pm, after we had finished dinner and mostly prepared for the next day's hike. It was a huge lightening show and the following day, we heard from campers returning from the Gwillim lakes, that it was a humdinger up there.

We knew that it was going to be a warm day and we were out of the rec site well before 8:00am. The drive up to the Gwillim lakes trail head took a little longer than expected. I had read that Parks BC was considering moving the parking lot down to avoid a nasty road section and when we came across a couple of cars parked, we stopped there and started to hike up the road. The road didn't seem so bad, so we opted to go back for the car and drive the last 2km. Of course, the road condition deteriorated rapidly and we crawled up. We aborted driving, as we figured walking would be faster, then the conditions improved but we carried on walking to a larger parking lot with vehicles covered in chicken wire (a porcupine deterrent). So, I walked back to retrieve the car so we could protect it from marauding rodents. By the time that was all done, it was 10:30 am. We didn't play that well. Fortunately , it didn't turn out to be all that hot of a walk-in.

The trail had a few steep sections, we passed a group of women also hiking in. The Drinnon Pass area is beautiful but black, storm clouds rolled in and we developed thunderstorm anxiety. We pressed on, up the last steep bit to take a campsite by the lake (it turned out to be one of the nicest on offer). We erected the tent with haste, but the storm passed just north of us. It had taken us under 3 hours to ascend 600m over 6km of trail.

Gwillim lakes campground has a beautiful setting and we wandered the area in the afternoon. The bugs were bad. We had brought a can of high-test bug spray and we sprayed ourselves; that did the trick. I had left a small ziploc bag with peanuts in the top pocket of my pack. While we were enjoying lunch at the cooking area, a ground squirrel chewed its way into the pocket making the zipper inoperable. After some delicate surgery and sewing, we made the pocket functional again. Pro Tip: don't leave food in unattended backpacks!

We headed up a well defined trail to a marvelous look-out north west of the Gwillim lakes. It was only 8:30am, and we wondered what was next, so we decided to traverse the slopes north of the lakes and drop down to an upper lake below Lucifer Peak. We somehow managed to find a route through the cliffs and steep slopes to the upper tarn. We hadn't brought any food with us, and we opted to descend back to the tent for lunch. It did give us time to wander in the vicinity of the camp and go for another swim. The camp filled through the day (Saturday) and the bugs also filled the air at dinner time. We had a spectacular sunset.

The bugs encouraged us to move quickly in the morning and we dropped the tent and made good time back to the car. The chicken wire came off and we drove part way down the road and had a bucket shower in the woods part-way to Little Slocan rec site. It was a warm afternoon, but we managed to reorganize our stuff in the car, wash some clothes and go for a swim in Little Slocan lake.

The access road to Gimii Spire was close to the rec site and there were a half dozen vehicles in the parking lot when we arrived. As we were day-tripping, it wasn't necessary to chicken wire the car. We followed the good trail to the base of the spire. We took in the views, watched a couple of climbers on the tower, I went part way along the Mulvey lake lookout trail, but we didn't have heaps of time, so we headed down for the drive into Nelson for water, beer, food and fuel. Nelson was like stepping into an inferno with temperatures above 35C and we did not linger. We drove up on a good gravel road to Gibson lake. We had dinner by the lake and then camped in a small clearing below the trail-head parking with a few other people. We chicken-wired the car before going to bed.

We packed up and re-secured the car with chicken wire and we followed the manicured trail up. It was easy going through long switchbacks to Kokanee Lake where we were greeted by a couple of habituated marmots in a feeding frenzy. We made our way above the lake through talus slopes to a beautiful meadow and then past a series of lakes to the campground at Kaslo lake. We pitched the tent and lunched in the shelter that was starting to warm up. We walked up to the Slocan Chief cabin in the 25C temperatures. Getting up to the Kokanee glacier would have required a further couple of hours. We felt a little let down after Valhalla park and the Kokanee glacier seemed well hidden; we can see more glacier from our driveway in Courtenay than standing in the middle of Kokanee Glacier park.

The swim in Kaslo lake, a little under 2,000m, was refreshing. We took refuge from the bugs in the cook shelter where we made dinner. The shelter is a good place to socialize but it got pretty warm in there (my little thermometer registered 30C) .

There were a few other early risers in the kitchen shelter having breakfast, but they were heading for a day on the glacier, and we were heading for the Sapphire lakes area. We walked past the large new chalet on Kaslo lake (campers & day visitors are not welcome inside). It is an impressive build and we later learned that it was largely funded by private donors. We had a moderate climb on the Sapphire lakes trail to the base of Mt Giegrich and then up the southern flank of Giegriech to the summit. We had good views in all directions and we could pick out many the different ranges of Southern BC. Local fires were increasing and we could see a wall of fire smoke rising up the Kaslo creek valley.

We descended to the Sapphire lakes where Sheila went for the highest and coldest swim of the trip at 2250m. We made our way down a good, informal trail on Commission Creek, sometimes through talus back to the campground. We had a couple of swims in Kaslo lake that afternoon and chatted in the kitchen shelter until it got too warm and busy. The full-on bug spray method worked well thereafter. Fire smoke reached Kaslo lake that evening and we wondered if we may have reached the end of the road for clear skies.

We packed up the tent, headed to the kitchen shelter for relief from the bugs and we were out on the trail by 7:00am. There were a number of pikas on the talus slopes above Kokanee lake. We encountered a steady flow of dayhikers as we approached the car park. We drove down to Kokanee Creek campground to top up our drinking water and went for quick showers. The valley had moderate fire smoke and we consulted forecasts and figured that our time was up with clear air and we shifted to Plan B. There were very few fires further north, so we made an on-line booking for a canoe rental at Murtle lake (Wells Gray Park). Kaslo was a perfect re-supply town with laundromat, grocery, liquor stores and a restaurant all within 50-100 metres of one another.

We had originally planned to go to the north end of Kootenay lake and hike Monica Meadows, Jumbo Pass and Macbeth Icefield but we wanted to see those places without fire smoke, so we'll re visit the area another time. We drove west over the hill to New Denver and stopped at the original Valahalla sports store for paddle gloves and a replacement headlamp. We carried on, through Nakusp, to the ferry across Upper Arrow lake. It was quite hazy with fire smoke which reinforced our decision to flee to the north. We stopped at Blanket Creek Provincial Park (south of Revelstoke), where there were a number of available sites. After a dinner of broccoli & beef tenderloin stir-fry, we fed mosquitoes when we jumped into small lagoon for a quick, cold swim. We had hot showers and turned in for the night.