South Chilcotin Backpacking Trip – Tyaughton Creek

September 18, 2024December 18, 2024 / Maria / 7 Comments

South Chilcotin Mountains Provincial Park has been on my bucket list for a long time. I’m not really sure why, because no one else really seems to know about it, but it’s been recommended to me several times by various Guiders and I’ve been trying to find the time to visit for years. I think the challenge with this park is that it’s not close enough to Vancouver to visit on a long weekend, and the trails are so remote that you need a longer time period for your trip. Other trips have always seemed to take priority.

I’m so glad I finally got the opportunity to visit, because I really loved this park! I wasn’t supposed to go this year at all, I had actually planned to do a 5-day hike in the Kootenays called the Earl Grey Trail (also very unknown). But as you might be able to guess, I had to cancel that trip because of the raging forest fires all over the province. The western trailhead caught fire before my trip and even though I could have done a modified trip, I was weary of the smoke and evacuation notices. Jasper burned down a few days before I was supposed to go, so I ended up canceling the whole trip the day before I was set to leave.

The good thing about Chilcotin being on my bucket list for so long was that I already had several trip itineraries in mind. So after we cancelled the trip to the Kootenays, I was able to pivot pretty easily to this trip. The air quality was still relatively good near Vancouver and there weren’t many fires burning along the coast, so we committed to South Chilcotin and packed the car literally an hour later.

The trip ended up being just me and Brandon. We were supposed to meet another friend from Calgary, but understandably, she didn’t want to drive across BC. Instead, me and Brandon packed up his car and took off towards Squamish around noon. There’s a few ways to get to Chilcotin – you can go via Lillooet (either through Pemberton or Highway 1), or you can go directly on the Hurley Forest Service Road. It’s ~6 hours through Lillooet and there were several fires burning in that area, so we opted for the Hurley.

Since the Hurley is a forestry road rather than a highway, it has a bit of a reputation. It’s a joke/point of pride to be able to say “I survived the Hurley”. I would have been too nervous to do it in my Hyundai Tucson, but Brandon was thrilled to drive in his 4Runner, and it did save us an hour of driving. The Hurley is accessed by driving Pemberton Meadows Road across the river and then branching off. There’s a sign at the start of the road that indicates it’s a 4×4 road, but in reality, most cars can handle this road.

It’s a little rough as you climb up the mountainside, but you can travel on it in pretty much any car if you go slow enough. I definitely would have been fine in my Tucson and we even saw Tesla’s and sports cars up there. The Semaphore Lakes trailhead is located at the top of the mountain. It’s a really popular hike, so a lot of people use the road to access that trail. Once you get to the top, the road is pretty flat and maintained all the way to Gold Bridge. So it was a much less scary experience than I anticipated!

Since this was a last minute trip, we didn’t have any bookings and planned to make use of one of the free BC Rec Sites for our first night. There’s a site right on Tyaughton Lake called Friburg Rec Site. It’s not very nice. It’s basically just a parking lot with room for a few tents, but it was fine for a night. I think it used to be nicer, but the nearby residents complained and they changed the campsite to day use only, leaving only the parking lot for camping now.

There’s a vibrant mountain biking and ski community in Chilcotin that I think is worth explaining in order to really understand the park. Like I said, the park is super remote and difficult to access. If you want to hike into it, you need quite a bit of time. However, hikers aren’t the primary park users and we encountered very few of them during our six days in the park (we only passed 2 solo female hikers and 1 couple). Mountain biking is the most popular sport in the park during the summer and a lot of them take advantage of an outdoor adventure company called Tyax to execute their trip.

Tyax runs a float plane operation out of Tyaughton Lake and flies to 3 different locations in the park (Spruce, Warner, and Lorna Lake). They have a huge lodge located at Tyaughton Lake, as well as 3 luxury wilderness campsites throughout the park. We still didn’t encounter many mountain bikers in the park, but most of the people we met were staying at the Tyax camps. It makes for a much easier trip because then you don’t have to carry a tent, sleeping bag, or pad. Plus, Tyax caters all of your meals, so you pretty much can just travel with a day pack!

In contrast, BC Parks has 7 formal campsites in the park, some of which have outhouses and bear caches, and some of which have nothing. Two of the sites are currently closed, but wilderness camping is allowed in the park. No permits are required to camp in the park and since we also stayed at free campsites, this was essentially a cost-free holiday, aside from the gas to drive there.

We decided to have dinner at Tyax Lodge instead of our campsite. It was a great choice. The lodge is located right on the lake and the restaurant has a huge patio. The food is fantastic, so we were happy to treat ourselves before 6 days of dehydrated food. It was a little hazy from smoke in the area, but there was some rain in the forecast, which we hoped would clear out all the smoke.

The following day we got up early to start our hike into the park. Hikers and mountain bikers can use the float planes to more easily access the core area of the park, but if you want to hike in, there are several entrances. You can enter through Gunn Creek, Taylor Creek, or Tyaughton Creek. Gunn Creek is currently closed from a forest fire a few years ago. Taylor Creek is accessible in any vehicle and Tyaughton Creek is advertised as 4×4 access, but similar to the Hurley, the road is in pretty good condition and I would do it in my Tucson.

We chose Tyaughton Creek because it’s a shorter distance to enter the park from there, but I think Taylor Creek is the more scenic route. There’s a shorter loop you can do from Taylor Creek, so I opted to save that for a future trip with Seth. Our goal on this trip was to get to the core area of the park as quickly as possible, so we chose Tyaughton.

It’s 16km from the Tyaughton Creek Trailhead to the first campsite (WD Camp). The hike starts with 200m of elevation gain, but after that, the net elevation gain is pretty minimal. We thought it would be a pretty easy hike to the campsite, but it’s actually a tiring trail. It’s not technical, but it climbs up and down from creek to creek over and over again, so we still ended up doing 650m of elevation gain over the entire day.

To make matters worse, Brandon seemed to be coming down with a cold and he struggled all day. Fortunately, I was feeling really good, so we pushed through. The trail is mostly in the forest, but it would frequently pop out into meadows where you could get a glimpse of the mountains. There were still some wildflowers in the meadows, but overall they were looking pretty dry.

We started the hike around 11am and got to the campsite shortly after 6pm. We only encountered one person on the trail, a hiker heading back to her car. The campsite was completely empty, but was a really nice site. It has a brand new outhouse and bear cache and a great water source. The site was pretty overgrown and you can tell it doesn’t get used much, but there’s room for several tents throughout the meadow. A family of 3 showed up on mountain bikes just before sunset. It was calling for rain overnight, so we got the tent set up and went to bed early. Continue to Part II.

A Week in the Azores: Sao Miguel East

September 11, 2024September 13, 2024 / Maria / 1 Comment

After two relatively nice days in the Azores (Part I), we got to experience the other side of their Atlantic climate. It was calling for rain on Day 3, and boy did it ever rain! It poured all night and we had a slow start to the morning, waiting for the rain to subside. Eventually we couldn’t wait any longer and we started the drive towards Furnas to try and enjoy the geothermal highlights of the island.

Furnas is in the middle of the island, so it’s not too far a drive from our B&B. We tried for a few viewpoints along the way, but everything was socked in by clouds. As we entered town, the rain became absolutely torrential. Emily had to stop into the pharmacy and even though she was outside for a total of maybe 15 seconds, she got drenched.

One of the big attractions in Furnas is cozido, which is a local dish that’s cooked in a big pot in the hot springs. It’s a combination of meats, vegetables, and greens that are all stewed together and then separated out again and served to you on a plate. In my opinion, it’s basically Azorean Jiggs Dinner (a Newfoundland dish where you boil all your vegetables with salt meat). I really wanted to try it, so we decided to just have lunch right away since it was raining so hard. The only problem… finding somewhere to eat.

If you’re visiting the Azores, I’d definitely recommend making your lunch or dinner reservations in advance as much as possible. This wasn’t really an option for us because we never bought a local sim card and couldn’t make any calls. So even though we purposefully went for lunch at 11:45am (15 minutes before the restaurants open), we couldn’t get in anywhere because they were full from reservations. It was too wet out to spend forever walking around, so we ended up eating in a nearby cafe, which was pretty disappointing.

The rain finally slowed down after lunch and we walked to Jardim de Courela, which is located right in town and has a bunch of natural geothermal attractions. It’s cool to see, but it definitely smells like sulfur! We drove over to the Caldeiras das Furnas to see some more geothermal attractions, which is where the locals actually cook the cozido, so you can see the pots bubbling in the ground. There’s a short hike there to a waterfall, but it was either 10 or 15 euros per person (I can’t remember), and we were too cheap to pay for it. Instead we backtracked and visited some of the viewpoints we missed on the way in, particularly, Pico do Fero, which has a nice view of Lagoa das Furnas.

We improvised for the rest of the day and ended up driving towards the east end of the island to visit Parque Natural da Ribeira dos Caldeiroes. I feel like it would be easy to skip this park, but it was absolutely worth the drive! It’s a gorgeous park that follows the river down the valley with cascading terraces and an old water mill. The trail appears to end at the water mill, but there is a track through the forest that continues if you want to go further. My Gaia app told me there was a waterfall down there, but I wouldn’t recommend it. The trail was very muddy from all the rain and the waterfall is mostly just the river. It was an adventurous walk, but we could have skipped it.

To end the day, we stopped at Cha Gorreana, which is a tea factory near our B&B. It’s surprisingly popular, although it seemed most people were just doing a self guided tour and then hitting up the tasting room. They offer educational tours for free, so we did that and I really enjoyed it. I drink a lot of tea, so it was cool to see how the leaves get manufactured.

Finding somewhere to eat dinner that night proved more of a challenge. May 30, 2024 was Corpus Christi Day, which is a feast day to honour the body of Christ and is a holiday in the Azores. We’d had challenges earlier in the day trying to find a pharmacy and a post office that were open, and it proved almost impossible to find a restaurant at dinner time. All the restaurants in Furnas had been open – I guess because Cozido is so popular – but we had to drive around for ages to find somewhere to eat in the evening. It’s a moving holiday, so definitely pay attention to it if you’re visiting around that time.

Day 4 was our last full day on the island. It rained on and off throughout the day, but our timing was really good and we were always either driving or inside whenever it happened to rain. I wanted to do a hike, so we drove to the southeast part of the island to do the Salto do Preggo waterfall hike in Faial da Terra. The hike is mostly uphill on the way there, but it’s only ~4km round trip, so it’s a nice little hike and only took us 2 hours, including a long break at the waterfall for lunch. The trail is mostly in the forest and the waterfall is quite beautiful, though the water is absolutely freezing!

We had to drive through Furnas again on our way back after the hike, so we decided to make another attempt at cozido and managed to find a restaurant to serve us since it was later in the day (2pm). At first, they told us they didn’t have room for walk-ins, but the restaurant was half empty, so I said we’d wait and they ended up seating us within 5 minutes. I honestly don’t know why they tried to turn us away because it never got any busier. The cozido is an absolutely massive serving, we shared 1 serving and still didn’t finish it, but it was delicious! I’m glad we were able to sample it while on the island since it’s really unique.

We finished the day by reviving some of the trip highlights. We went back to Praia dos Moinhos for another few hours and enjoyed briefly swimming in the rain at one point. We’d debated going to another beach, but figured, why mess with a good thing. Then we finished the trip with another visit to Mare Cheia for more seafood. The waiter was downright insulted when a group came in just before closing and asked him for a tuna steak (“tuna is not fresh! If any restaurant is serving you tuna, they’re feeding you frozen food!”). We commiserated with him and he poured us some shots of the local liqueur before returning to the B&B.

We hung out on the balcony as the sun set and into the night, chatting about whatever and reflecting on what a nice visit it had been to a pretty unique island. Even though the Azores was Emily’s pick for the trip, it was my favourite part too. I’d love to return some day and check out the rest of the islands. I definitely recommend it if you want to try something a bit different!

A Week in the Azores: Sao Miguel West

September 4, 2024September 13, 2024 / Maria / 4 Comments

Continuing on from my blog posts about Portugal, we had a lazy morning in Lisbon and treated ourselves to brunch before starting the second part of our trip. We had ~2 weeks and decided to each pick a location to visit for 1 week. Emily’s choice was the Azores, which is a group of Portuguese islands in the middle of the Atlantic. They seem to be a popular vacation destination among Europeans, but I don’t think the rest of the world has really discovered them yet.

In contrast, the other popular Portuguese island is Madeira, which is located off the coast of Morocco. Me and Seth had an awesome time exploring Madeira in 2012, but the rest of the world has discovered it now and it’s heavily over-visited. That’s not to say the Azores isnt’t a popular destination. We visited in the tail end of shoulder season, so it was still busy without being overly crowded, but we could tell the tourism was about to pick up.

The Azores are made up of several islands, each with unique features to explore. We opted to visit Sao Miguel Island, which has the largest city, Ponta Delgada, and seems to be the hub. It’s a direct flight from Lisbon (2.5 hours) and we arrived around 3pm. If you stay in Ponta Delgada, you might be able to get away without renting a car, but I definitely recommend it. There’s limited transit and the easiest way to explore the island is by car.

We picked up our car and were immediately intimidated by the narrow streets. The highway system is pretty good, but the town streets are extremely narrow, so be prepared to drive slow and stop frequently to let other cars pass. We opted not to stay in Ponta Delgada and had a nice B&B booked in the tiny village of Porto Formoso. The Azores are very hilly, with lots of steep roads. Our B&B was located on one of these roads, but had the most beautiful view of the beach from the balcony (see above)! It’s a gorgeous location and I’m glad we decided to stay there.

We didn’t have too long to settle in before driving to the nearby town of Ribeira Grande to stock up on groceries. We found a nice restaurant near the beach and had dinner while we watched the sunset. It was a beautiful day, but we were quickly distracted by the menu. The Azores is known for its seafood and we intended to take full advantage of that fact! We were advised to always get the special because that is generally the freshest fish. In this case, the special was a spread of 3 grilled fish and vegetables to be shared between 2 people. It was absolutely delicious and we added a plate of limpets as a starter. I’ve only ever had limpets in Madeira (it’s a shellfish) and they were as good as I remembered.

Since the Azores are located smack dab in the middle of the Atlantic, the weather can be pretty variable. The key to a successful trip is to do your best to try and plan around the weather. The island has installed webcams at all the major viewpoints so that you can check the visibility before visiting. We knew our first day was likely to be the best weather of the trip, so we had to decide what to prioritize. I was most excited about Sete Cidades, so we decided to do a road trip to the west side of the island on Day 1.

It was a beautiful blue sky day, but there were some clouds hanging around the Sete Cidades viewpoint, so we decided to hit up some other attractions on the way over. The island isn’t that big (it’s maybe ~2.5 hours to drive lengthwise), and there are frequent pull-outs on the roads for visitors. We stopped at several viewpoints along the drive and had our first proper stop at Ponta da Ferraria.

Ponta da Ferraria is a rocky point on the west end of the island that has a salt water hot spring at low tide. The hot spring naturally flows into the ocean and when the tide is low enough, it turns into a big hot pool. Low tide was around noon, so we arrived at 11am and did a short walk down to the pool. It’s all black volcanic rock in this area and there’s a small inlet where they’ve installed ladders to climb down. It wasn’t busy when we arrived, so I’m glad we went early because when we left at noon, it was very crowded.

This is the only salt water hot spring I’ve ever visited, so it was a cool experience. It’s a little more chaotic because of the waves. The rock naturally acts as a barrier, but the tide still sloshes you around a bit in the pool. But it’s great for temperature control. It’s very hot near the inlet, and cooler as you move out towards the ocean. We soaked for a while and then continued on our adventure for the day.

After some more viewpoints, we stopped into Sete Cidades town for lunch. Since Sete Cidades is one of the main tourist attractions, I thought the town would be a bustling touring trap with lots of shops and restaurants. This was not the case as all. There’s only really 2 restaurants – the one in town is highly rated, but was full – so we opted for the restaurant on the lake, which is scenic, but very poorly rated. Mostly it’s just very busy, so it’s not great service, but it is what it is.

Sete Cidades is essentially a giant crater with a series of lakes inside it and tons of viewpoints around the perimeter. I really wanted to hike around the rim of the crater, but it’s a long hike without 2 cars (~20km), so we opted to sample a little bit of everything in Sao Miguel rather than go all in on one hike. But I still think about this hike, so I might have to go back for it one day.

After lunch, we drove up out of the crater to visit Miradouro da Boca do Inferno. This is probably the most iconic viewpoint on the island, and it was my favourite part of the trip. It’s a short hike to the viewpoint, and you can stop at Lagoa da Canario along the way. As a heads up, none of these lakes are really swimming lakes, so plan to do your swimming at the salt water beaches. The view from the Miradouro is absolutely incredible and we hung out there for a while before continuing our tour.

We visited a few more viewpoints and then drove to Mosteiros for the rest of the day. It’s the most westerly town on the island and we spent time at Mosteiros Beach in the late afternoon. It’s a gorgeous black sand beach and to our surprise, the water was quite warm! It was only ~18-20 degrees while we were in the Azores. We thought it would be a bit chilly, but it’s so humid on the island that we were still sweating every day. Likewise, we thought the ocean would be too cold to swim in, but it was comfortable, you just have to be wary of rip tides at a lot of the beaches, so we stuck to the shallows. We finished the day with another seafood dinner and then returned to our B&B for the evening.

On our second day, it was pretty cloudy in the morning, so we did a short walk to the Porto Formoso waterfall and to check out our local beach – Praia dos Moinhos. There are tons of beaches all over the island, but we were definitely partial to ours, which is one of the better swimming beaches because it doesn’t have a ton of surf. It was totally empty in the morning.

Our next stop was Caldeira Velha, which is a natural hot spring in the middle of the island. This was the one thing we should have booked in advance as there is timed entry to the pools. We paid for entry later in the day and visited Salto do Cabrito, which is a popular waterfall nearby. Everyone parks at the top of the canyon and walks down, without realizing you can drive almost all the way to the waterfall, so that’s a tip if you visit.

After Sete Cidades, the viewpoint at Lagoa do Fogo is probably the next most popular viewpoint. It’s near the hot spring, so we decided to drive up and hope for the best. It was still pretty cloudy when we got there, but the clouds moved around a lot and we caught a glimpse of the lake. It wasn’t ideal conditions, but we were happy with what we saw. I’d recommend hiking down to the lake, which is a short walk, but we didn’t have time before our hot spring entry. We were able to drive up to the viewpoint, but during the summer months, they close the parking lot and you have to take a bus shuttle to visit after June 1st.

The Caldeira was really nice – it’s located under the forest canopy and there’s 3 hot pools cascading into one another, plus one cold pool with a waterfall. It’s great for hot/cold therapy and we switched back and forth between the two, enjoying our hour lounging in the pools.

But our favourite part of the day was returning to Porto Formoso in the afternoon to go to the beach. The clouds continued to hang around Lagoa do Fogo, but it was a gorgeous day along the coast (a common phenomenon on the island). It’s a sandy beach, with a few beachgoers, but overall, it was pretty empty throughout our trip. We spent the rest of the afternoon lying in the sand and swimming in the ocean.

We returned to the B&B and enjoyed a bottle of wine on the balcony before walking to the only restaurant nearby, Mare Cheia. Porto Formoso is tiny, so I definitely would not have gone to this restaurant if it wasn’t a 5 minute walk away, which would have been a real shame because it was the best food we had on the island. We ended up eating there twice!

Once you’re seated, the waiter brings out a platter of raw fish to show you everything fresh that they’re serving for the day. It’s fantastic! So me and Emily each picked a fish and then they grill it fresh for you! We got the limpets again because I’m a little obsessed. It was worth it and these were even better than the other restaurant. It blows my mind that the limpets are like $20, but you get 2 dozen of them! It was a perfect end to some pretty perfect weather. Check back next week (Part II) to hear about some of the less than perfect weather!