A Road Trip through BC’s Interior

November 29, 2025November 20, 2025 / Maria / Leave a comment

Similar to my trip to Berg Lake, Seth and I took a whole week off when we visited South Chilcotin Provincial Park, with our backpacking trip to Taylor Creek only being one part of the trip. After we finished the hike, we returned to Lillooet and then had two days of road tripping to get from Lillooet to Keremeos, where I’d be meeting Carolyn to hike in Cathedral Provincial Park. We spent the first night at Seton Dam Campsite outside Lillooet. It’s a first-come-first-serve campground that’s managed by BC Hydro. It was surprisingly busy considering it was a Tuesday night, but it’s a nice site.

We made hash browns and eggs at the campsite and then packed up to go adventuring for the day. Our first stop was just up the road to do the Seton Lake Viewpoint Trail. It’s a short trail, less than 1km round trip, that goes up to a viewpoint that overlooks the road and Seton Lake. It’s weirdly popular on instagram because there’s an cool curve on Duffey Lake Road that people like to photograph. Personally, I don’t really get the attraction, but we were close to it, and it’s so short, I figured, why not. Maybe I’m wrong though because Sadie seemed really into it! She seemed to like watching all the cars zoom by, so we hung around for a bit, heading back to the car before it got too hot.

Our next stop was to visit the lake itself. I’d been to Lillooet once before in the winter, but I didn’t stop at the lake. It’s a dammed lake and BC Hydro has developed it into a really nice rec site. You can paddle on the lake, but it does appear to get quite windy, even early in the day. Lillooet was forecasting to reach temperatures of 35 degrees celsius, so our plan was to enjoy a nice little swim. It was early in the day and we had the beach mostly to ourselves. We didn’t find the water too cold, even though it was early. We ended up having the nicest swim and lounged on the beach for a while before continuing on to our next destination for the day.

I have this book at home called “125 hot spots in British Columbia”. I had a look at it before the trip and was intrigued by Marble Canyon Provincial Park. It wasn’t on the most direct route, but it was close enough to Lillooet, that I decided it was a worthy detour, especially since I was travelling with Seth (a biologist). It ended up being the highlight of our two day road trip, so I’m glad we added it to the itinerary.

Marble Canyon Provincial Park is located north of Lillooet on Highway 99. It’s a series of lakes and has a frountcountry campground. But what really makes this park popular is what’s below the surface of the lakes. Pavilion Lake is home to microbialites, a type of sedimentary deposit that bands together overtime to create freshwater stromatolites. These are underwater structures that solidify into formations, similar to stalagmites, and it’s one of the few places in the world where you can find them. There are best viewed using scuba diving equipment, but it is possible to see them with a snorkel.

Seth remembered learning about the lake in university and was excited about the prospect of visiting. However, our first stop was to Crown Lake, which is where the campground and day use area are located. There’s a few picnic tables located down by the beach, so we cooked up some pesto pasta for lunch while taking turns swimming in the lake. It’s a small lake, with a waterfall located on the opposite shore. I’d planned to swim over there to see it, but while we were eating, we noticed a black bear hanging out on the other side eating berries, so I scrapped that plan.

After lunch, we drove back to Pavilion Lake to look for stromatolites. There’s a few pull outs along the road where you can walk down to the water. We found a nice spot and did a little bit of snorkeling. Regardless of whether we saw stromatolites or not, it was a nice place to snorkel. We took turns swimming while someone hung out with Sadie on the shore. We didn’t see any large stromatolites and we’re honestly not sure if we saw them at all, but Seth thinks we were still able to see the deposits along the rocks in the area, even if they weren’t large structures. We’re not scuba divers, so we were happy with the experience regardless.

After we’d had our fill of the lake, we continued towards Cache Creek, stopping at Horsting’s Farm Market along the way. It’s a huge market with fresh lemonade, ice cream, an apple orchard, and lots of treats. We had the fresh lemonade, which was delicious, as well as a few snacks. I learned after the fact that Cache Creek is also home to the famous Desert Hills Taco Stand. We did see it, and now regret not stopping for it, so hopefully next time!

We drove Highway 97C to Merritt, which I’d never driven before, and discovered the existence of a huge copper mine off the highway. If you’ve ever driven this highway, you’ll know what I’m talking about it. It basically looks like a giant salt flat. It’s cool to see, but it was so unexpected that it really took us by surprise. With the introduction of tariffs this year, I’ve been learning more about our exports and found it interesting to learn that almost half of Canada’s copper is produced in BC and that the mine we passed, Highland Valley, is actually the largest copper mine in Canada.

Our final stop for the night was Lundbom Lake Rec Site, located just outside of Merritt. There’s a bunch of rec sites in the area and they’re all first-come-first-serve, but have full time BC Parks Staff on site. It’s a couple kilometres of driving on gravel road to access the site, but it’s well maintained. Bring cash to pay for your site if you visit. It’s quite a nice site and has more than 100 campsites, but apparently it fills up quickly on the weekends, so plan accordingly. The highlight for me was sitting on the dock and watching the sun set over the lake.

On the last day of our road trip, we drove from Lundbom to Cathedral Provincial Park. It’s not a long drive, so we took our time with lots of stops. We made a quick visit to Kentucky-Alleyne Provincial Park, which is a very popular frontcountry site. Honestly, I thought Lundbom was nicer, but it’s cool having 2 lakes back to back at Kentucky-Alleyne. We also stopped at Allison Lake, which was an interesting lake. It’s a sandy beach lake, but the sand is very silty, almost like clay, so you sink down into it and it stirs up a lot of sediment with every step. I kind of got the feeling that Allison Lake used to be a lot nicer. The water level of the lake has clearly receded a lot in recent years, and it had the vibe of a washed up beach town. It was nice, but not super memorable.

We had lunch in Princeton and then spent a few hours exploring some of the attractions. It was disappointing to discover that very few small towns have any dog friendly restaurants. We had a similar experience in both Lillooet and Princeton – there were restaurants with patios, but none of them were dog friendly, so it was a struggle with Sadie. We ended up eating at a taco restaurant that had a table and some chairs outside.

In the afternoon, we did a short walk along the Kettle Valley Rail Trail, which is an iconic trail that extends hundreds of kilometres along the old railway track. This section of trail has an old tunnel and you used to be able to hike to the Red Ochre Bluffs, but the bridge was washed out in 2021 and it hasn’t been replaced yet. It was cool to visit the tunnel, but it is a little eerie. We also walked over to Swan Lake Wildlife Refuge, which is a protected area that’s supposed to be good for birdwatching, but it’s pretty underwhelming in the middle of a hot day (unsurprisingly).

From there, our only plan was to drive to the trailhead for Cathedral, but I was really keen to take a river bath before starting my next hike, since we’d been camping for 5 nights at this point. This trip was a bit different than my normal summer trips in that I didn’t book any campsites and we planned to just hit up first-come-first-serve campgrounds along the way. So our plan was pretty fluid. This is easy to do during the weekdays, but I still recommend booking campsites where possible on the weekends, or planning to arrive early to campgrounds. Some areas of the province have more rec site options than others and the area around Princeton had tons of options! So if you’re ever looking to do some leisurely camping, Highway 3 between Princeton and Keremeos is a great location.

All this is to say that I decided to target Bromley Rock Provincial Park as a good location for my river bath. It’s located right off the highway outside of Princeton and it has a frontcountry campground and a day use area. It’s a really nice river pool for swimming and it was surprisingly busy for a Thursday afternoon. If you go to the far end of the parking lot where the outhouses are, you can walk down another trail towards the river (away from the pool). It’s not as nice for swimming, but it’s more private, though people do fish along the river. We found a more secluded spot and took the opportunity to use my pocket shower to clean up a bit. Smelling much better than before, we continued on to Keremeos to pick up some Thai food for supper.

The final part of our route was to take Ashnola Road down to the Cathedral Park entrance. Cathedral is a remote park that is most well known for the Rim Trail. It’s an alpine, desert-like environment filled with lots of mountain goats and breathtaking stone structures and monuments. When I told the park operator at Lundbom that I was going to Cathedral Park, he described his experience there as “spiritual”. It’s a somewhat popular park, but not crowded because of the limited access. It’s ~15km to hike into the core area of the park, which used to be home to 3 campgrounds and a lodge. In the past, most people would access the park core area by shuttle bus through the lodge, avoiding over 1000m of elevation gain.

Unfortunately, half of the park burned down in 2023 when a forest fire tore up the valley all the way to the lodge before they were able to contain it. The lodge is still standing, but 2 of the campgrounds burned down, along with the bridge that connected the lodge to Ashnola Road. The park re-opened this past summer to hikers, but the lodge is still closed until the bridge is repaired, so your only option is to hike into the park.

Two back-to-back hiking trips did not interest Seth, so he was dropping me in Cathedral and Carolyn would be joining me to hike for 4 more days. There are two rec sites along the road, one is right at the Lakeview Trailhead, and the other is a few kilometres away, called Buckhorn. We camped at Lakeview, but it only has a single walk-in site and no outhouse, so I wouldn’t recommend it. We ended up just camping in the parking lot since we were the only ones there. I didn’t drive down to Buckhorn, but from the map, it looks like a more traditional rec site. It was a bit of an anti-climatic end to our road trip, but we had one night along the river before starting our hike the following day. Stay tuned to hear about my experience in Cathedral Provincial Park!

Berg Lake Trail Backpacking Guide

November 20, 2025 / Maria / 3 Comments

The Berg Lake Trail is one of the most iconic backpacking trails in the Canadian Rockies. It’s been on my bucket list for a long time, but it was closed for 3 years due to flooding that washed out portions of the trail in 2021. It finally re-opened in 2025 and I was super keen to visit the same summer. I spent 6 days hiking along the trail and it was easily the highlight of my summer! I’ve already published a 3-part trail report about my experience, which you can read starting here, but I had a lot of other learnings about the trail that I’d love to share. Reservations for the 2026 season are releasing at 7am on December 2, 2025. so here’s everything you need to know about the Berg Lake Trail!

The Trail

The Berg Lake Trail is a 42km there-and-back trail located in Mount Robson Provincial Park in BC. The trail starts at the parking lot north of the visitor centre and continues for 21km to the beach at the back of Berg Lake. There are 7 campgrounds in the park, with the most popular being the Berg Lake Campground.

There are a few options for how to hike this trail. If you’re not a backpacker, it is possible to day hike the entire thing, but you should give serious consideration to your fitness ability and previous hiking experience if you decide to attempt it. While the trail itself is not technical, it is a considerable distance and it covers almost 1000m in elevation gain. Approximately 500m of the gain is done in a 3km span, so it is a challenging and tiring hike. If you are not used to hiking long distance or you don’t have experience hiking in the mountains with significant elevation gain, I strongly recommend against attempting this as a day hike. If you do plan to day hike, I recommend starting before sunrise to give yourself lots of time, or consider biking as far as Kinney Lake. I found that the day hikers were primarily tourists who either don’t camp, or weren’t aware of the lead time required to secure permits.

If you are able to backpack it, I think this is a more enjoyable way to experience the trail. I did the trail over 5 nights, splitting the trail into 2 parts on the way up and down, and then camping 3 nights at Berg Lake to do day hikes. If you have more time to spend in the park, there’s lots to explore, but you can also enjoy this trail over a shorter period. I’d recommend a minimum of 2 nights. Most likely your itinerary will be limited by what permits you are able to obtain.

A photo of a female backpacker on a mountain overlooking Berg Lake and Mount Robson on a sunny day, on the Berg Lake Trail in Mount Robson Provincial Park in BC.

Time of Year

The best time of year to visit the Berg Lake Trail is pretty straight-forward. Mount Robson is the tallest mountain in the Canadian Rockies, so the trail is covered in snow for most of the year, limiting the core hiking season from late-June to mid-to-late September. You can visit year round, but you must be prepared for winter conditions and be aware of avalanche risk, which I won’t be discussing in this post.

I think there is slightly less traffic in September, as it gets cold quickly in the Rockies, but otherwise, avoiding the crowds isn’t really possible. If you go in late-June, be aware that there may still be snow on some of the trails; and if you go later in the summer, it’s more likely that your trip might be impacted by wildfires. Mid-to-late July might be the sweet spot, but I visited during the first week of August and lucked into great conditions. The mountains are always susceptible to storms, so be prepared for that.

Getting There

I think it may be possible to take a bus to Mount Robson Provincial Park from either Jasper or Kamloops in the summer, but it’s not a common route and I don’t know how reliably buses run. Similar to other popular Canadian parks, the easiest way to access is by driving. The park is located on Highway 16, which is a 5 hour drive from Edmonton, 7 hours from Calgary, and 7.5 hours from Vancouver (all without breaks). It’s not an easy park to access, but I promise it is worth your time. There is a very large parking lot at the trailhead, which is relatively secure, but never leave valuables in your vehicle.

https://flic.kr/p/2rs1WuZ

Permits

Without a doubt, getting permits will be the hardest part of your trip to Berg Lake. This is a world-renowned hiking trail and attracts crowds of visitors every year. If you don’t get camping permits, then day hiking may be your only option to visit the park. If you want to try and get camping permits, then it’s important to mark your calendar with the permit release date. The permit release date for 2026 is Dec. 2, 2025. Unlike other BC parks, the permits for the Berg Lake Trail are released all on one day. The date is usually announced on the Mount Robson Provincial Park page, as well as on BC Park’s instagram. They usually don’t give a lot of notice (1-2 weeks), so you should be prepared to check in regularly at the end of the year until it is announced. The easiest way is to follow their social media.

Once released, you will have to book your permits on camping.bcparks.ca. Unlike Parks Canada, there is no random queue generator and you will have to login to your account, so there is no benefit to using multiple devices to try and get higher up the queue. However, if you have multiple people going on the trip, it is advantageous if you all login to your respective accounts to try for reservations (effectively giving you multiple chances to get your desired itinerary). I recommend creating an account in advance of release day (when the website will likely be slow due to traffic) and logging in before the sites release.

Once booking opens, select “backcountry reservations” and search for your start date. You will be forced to build your itinerary day by day, which can be a little frustrating. Once you get a date in your cart, you don’t need to worry about losing it, but it will become more challenging as the dates book up to continue building the itinerary. For example, by the time you get Whitehorn in your cart for your first night, Berg Lake may no longer be available for your second night. People are constantly adding and changing dates and campsites in the rush to get their itinerary, especially if you have multiple people from the same party trying to make 1 booking. So the trick is to frequently refresh. Just because you don’t see Berg Lake available right away, doesn’t mean it won’t show up if you keep refreshing.

My recommendation for booking a longer itinerary is to take what you can get and make changes later. If Berg Lake is not available, book Marmot or Rearguard and move on to the next day before those dates book up too. Once you have secured a booking for each of the dates in your itinerary, go back and look for cancellations. Keep refreshing until you see one, and then make a change to your booking to add it. This does cost more money as the change fee is $6, but I was able to get bookings for Berg Lake after the fact using this hack. When I made my first booking, I had 3 nights split between Marmot and Robson Pass campsites. I was able to change my reservation from Robson Pass to Berg Lake within the hour from people dropping sites, and I was able to get a cancellation later in the season and change my booking from Marmot to Berg Lake. So in the end, my starting itinerary (which had no nights at Berg Lake) ended up with 3 nights. You can track cancellations on Schnerp, which will notify you when a site opens up.

A female hiker walks in front of an epic glacier icefield at the top of Snowbird Pass in Mount Robson Provincial Park, off the Berg Lake Trail, in BC.

Campsites

There are 7 backcountry campsites in the park, so there are lots of options for where to stay and opportunities to customize your trip. The first 3 campsites are located along the trail to the lake, while the last 4 campsites are all located within 3.5km of one another around the lake. I’ll discuss itineraries below, but here’s an overview of the 7 campsites along the trail. All campsites include outhouses and bear lockers and as discussed above, require valid permits for the duration of your visit.

Kinney Lake – This is the first campground, located right on Kinney Lake at the 7km trail marker. It has 18 tent sites and a large open-air shelter. It’s a beautiful campground with several lakefront tent pads and a lovely view from the shelter. The trail to Kinney Lake is a gentle uphill, so this campsite is often overlooked because it is less than halfway to Berg Lake. But it’s a great option if you have a late start on your first day, as well as for families or those who want to experience Mount Robson’s backcountry, but have concerns about the strenuous hike up to Berg Lake. There are bike racks located at the back of Kinney Lake for those who bike up.

Whitehorn – This campground is located along the Robson River at the 11km trail marker. It has 22 tent sites and a large open-air shelter. This campground is ideal if you’re looking to split the hike to Berg Lake in half. It splits the elevation gain in half as well, though day 2 is slightly more strenuous. Some of the tent pads are along the river, while others are in the woods, but there’s a beautiful view of the valley and the backside of Mount Robson from the campground.

Emperor Falls – This campground is located just past the viewpoint for Emperor Falls at the 16km trail marker. It has 9 tent sites and some picnic tables, but it does not have a shelter. While the tent pads are located right next to the river, making for a nice view, the main downside to this campsite is that it’s located at the top of all of the elevation gain, so it leaves you with a big day if you’re hiking from the parking lot. I would probably avoid it on the way up, but it’s a good option to shorten your hike on the last day.

Marmot – This is the first of the upper campgrounds, any of which can be used as a base for day hikes. It’s located at the foot of Berg Lake at the 19km trail marker. It has 7 tent sites and a recently constructed semi-enclosed shelter (this one has windows, unlike the shelters at Kinney Lake and Whitehorn). Most of the tent pads are located in the woods, but 1-2 have a direct view of Mount Robson. While the view from Marmot is not quite as good as from Berg Lake, it is located right on the lake and would be my first choice if I couldn’t get a site at the Berg Lake Campground. Some people really like this campground because of how small it is, so you can avoid the crowds.

Berg Lake – This is the most popular campground on the trail. If you can score a permit for this campground, do not hesitate to book it. It’s located at the head of Berg Lake at the 21km trail marker. It has 26 tent sites and a fully enclosed cooking shelter with a large porch and view of the Berg Glacier. This is the most beautiful campsite on the trail, but it will be very busy as a result. Most of the tent sites are in the woods, though there is one premium tent pad with a lake view. A few of the sites at the back of the campground also have mountain views.

Rearguard – This campsite is located just past the Berg Lake Campground at the 22km trail marker. It has 6 tent sites and is a good option if you weren’t able to get a campsite at Berg Lake. It’s not located on the lake, but it does have nice views of Mount Robson and the river delta. The main downside is that there is no shelter, so if it rained, I’d prefer to be at Marmot.

Robson Pass – This is the last campsite in the park, located at the 23km trail marker. It has 15 tent sites. It’s located a little bit further away, but it can still be a great base if you’re planning to do some day hikes. You can access Snowbird Pass from this campsite, as well as you can hike up the backside of the Mumm Basin Trail – although be aware that this trail no longer connects to the Toboggan Falls trail due to a rockslide in recent years – but I’ve heard it still has a great view. Similar to Rearguard, the main downside of this campsite is that it doesn’t have a shelter.

Robson Hut – Another option to be aware of in the future is that the ACC is currently constructing a brand new mountain hut at Robson Pass, which should be open for the 2026 season. You will be able to book this hut through the ACC and it will be the swankiest accommodation available in the park. Please note that this is separate from the BC Parks booking system and it is not an open hut that you can visit. A booking will be required to use the hut.

Robson Meadows – Just to cover my bases, I want to mention that there is a frontcountry campground located off the highway near the visitor centre, which is a great option for camping the night before or after your backpacking trip.

A photo of Mount Robson on a sunny day with the Robson River in and trees in the foreground and the mountains and glacier in the background, on the Berg Lake Trail in Mount Robson Provincial Park, BC.

Itineraries

I’ll keep this fairly simple. It’s not easy to get permits, so it’s really a take what you can get scenario, but there are a few strategies you can employ.

Strategy 1: Hike all the way to Berg Lake in a day. The idea with this strategy is that you book as many nights as you want at the lake, prioritizing day hikes from the lake. The benefit is that you can immediately concentrate on getting bookings for Berg Lake before they fill up and maximize your time at the lake. The downside is that you need to be prepared to do the full 21km in a day, which is challenging, but allows you to spend more time at the lake if time is limited.

Strategy 2: Break up your hike to Berg Lake into 2 days, staying at one of the middle campgrounds on the way up, but planning to hike all the way back to the parking lot in a single day. Again, book as many nights as you want at Berg Lake after you arrive. This makes your hike in easier than strategy 1, but still gives you extra time at the lake, as the hike down is much easier than the hike up.

Strategy 3: Break up your hike to Berg Lake into 2 days on both the way up and down. If you have more time available, you can still book multiple nights at Berg Lake in the middle to do day hikes, but the benefit is it gives you a more relaxed hiking timeline, especially if you are worried about the challenging terrain.

Personally, I would only do strategy 1 if I only had 1 night. I used strategy 3 for my visit because I had lots of time, but I would have been comfortable with strategy 2 as well. It is more manageable to do the hike down in a single day. Here’s a couple of options based on the number of nights you have. (D=day, N=night)

Number of Nights	First Choice Campground	Alternate Campgrounds
2 days, 1 night (strategy 1)	D1: Hike to Berg Lake D2: Hike out	Marmot, Rearguard
3 days, 2 nights (strategy 1)	D1: Hike to Berg Lake D2: Day hike, stay at Berg Lake D3: Hike out	Marmot, Rearguard
3 days, 2 nights (strategy 2)	D1: Hike to Whitehorn D2: Hike to Berg Lake D3: Hike out	N1: Emperor, Kinney Lake N2: Marmot, Rearguard
4 days, 3 nights (strategy 2)	D1: Hike to Whitehorn D2: Hike to Berg Lake D3: Day hike, stay at Berg Lake D4: Hike out	N1: Kinney Lake N2: Marmot, Rearguard N3: Marmot, Rearguard
4 days, 3 nights (strategy 3)	D1: Hike to Whitehorn D2: Hike to Berg Lake D3: Hike to Whitehorn D4: Hike out	N1: Kinney Lake N2: Marmot, Rearguard N3: Kinney Lake, Emperor
5 days or more	Same as 4 day options, but add multiple nights at Berg Lake

Day Hikes

There are several great options for day hiking along the Berg Lake Trail. I really think it’s worth it to try and fit in at least one day hike if you can get multiple nights at campsites near the lake, but if you can’t, it’s not the end of the world either. Berg Lake is a world-class trail on it’s own and the entire trail is stunning, whether you have time for side quests or not. If you do have time, here’s the trails I would recommend.

Snowbird Pass – In my opinion, this is the best trail in the park. People like to prioritize the Berg Lake Viewpoint on the Toboggan Falls Trail, but this trail is the real gem. It’s a 20-km round trip hike from the Berg Lake Campground, so you definitely need a full day for it, but it features views of both the Robson Glacier and the Reef Icefield. It’s stunning from start to finish. If you don’t have enough time to do the whole trail, it’s still worth it to hike the 3km from Berg Lake to the lake at the base of Robson Glacier. I’ve written an entire blog post about this trail.

Toboggan Falls to Berg Lake Viewpoint – This is the most popular side trail in the park. From the Berg Lake Campsite, you can hike 1km up along the Toboggan Falls trail (enjoying the view of Toboggan Falls along the way), to a junction that takes you another ~1km up to the Berg Lake Viewpoint. From here, you can get the iconic photo of Berg Lake, the delta, and Berg Glacier. You don’t need a full day to do this hike, so if you’re short on time, you can probably knock it out in ~2 hours after you arrive at camp.

Hargreaves Lake Loop – If you have a full day, expand your hike up to the Berg Lake Viewpoint to also include the loop around to Hargreaves Lake via Marmot Campground. It’s approximately 7km round trip and in my opinion, Hargreaves Lake is really underrated. There’s a small viewpoint off the trail that takes you up to a lookout of Hargreaves Glacier and the Marmot branch of the Berg Glacier at the same time. I’d recommend a day if you’re doing the whole loop, but if you’re staying at Marmot, you could easily hike up to Hargreaves Viewpoint and back in an evening, as it’s only ~3km round trip.

Adolphus Lake – I haven’t done this trail myself, but if you have the time, you can hike out from Berg Lake to Robson Pass and then continue on to see Adolphus Lake. It’s ~2.5km from the Berg Lake Campground, but along completely flat ground. It’s a great option if you’re staying at Robson Pass.

Taylor Creek Backpacking Trip: Ridge-o-rama

November 15, 2025November 20, 2025 / Maria / 1 Comment

Following up on my post from last week, our last day in the Taylor Basin area of South Chilcotin was incredibly scenic but really challenging. We could have hiked out the same way we came in along the old forestry road, which would have been an easy hike back to the car, but I really wanted to hike up to Camel Pass and check out the Ridge-o-rama trail. Our campsite was very close to Camel Pass, so I kind of wish we’d gone up the previous evening to explore it a bit more, but we hiked up in the shade of the early morning instead. The whole way up I was like, “the rocks really don’t look like a camel”, but when you get to the actual pass, the angles line up and it is easy to see the camel. But as soon as you continue further, it disappears again, so hang around the pass for a little while to enjoy the views and the camel, it’s a cool feature!

If you continue down the other side of the Pass, you rejoin the High Trail, which connects with Windy Pass on the west and back down to the Gun Creek Trailhead on the east. I think this is the most common way to visit Camel Pass and I know some people do it as a day hike. We didn’t want to do this trail because it would take us too far away from our parked car. Instead, I wanted to attempt the Ridge-o-rama trail. It’s shown on the Chilcotin paper map, but I still had a hard time finding any information about it. It’s primarily a mountain bike trail and bikers only use it to go down.

I did find one trip report online from someone who had backpacked it, and I was happy to see part of the trail included in Stephen Hui’s new 105 Hikes book that came out not long before we did the trail. Stephen calls it the North Cinnabar Trail. Both trip reports note that the trail is very steep and has eroded tracks in it from extensive mountain bike use. I’m pretty sure it was constructed as a mountain bike trail, so I tried not to be too mad about it. We had to hike ~14km, about half of which was along exposed alpine ridges. I love ridge walking and was sad when we skipped the ridge walk the previous day, so I was keen to do this trail, even though I was concerned about the exposure.

It’s only a short hike up from our campsite to Camel Pass, but we had to continue up to the top of another sub-peak beneath Taylor Peak. This was one of my favourite parts of the day because the views were phenomenal! You can see all around the park and all the little meadows, it’s very idyllic. It wasn’t too hot when we reached the sub-peak, which at 2250m, was our highest elevation of the day. After that, we had a nice downhill along the ridge. What really makes ridge hiking challenging is the variation in terrain. You’re constantly going up and down small peaks. They don’t look like too much on the map but repeating it over and over is tiring. It didn’t take long for the temperature to heat up, and Seth was having a rough time.

My biggest word of caution if you’re doing this trail is that it doesn’t have any water sources. Or at least, they were all dried up when we hiked it in August. We would have had enough water for just me and Seth, but there were no creeks for Sadie to drink out of (unlike the previous 2 days), so we had to share our water with her too. Seth and Sadie both drank a lot, and we had to conserve water for our last 3-4km of hiking, which I hate having to do. So, err on the side of caution if you’re doing this trail and bring lots of water. Although, if you take the North Cinnabar branch instead of the Ridge-o-rama East branch, there is a lake down in the basin (more on that later).

We slogged our way along the ridge, taking breaks in the shade when we could find it. I think my other error with this trail was that I tried to do the ridge too quickly. I wanted to get off the ridge before it got really hot in the early afternoon, so I did rush our breaks, which ultimately wasn’t the right decision. We were slow and ended up being out in the heat anyways, so it would have been better to rest more. After ~3.5km, we reached the Cinnabar Basin, which has a branch heading down the valley called the North Cinnabar Trail. Ridge-o-rama eventually connects with that trail further down, but there’s several more kms of ridge walking first.

The basin looks beautiful too and I think it would be a really nice place to wild camp since it has a little lake. It was tempting to hike down to the meadow, which has more shade, but overall, the trail is slightly longer than the ridge. I figured I was unlikely to ever come back to the ridge but might hike up through the basin someday to connect to the High Trail, so I opted to stick with the ridge. Unfortunately, Ridge-o-rama did end up getting more challenging after this point. We got some truly fantastic views looking down towards Carpenter Lake, and I could see on the map that we had one more sub-peak to climb. It was very steep and while it had a fantastic view, it was a rough trail to hike down.

After the sub-peak by camel pass that we’d done in the morning, this was probably my favourite view of the day. If you do the hike in Stephen’s book, this is where the day hike ends, after which you turn around. This hike would be an absolute SLOG to hike up and down, so my recommendation would be to do the whole North Cinnabar loop, either as a long day hike, or as an overnight. We had to take our time coming down the final sub-peak, but there’s a very cool part of the ridge walk after that where it slopes down on either side of the trail. It reminded me a lot of the 3 Brothers Trail in Manning Park.

Overall, this part of the ridge was the most tiring for us. It’s the most exposed section of the trail, so we kept Sadie close and leashed. It was past lunchtime, and we were both really hungry, but we wanted to get off the ridge and into the shade before taking a break, so it felt like the trail dragged on forever. You eventually come to what looks like the end of the ridge and you can see the forest directly below you, but it’s the steepest section of the trail to get from the ridge back to the woods. Plus, it’s where the bike tracks have completely eroded the trail, so it’s super hard to go down it without slipping on the loose rock. It’s a pretty brutal scramble.

Once you finally hit the trees, the trail is still very steep and rutted. I wanted to go a little bit further to get to a flatter part near the junction with North Cinnabar, but Seth was completely done, so we stopped in the shade along the steep slope to eat our lunch. We didn’t see a single person all day, but I would be careful in this section in case there are mountain bikers on the trail. It would be very hard to control your speed coming down a section like this.

The main benefit of getting off the ridge was to take advantage of the shade, but even in the trees, the sun was still exhausting. It was midday, so the sun was directly overhead; the trees were short, meaning we were often exposed either way. The lower we got in elevation, the hotter the air temperature became. We entered back into blueberry country, which pleased Seth and Sadie, but my feet were screaming at me and I desperately wanted to finish the hike so that I didn’t have to be standing anymore. This was when we realized that we were running out of water. We prioritized Sadie getting as much to drink as she wanted, but Seth tends to chug his water, so I had to share mine with both of them and he had to pace himself.

The forest walk was still steep, which is why I say it would be a slog to go up and down this trail in a day. Eventually you reach another junction. The main trail continues down towards Tyaughton Lake, but because our car was parked further up, we had to take the north branch to walk along an FSR. I thought this would probably be easier hiking, but I was worried about it being exposed with the wider road. I was right on both fronts. We had 2.5km on the FSR, followed by 1km on Tyaughton Lake Road, and we only had about 500ml of water left. It was very hot, but fortunately, it was easier walking, and we were able to hike down what was left of the trail pretty quickly. We chugged the last of the water when we got to Tyaughton Lake Road and hiked back to the car from there.

It was such a relief to get back to the car and have more water from our bladder in the trunk. It was quite warm from sitting in the car for 3 days, but water is water! Usually, I do a full outfit change when I get back to the car, but we were sweaty and gross, so we put towels down on the seat and drove straight to the Friberg Rec Site on Tyaughton Lake to go for a swim. We were the only ones there, so I set up my new pocket shower on the shore and had a nice shower with shampoo and soap! I always thought backcountry showers were a bit stupid, but now that I’ve bought one, I do love it.

We felt so much better after our swim and decided to head back to Lillooet for supper. We hit up the brewery again, for pizza this time, and then found a FCFS frontcountry campsite at BC Hydro’s Seton Lake Dam Rec Site for the night. The trip was not without challenges, but it only furthered my love for South Chilcotin Park. I’m sure I’ll be back again!