Taylor Creek Backpacking Trip: Windy Pass

November 8, 2025November 20, 2025 / Maria / 2 Comments

I took 4 weeks of holidays in August and September this year, so I still have so many trips to write about! I know the fair-weather backpacking season is over now, but I still want to share about the cool trails and adventures I had over the summer. Please indulge me as I continue to write about August well into the Fall season.

If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you may recall that I visited South Chilcotin Provincial Park for the first time last year. It had been on my bucket list for a long time, and I ended up doing an impromptu 6-day hike in the park last August. It’s not a very popular park, but I absolutely loved my time exploring around the core area and it’s quickly become one of my favourites. After 6 days of exploring, I left with 3 more trips on my bucket list than when I started!

Given that this isn’t a crowded park, I thought it was a great option to visit with my husband, Seth, and our dog, Sadie, who doesn’t like other dogs. Seth and I went on holiday in late August this year and decided to do a shorter, 2-night trip around the Taylor Creek area. Technically, most of this trail is outside the park boundary, but it’s still in the same general area with the same kind of terrain. There’s a cut-out in the park where Eldorado Mountain is located (north of Tyaughton Lake, but south of Tyaugton Creek) – it’s called the Taylor Creek Basin, and that’s the area we decided to explore.

Similar to when I visited the park last summer, I spent the first day of my trip driving. It’s ~5 hours from Vancouver to Tyaughton Lake if you don’t hit any traffic, but we spent the better part of 8 hours getting there. The fastest way is to drive north out of North Vancouver to Pemberton and then take the Hurley FSR up to Gold Bridge. The Hurley is all gravel road, so it does slow you down, but was speedy in Brandon’s 4Runner last year. Alternatively, you can take Highway 99 to Lillooet, followed by Carpenter Lake Road. Carpenter Lake Road is also gravel, but in better condition than the Hurley. The last option is to drive to Lillooet via Highway 1 and Highway 12. I think this is probably the least popular option, but on the day we left, there was a major accident on the bridge to North Van, followed by slowdowns on Highway 99. Because I live in Coquitlam, the fastest route was to go via Highway 1, so that’s what we did.

It did seem like a particularly long drive, but I’ve never driven Highway 1 past Lytton, so it was exciting for us to try a new route. It’s a pretty drive and we did most of the route to Lillooet with minimal stops. We had supper at Lillooet Brewery, since it was the only dog-friendly place in town, and it has the Sowilo food truck on site. It was a great choice because the views from the patio are fantastic, and the food truck does delicious vegan bowls. I’d definitely recommend!

But we still had the final part of our journey, which involved driving Bridge River Road onto Carpenter Lake Road. I don’t think this is a popular drive and is a mix of old asphalt and gravel roads, but it should be more popular because it is breathtakingly stunning! It’s way faster to drive on the Hurley, but Carpenter Lake Road drives through a narrow canyon to the dam at the end of Carpenter Lake (see first photo) and I was in awe during the entire drive. Once you pass the dam, you drive along the lakeside for a long time. It’s strange because you expect such a beautiful lake to revolve around recreation, but there’s really nothing happening and no rec sites until you get to the end. We did the drive around sunset, so we had beautiful views of the lake and saw a lot of deer (so watch your speed). We spent the night camping at Mowson Lake Rec Site so that we could get an early start on the trail the following morning.

The biggest challenge we had on this trip was the weather forecast. After a mild summer, with minimal forest fires, we were heading into a heat wave during the last week of August. Seth doesn’t handle the heat very well, so we knew we’d have to focus on early mornings to avoid hiking in the middle of the day. We were up and away to the trailhead before the rest of the Rec Site had woken up in the morning.

Like I said, our plan was to explore around the Taylor Basin area. Seth prefers day hiking to backpacking, so we wanted to camp in the same spot for two nights, doing a day hike on our middle day. Chilcotin is a pretty rustic area. It does have designated campsites in some parts of the park, with outhouses and bear caches, but wild camping is also permitted. There are some areas (like Siwash Meadows) where people wild camp repeatedly, and other areas where people just random camp. There’s an old cabin located just next to Taylor Creek, below Taylor Mountain, where people will often wild camp. The cabin itself is completely dilapidated, so you can’t camp in it, but it’s a nice area. Our plan was to camp for 2 nights next to the cabin, or potentially wild camp somewhere in the alpine nearby.

We decided to park on Tyaughton Lake Road and do a loop trail to the cabin and back. There’s a road junction near North Cinnabar Creek and that’s where we parked the car. The first part of our day was hiking up another gravel road that eventually transitioned to trail. I think this was probably an old logging road at some point, but now it’s a nice, forested trail with a gentle incline. We had to hike uphill for ~12km, covering 750m of elevation gain. The trail is never too steep and it’s mostly forested, so it was nice to spend the day hiking in the shade. Seth and Sadie both liked it as there were a lot of blueberries and huckleberries on the trail, so we were able to stop frequently for snacks. We were very cognizant of bear safety (there are grizzlies in the park), so we kept Sadie on leash all day and made lots of noise.

The trail mostly follows Taylor Creek and around the 6km mark, you have to cross the creek. It looks like there was a bridge at one point, but it’s been washed out, so we had to ford the river. Fortunately, it was an easy crossing, but pretty cold. It didn’t stop Seth from doing a quick dunk to escape the heat! After that the trail gets a bit steeper and we stopped a few times for lunch and a break. We got to Taylor Cabin in the early afternoon, and we were the only people there. There’s no outhouse or bear cache, but it’s still mostly in the trees, so there is shade.

At some point before the trip, I got it in my head that I wanted to camp in the alpine (rather then at the cabin). I knew the weather would be clear and that it wouldn’t be windy, so I was keen to do a bit of stargazing. But I was very concerned about having access to shade. We decided to spend a few hours relaxing in the shade at the Taylor Creek Cabin, but ultimately ended up hiking another ~1.5km along the trail to look for somewhere to camp with a better view. I think I pushed Seth too far on this part because it was still very hot and it was a major slog to get up to the alpine.

Once you arrive, it’s not that simple to find somewhere to camp. There are limited water sources and despite it being very barren, there’s not that many flat places to camp. You want to avoid camping on any meadows or flowers and stick to bare rock or gravel, so it can be a challenge to find somewhere that’s flat, bare, and near a creek.

We identified a few potential locations, but none of them were great. There is a decent-sized creek that we thought would be perfect, but once we got close to it, we realized it was incredibly silty. Eventually we found spot next to a very small clear-flowing creek – it wasn’t ideal, but there were a handful of trees around to provide some shade, and we found a bare spot where we could avoid damaging any wildflowers. We had a few marmot neighbours located further upslope and they were pretty vocal in their dislike of Sadie. We kept her under control so that she couldn’t bother them and they eventually ignored us.

Seth was a bit annoyed about the extra mileage, but once we got settled, everyone was happy with the location. It was nestled under Taylor Mountain, south of Camel Pass, and we had a beautiful view as the mountain turned orange at sunset. We set up our camp kitchen very far away from our tent so as not to leave food smells on it while cooking, and we dug catholes further from the trail. We’d seen two mountain bikers when we started our hike in the early morning, but we hadn’t seen a single other person since then. It was one of the most remote places I’ve ever camped, and I felt very aware of the fact that we were truly in the wilderness. We had a nice supper and then spent time securing our food from bears.

For this trip, Seth and I each used a bear bag. A bear vault would be ideal, but all we had were bear bags, so we each bagged our food in dry bags to contain the smell and then put the dry bag in the bear bag. We couldn’t hang the bags, so we tied each bear bag to a tree, apart from each other. I don’t mean we just looped a rope to the tree, I mean we held the bag up to the trunk and wrapped the rope around the entire tree trunk and bear bag multiple times to secure it to the tree. We didn’t want a bear to walk off with the bag or make it too easy to get it off the tree. Fortunately, no bears came along to test it.

It was a beautiful night, and I did do a little bit of stargazing. I really wanted to do astrophotography with Taylor Mountain, but the milky way was on the opposite side of the sky from the mountain, and the moon was quite bright. I didn’t get any nice photos, but I did enjoy watching for shooting stars.

In the morning, we got up early again to try and beat the heat. It still found us mid-way through breakfast, but the air temperature stayed cool for a bit longer. The challenging thing about South Chilcotin is that the park is very exposed. We had the benefit of the shade from the trees the previous day, but we were going to be in the sun for most of the next two days. Our plan for the day was to take the Pearson Trail over to the Taylor Creek Trail, so that we could hike the High Trail up to Windy Pass for lunch. If you continue on the High Trail for a little bit longer, you end up at the base of Spruce Lake, which is the circuit I did last year, so I didn’t have any overlapping of trails, but sort of felt like I was connecting the two trips.

You can find a few places to wild camp along the Pearson Trail too, but they’re not any more ideal than where we were already camped (and a bit more exposed overall). But it’s a beautiful area! Pearson Trail hikes up to a little Pass, which I’m not sure of the name, and then you start hiking down the Taylor Creek Trail, parallel to Harris Ridge. Harris Ridge doesn’t have a trail, but people do like to hike along it. I was curious to explore it but given that it’s not a marked or named trail, I figured it was better to stick with the named trail, since I haven’t actually done either.

The Taylor Creek Trail goes in and out of the woods, providing beautiful views of Harris Ridge, and eventually of the meadows along the High Trail. Given that it was early and we were going downhill through the trees, that park of the hike was enjoyable. Eventually you hit a trail junction for High Trail, which is the official start of South Chilcotin Park. You can hike down through the Meadows towards Eldorado Cabin, or you can hike up towards the alpine and Windy Pass. This part of the trail is a steady uphill and it is exposed the entire way. I didn’t find it too bad because it was still morning, but Seth struggled with the heat and uphill. We were really hoping that “Windy Pass” would live up to its name, but it was only lightly breezy at best. All the trail blogs I’d read mentioned that it is usually quite windy up there, so I guess we just had bad luck.

The trail to Windy Pass reminded me a lot of the Lorna Pass Trail. We did it last year and it’s all exposed, but instead of being completely barren rock, there are lots of green patches and wildflowers around. I loved Lorna Pass and I loved Windy Pass too. It’s challenging because it’s all uphill, but I think I get an adrenaline boost hiking in the alpine meadows because they’re so beautiful, so I never remember the painful part! Sadie seemed to enjoy it too, though we were careful to keep her hydrated. The were a few creeks along the way, so it was possible to fill up our water when needed, but overall the creeks shown on the map aren’t reliable and are often dry, so don’t assume you will be able to fill up along the way.

We didn’t see any people all morning. When you get to the top of the pass, you do need to hike a little bit further if you want to get the view of the park. From the top of the pass, you can only see back down the High Trail, you need to continue to the viewpoint if you want to be able to see the rest of the park. I liked the viewpoint a lot because we were looking out towards the route that I’d done last year and I could see the Castles, which is another trail route in the northern part of the park that I have yet to visit. We encountered 1 couple on our way to the viewpoint that had hiked up from Spruce Lake and were heading back towards Gun Creek on the Lick Creek Trail. We had a nice conversation, and they were the last people we saw on the trip. So, over the course of our entire trip (3 days), we saw 2 groups (4 people). 2 backpackers and 2 bikers.

We found a single tree providing shade at the viewpoint and ended up hanging out for an hour. I’d been keen to do a bit more ridge hiking up from Windy Pass on the way back, but it was not in the cards for Seth and given the heat, I had to agree that it wasn’t a good idea. Instead, we went back the way we’d come and ended up clocking 12.5km and 550m of elevation on my GPS for the day. I enjoyed the hike back down Windy Pass, which had a nice headwind to cool us down. But it was a slog to hike back up the other side to the pass at Taylor Creek. Sadie was slowing down, so I ended up carrying her backpack. We crawled our way up the pass, taking another break in the shade along the way.

Eventually we made it back to our tent. It was still in the sun as it only got shade in the evenings, but we were able to hide among some of the trees to get a bit of shelter while we both took creek baths. While relaxing, I noticed that we could see a herd of ~8 mountain goats exploring around the side of Taylor Peak. They climbed around the mountain side, eventually making their way up to the meadows on top of the mountain. We were able to watch them all night, and they eventually returned to the mountainside to bed down for the night. We enjoyed a very chill evening, and I made an apple crisp for dessert before heading to bed. Tune back in next week for part 2!

Berg Lake Backpacking Trip: Snowbird Pass

October 5, 2025October 6, 2025 / Maria / 2 Comments

Now that I’ve completed this trek, I feel like everything on our trip to Berg Lake was culminating up to our day hike to Snowbird Pass. This is a well known side mission on the Berg Lake Trail, but it’s a big one. You definitely need a full day if you’re going to attempt it, so plan accordingly. If you want to go all the way to the top of Snowbird Pass, it’s a 20km hike with ~800m of elevation gain.

The great thing about this hike is that the entire thing is incredibly scenic, so if a 20km day hike is too much for you, it’s really easy to shorten or customize this trip to your liking. I’m glad that I went the whole way to Snowbird Pass, but I also feel that I could have stopped hiking at any point on the trail and I would have been totally satisfied with what I’d accomplished (a peak bagger, I am not). But we wanted to give ourselves the best possible chance at getting to the pass, so we were up early and on the trail by 8:30am.

The weather was still treating us well and the trail starts with a leisurely walk along the Berg Lake flats. There’s a lot of broad-leaved willowherb growing along the river (also known as dwarf fireweed or river beauty) that I’ve really come to appreciate this year. We got a glimpse of Rearguard Campground, which is located 1km from Berg Lake. It has really nice views of Berg Glacier and Mount Robson, but it’s pretty exposed and doesn’t have a shelter, so I’d probably still pick Marmot Campground if I couldn’t get permits for Berg Lake.

After Rearguard, there’s a trail junction and you can continue on to Robson Pass Campground, or head east towards Snowbird Pass. The trail is pretty exposed all day, so we were happy to have a cloudy day to do this hike – I imagine it could be quite hot and draining on a sunny day. As you hike through the alpine, you start to get a glimpse of Robson Glacier, which wraps around the side of Mount Robson. Like Berg Glacier, Robson Glacier is stunning. It’s absolutely massive, with lots of texture and an ice-blue colour. The closer you get, you also start to see a small lake that has formed at the base of the glacier. I’m not sure if this lake has a name, but it’s much more silty than Berg Lake and it has a lot of bergy bits (as a Newfoundlander, I can assure you this is the correct technical term) floating in the water.

If you don’t have the time or ability to do the entire Snowbird Pass Trail, visiting the lake is a great objective. It’s ~3km from Berg Lake to the Robson Glacier lake and it’s completely flat. It would make a great side trail and provides a fantastic view of the glacier. It gets a lot more challenging after the lake, so if you only have a little bit of time, just go as far as the lake.

From the lake, the trail quickly ascends up the rockface towards the glacial moraine. In my opinion, this is the hardest section of the Snowbird Pass Trail. It’s very steep and the wayfinding can be tricky in some areas. It’s definitely preferable to do this on a dry day because there’s some scrambling over large rock and this could be challenging when slippery. There is one section with a chain (photo of Brandon below), however I thought this part looked scarier than it actually was. You don’t really need the chain to help you climb up and I thought it served as more of a guardrail than anything else. But certainly a nice-to-have, especially if you’re afraid of heights (this might not be the hike for you if you don’t like heights though).

The trail climbs 250m in 2km over rocky terrain until you reach a sort of rock landing (photo of me above), before starting to hike along the glacier moraine. It has a fantastic view of the glacier as it gives you a higher vantage point. We honestly couldn’t believe our eyes the entire time we were on this hike because the views are so out of this world and it’s one of the closest hikes I’ve ever done to a glacier (often you just hike to the base – it’s rare getting to hike alongside a glacier without the danger of actually being on it). We stopped at the rock landing for a snack break before continuing on; if you don’t mind doing the climb, this would be another great objective for a smaller day hike. It’s a better view than the lake, but it’s only half the distance of the full hike to Snowbird Pass.

We didn’t see anyone on the trail up to this point, but we got passed by a few other hikers when we stopped. Overall, we saw a lot more people on this trail than when we did the Hargreaves Lake Loop. But it’s a 20km trail, so it never felt crowded. We were some of the earliest hikers on the trail, so we encountered most of the other hikers on the way down.

After the first big climb, you get a break as the trail continues along flat terrain for 1.5km while you hike directly on top of the old glacial moraine! I thought this was incredibly cool. It’s not strenuous and I felt like I was on top of the world. I must have taken hundreds of photos of the glacier along this stretch because it completely blew my mind while hiking it. Another option for a shorter day hike could be to add this 1.5km stretch to your hike, since it’s pretty easy walking.

Eventually you reach the end of the moraine and the trail starts a second climb up to the alpine. I was prepared for another strenuous climb, but it wasn’t as bad as I was anticipating. It does start off pretty steep, but it levels out quickly and after 100m of elevation gain, the trail flattens into an alpine meadow. The trail is technically still uphill through the meadow, but it’s such a gentle climb you don’t really notice it.

There’s an incredible view of the glacier when you hit the meadow. There’s beautiful babbling brooks cascading down through grassy fields, as well as an amazing view looking back down the valley towards Robson Pass. This view is located somewhere between the 7-7.5km mark, so it could be another shorter hiking option if you don’t mind the extra climb. The citizen science storyboard about contributing to tracking glacier recession is a good landmark for this view.

If you decide to go past this point, I recommend just committing to the entire hike to the top of Snowbird Pass. I love wildflowers, so I always get really excited about alpine meadows. This one felt extra special because I didn’t know it was going to be there! It’s so barren hiking along the glacier moraine and it’s barren again at the top of Snowbird Pass, so the lush meadow in between was an unexpected surprise. After a brief hike in the meadow, you round a corner where you can see Snowbird Pass off in the distance. It doesn’t look too bad, but it’s deceiving as there is still a fair bit of elevation gain left.

We enjoyed the hike through the meadows, encountering a lot of marmots who definitely weren’t intimidated by us. As you get closer to the pass, the hike to the top starts to look more and more daunting. It was around noon when we finally started hiking up the final steep scree trail and I was definitely feeling ready for a break. You do about 200m of elevation gain through the meadows, and then finish with a steep 150m push to the top.

At this point, there were 2 or 3 groups ahead of us, so I was surprised to find the pass empty when we finally summited. Turns out, they had all immediately continued on up the ridge. I’m not sure if this was everyone’s goal, or if groupthink took over and they all thought they had to push further. There looks to be a faint trail, but it’s very steep and it eventually disappears into a scramble. I didn’t have any interest in going further, so we happily dropped our packs to enjoy having the pass to ourselves.

Snowbird Pass is really unlike anything I’ve ever hiked before. Berg Glacier and Robson Glacier are stunning, but it was from Snowbird Pass that I got to experience my first icefield! From the top of the pass you can see Reef Icefield, which is a flat expanse of ice that extends as far as the eye can see if every direction. In the distance I could see towering mountain peaks, giving the illusion that I was looking across a sea of ice. I would say that this ice is not as dynamic or interesting to look at as Berg or Robson Glaciers, it looks more like snow, but the scale of it is mind-blowing.

The other thing that’s interesting about Snowbird Pass is that it marks the boundary between BC and Alberta. Mount Robson Provincial Park is located in BC, but the icefield is in Alberta. We hung out for a long time admiring the icefield and eating our lunch. I’m not sure how far up the ridge people went – but some hikers re-appeared on the slope above us, so I don’t think they went too far. I don’t feel like I missed out on anything by not going up the ridge. You would get a higher view of the icefield, but I think you’d have to go pretty far up the ridge for it to be substantially better (but I didn’t go up there, so what do I know).

We spent the better part of an hour on the Pass before starting our descent back. There is a scree section at the very top of the pass, so that part wasn’t fun, but it’s not too bad after that and I really enjoyed our hike back through the meadow. There’s lots of freshwater sources in the meadow, so if you plan to hike that far, you don’t need to bring too much water if you’re willing to filter on the trail. We saw some more marmots in the meadow and I loved hiking back towards Robson Glacier because you can still see it looming above you as you approach.

There’s not too much to say about the return trip. It’s just as scenic as the hike in, but we did notice the clouds starting to darken as we hiked along the moraine. Shortly after we started the steep descent back towards the lake, we had an exciting surprise when a mountain goat wandered across our path. Brandon had been enthusiastically looking for mountain goats the entire trip and we were starting to get concerned that we wouldn’t see one! There’s a mountain goat on all Mount Robson’s promo materials, so we came to think of it as a mascot for the park.

We enjoyed watching the goat navigate the steep terrain, but the weather finally caught up with us and it started to rain. We were on the steepest and sketchiest part of the entire hike, so we quickly started to head down before the rocks could become too slick. It rained for ~15 minutes, but similar to the previous day, it was only a sprinkle before quickly moving on. We made it back to the lake just as the rain let up.

When we passed the lake on the way in, I vowed that I would swim in it on the way back. Brandon laughed at me because there are a lot of things he’d rather do than swim in a lake with bergy bits, but I love a good cold dip and I was convinced I would do it. After bundling up for the rain and with a pretty solid headwind blowing through, I was feeling chilled and much less confident as we circled around the edge of the water. We were about to continue back to camp when I finally gathered my resolve and led us off trail to a small sheltered beach.

It was definitely one of my less enthusiastic times stripping down to my swimsuit, but I really wanted to be able to say I’d swam in all the lakes (I might not be a peak bagger, but I’m definitely a lake bagger). While I got into my swimsuit, Brandon dug out his toque and gloves, refusing to so much as touch the water. It was definitely one of the colder places I’ve swam (much colder than Berg Lake), and it was really more of a dip than a swim, but I did it! And you know what, I did feel a lot better for it. As I dried off and put my warm clothes back on, I did actually feel warmer.

We decided to take a detour on the way back to swing by the Robson Pass Campground, which is located 1km from Rearguard Camp, and 2km from Berg Lake. Similar to Rearguard, it doesn’t have a shelter, but it is close to the new ACC hut, which we were able to catch a glimpse of. The sun came out as we hiked back to Berg Lake and we enjoyed another beautiful evening by the lake. The rain didn’t return and we celebrated our big day with my homemade backcountry apple crumble dessert!

I had one last bit of excitement before bed. I met an older couple and ended up having a lengthy chat when I learned that they had lived in Newfoundland for 20 years before retiring back to BC. While we were talking, a moose wandered down the creek bed by my tent, followed by what looked like her yearling calf! They didn’t stay for long and quickly exited towards the flats, but we all felt so lucky to have glimpsed the pair!

The following day finally brought some of the marginal weather we’d been promised all week. After three clear evenings, we awoke to thick clouds obscuring the mountain. We had completed all our major hikes, so we weren’t bothered and we enjoyed a late start and leisurely breakfast on the shelter patio as the fog moved around. I transitioned into the more social part of the trip and befriended a few girls from Edmonton who paid me the nicest compliment, “I am not a bit surprised that you are a Newfoundlander, and I mean that in the best possible way!”

Eventually we departed Berg Lake to hike back towards Whitehorn Campground for our final evening on the trail. The rain rolled in and out throughout the day and we had a particularly stormy section as we crossed the flats from Marmot Campground. It was windy and rainy, so we completely bundled up in our waterproofs, only to ditch them again 20 minutes later.

We continued to make friends and I had a great chat with a couple from Belgium when we rolled through Emperor Campground. After 12 years in BC, being from Newfoundland is a much smaller part of my personality than it used to be, but this couple were very enthusiastic history nerds and asked me a lot of questions about Newfoundland’s history. This devolved into a pretty detailed discussion of Newfoundland’s late entry to confederation, which I do love to talk about, but rarely have such a captive audience. If you don’t believe me, check out this lengthy blog post I once wrote about it.

We probably could have hiked the whole way out on the last day and skipped Whitehorn Campground, but I didn’t mind spending the extra night there. It allowed us to have a slower paced day and we arrived at camp just before the first true downpour of the trip. There’s a large communal shelter at Whitehorn, so after setting up our tent, we spent the rest of the day getting to know the other campers. Like I said, I really love hiking in the Rockies for the community aspect of the hiking. I rarely experience this same kind of vibe on the trails near Vancouver, except maybe on the Sunshine Coast Trail, so it’s nice to take the extra time to meet new people and swap stories.

But that pretty much marked the end of our trip. We decided not eat lunch on the trail in hopes of nabbing a burger. It took us just over 3 hours to hike the 11km back to the parking lot and we were thrilled to return to civilization! We were not rewarded with a burger as most of the restaurants in Valemount were closed until suppertime, but we drove the extra distance to Clearwater, where we were able to shower before finally tracking down a smashburger (me) and a rack of ribs (Brandon). In conclusion, the weather was not what we expected, but I honestly couldn’t have imagined a better trip and I hope to return again one day!

Berg Lake Backpacking Trip: Hargreaves Lake Loop

September 28, 2025October 6, 2025 / Maria / 2 Comments

After a two day hike to the Berg Lake Campsite (see last week’s blog post), we had 2 full days at Berg Lake to do day hikes. As I mentioned in my last post, the forecast was rainy for the entire week we visited, but it was looking slightly better for our second day rather than our first. We had 2 hikes in mind: the Hargreaves Lake Loop and Snowbird Pass. Snowbird Pass is a much larger hike, so we decided to save that hike for the following day, focusing instead on the Hargreaves Lake Loop.

We still got up pretty early and it was quiet around the campsite. I feel like for every photo I’ve seen online of someone at Berg Lake, I’ve seen another photo of someone at the viewpoint looking down on the lake. There’s two trails that head north from the Berg Lake Campground: Hargreaves Lake and Mumm Basin. Both start with a steep climb up to the alpine until you eventually you reach a junction, with the Hargreaves Lake Trail heading west and descending to Marmot Campground; and the Mumm Basin Trail heading east and descending to Robson Pass Campground. At one point in time, you could do both trails as a large loop.

Unfortunately, the Mumm Basin Trail is now closed. From what I understand, this was a beautiful trail that looked down on Berg Lake, Adolphus Lake, and the Robson Glacier lake (doesn’t have a name that I’m aware of). But there was a rockslide a few years ago and the area is now very unstable, so it’s been closed by BC Parks. We did meet some people that decided to do the hike anyways because it’s more “hike at your own risk”, rather than a full closure (according to them). I don’t like this attitude because it’s only “hike at your own risk” until something goes wrong, and then you’re putting S&R volunteers at risk too. So my opinion is, skip the Mumm Basin Trail. To their credit, I talked to these hikers again later and they said that while the trail had nice views, it did feel very sketchy with all the loose rock in the area.

Before the trail closure, you could hike both trails as one big loop, but now you can only loop from Berg Lake back to Marmot, so that’s what we did. The Berg Lake viewpoint is still open, so you can still enjoy that view for yourself! The trail was completely empty when we started our hike up to the junction. The trail follows the river and you get a lovely view of Toboggan Falls on the way up. It’s steep, ascending 250m in ~1.25km, but I didn’t find it too bad early in the morning when it was still cool. We saw lots of wildflowers along the way and I had fun identifying them. There’s a bench where you can rest about halfway up the climb that has gorgeous views down to the lake! If you don’t have enough time to hike all the way up to the viewpoint or do any full day hikes, this bench is a great objective! It’s not too far from the campsite and it has amazing views. You could easily do it after dinner or early in the morning.

After a short break at the bench, we continued up to the junction. From here, your options are to continue west to Hargreaves Lake, or go up to the viewpoint, advertised on the sign as “the cave”. The trail does get steeper as you climb another 200m in less than 1km. Eventually you pop out of the trees into the alpine, which is mostly barren scree slope and rock, to an amazing view of the lake, glacier, and mountain! This is where we met the people doing the Mumm Basin Trail, and they were 1 of only 2 groups that we saw all day. This was surprising to me given how many photos I’ve seen of the viewpoint online, but it’s possible a lot of people do the trail in the evening after arriving at the campsite if they only have 1 night.

I understand there’s a large rock located up there somewhere, which is where everyone likes to take their photo. I believe it’s located east of where you pop out of the alpine and that if you just keep heading on towards the cave, you’ll find it. The views are incredible everywhere, so I wasn’t too concerned about being photographed on one specific rock, nor did “the cave” hold a lot of interest for me. It’s wide open alpine, so we decided to do a bit of random exploring instead. We didn’t end up finding the rock, but picked a goal location further up in the alpine and did some slow wandering until we got there.

There’s no trails, so if you opt to explore further, make sure to avoid the meadows and wildflowers. We stuck to bare rock and traversed through a few boulder fields in order to avoid the flowers. However, I still had a lot of fun trying to identify them! We didn’t see any large meadows of flowers, but I did spot a few of my favourites, like the western pasqueflower, alpine pussytoes, alpine speedwell, and even a globeflower, which was a first.

We ended up exploring around the alpine for the better part of two hours and I had just as much fun (probably more) as if I had gone in search of the big rock. But it’s all about what you want to do and if you really want the big rock photo, I encourage you to go for it! Not everyone has hours for random exploring and that’s totally fine too! You can see more of the back of Berg Lake’s river delta from the big rock and that’s something I didn’t see from where I adventured.

What I did instead was spend a lot of time playing around with perspective on my camera. Because you’re located high up on a steep slope, with an even bigger mountain located directly in front of you, there’s a lot of opportunity for cool perspective shots. The glacier is already huge, and with a bit of zoom, you can get some pretty funny and epic shots. I was more about the epic shots, while Brandon thought it was hilarious to mess around with the glacier. He had me imitate the shape of the glacier and pretend to lick it, and then got me to take photos of him “sitting” on it. Brandon’s photos produced a lot more laughs, so I’ve included some of each (I know I’m in both photos, but the first one was Brandon’s “funny” shot and the second was my “epic” one, although admittedly, they are both pretty epic).

We got back to the viewpoint around 12:30pm, which probably would have been a good time for lunch, but we decided to continue on to Hargreaves Lake instead. We were so lucky with the weather again. It was overcast most of the morning, but it didn’t rain and we got several sunny breaks. Because we’d been expecting such bad weather, I felt pretty high on life for most of this trip and appreciated every moment of no-rain that much more. I felt like every moment of the trip that it wasn’t raining was some kind of bonus moment, which really helped up make the most of the trip!

We hiked back down the trail to the junction and then merged onto the Hargreaves Lake Loop. The trail continues on relatively flat terrain for ~1.75km as you traverse the treeline at the base of the alpine. It’s mostly in the forest until you get to Hargreaves Lake, so we didn’t see much, but it’s still a nice hike with lots of wildflowers. Eventually you hit another junction and there’s a short, but very steep, climb up an old moraine to get to the viewpoint of the lake. You always see this hike mentioned on hiking blogs, but I’d never seen any photos of it and it seems to be overshadowed by other more epic trails. I wasn’t expecting much from the viewpoint except for a little lake in the woods.

Boy was I wrong! I think Hargreaves Lake has to be one of the most underrated hikes in the park! If you can only do one day hike, Snowbird Pass is still the way to go, but you will absolutely not be disappointed by Hargreaves Lake. It you have the time, definitely don’t overlook it. It’s not even that far from Marmot Campground, so you could easily hike up there in the morning or evening, same as with the viewpoint. And it’s not very far from the viewpoint, so it is worth tacking it on to the hike. Here, I’ll even give you a rare landscape photo, so you can really appreciate it!

Hargreaves Lake is a glacier-fed lake that is located in wide open alpine with a huge glacier sitting behind it, overshadowed by Mount Phillips. I was a little confused looking at the trail on the map, because it doesn’t show the trail actually going down to the lake. This is because the lake is shielded by an enormous moraine, so we didn’t get a glimpse of it on the approach. You climb up the moraine and then look down on the lake from the moraine. You could do a scramble down to the lake if you wanted (which I’d love to come back for), but we opted not to since we’d already done 2 hours of scrambling from the viewpoint. Plus, I was really hungry, so we sat up there and enjoyed the view while eating lunch instead.

We encountered our second group of the day at this viewpoint, but they didn’t stay too long and we eventually had it all to ourselves. The view of Berg Lake from “the cave” is great, but honestly, if you want an easier view, I think the view of Berg Lake from the top of the Hargreaves moraine is just as stunning! We had a big photoshoot up there before starting our hike down. From the viewpoint, it’s ~1.25km and ~275m of elevation loss to hike back to Marmot (compared to 450m between Berg Lake and the “big rock” viewpoint, which is why I say this is an easier option). Plus, a good chunk of this hike is in the subalpine with limited trees, so you still get really good views on the way down.

Throughout the day there was a steady stream of helicopters running in and out of the park delivering supplies. I can’t be 100% certain, but giving what it looked like they were bringing in and where they were heading, I’m almost certain it was supplies for construction of the new ACC hut at Robson Pass (which we caught a glimpse of the following day while hiking to Snowbird Pass). What was a little worrying were some very dark rain clouds that rolled in as we were hiking down. We didn’t want to get stuck in exposed terrain if there were thunderstorms, so we came down the ridge pretty fast. It did rain for ~15 minutes, but it was light and we didn’t get very wet.

We’d been planning to hang out at the Marmot Campground, but because of the rain, we opted to go straight back to Berg Lake instead. The rain ended up being short-lived and it finished before we got back. I was sweaty from a full day of exploring, so I quickly changed into my swimsuit to go for my daily swim! We ended up hanging out on the beach for a while, enjoying the view and the lack of rain. It’s so easy to just sit for hours staring at the glacier and Mount Robson, and we did!

It ended up clearing up a lot and it didn’t rain anymore that day. So the rainy forecast for the last two days had only resulted in two 15-minute sprinkles, despite showing rain for most of the day. We decided to cook supper by the lake rather than at the shelter. Seth got me the helinox chair zero for Christmas, which only weighs one pound, and I have been loving having it this year! It definitely adds a little bit of weight to my pack over my old sit-upon, but for trips where you’re eating outside or spending multiple nights at the same site – it makes it so much more comfortable! It’s not totally necessary at Berg Lake as there are lots of benches around the lakefront, but I don’t regret bringing it.

We ended up hanging out at the lake for a few hours before heading to bed. We planned to do the Snowbird Pass trail the following day, which is a 20km round trip hike, so we wanted to get an early start. When I got up to pee in the middle of the night though, I was treated to the most amazing starscape! Sometimes I like to do astrophotography, but I thought it would be cloudy our entire trip, so I didn’t bring my camera or tripod. It was too good of an opportunity to pass up, so even though I needed the sleep, it was worth a short walk out to the beach in the dark to admire the milky way over Mount Robson! In lieu of star photos, enjoy a photo of me kicking back relaxing on the beach… and one more epic shot from the viewpoint!