explorebc

5 Ways to Visit Lindeman Lake

/ Maria / 6 Comments

Lindeman Lake is a short hike in Chilliwack Provincial Park, which has somehow ended up being one of the hikes I’ve done most often. It’s only a 3.5km trail round trip, but has 350 metres of elevation gain in under 2 km, making it a challenging hike, but not a long one. I’ve visited it twice as day hikes and twice as overnight hikes, where I explored several other trails in the area. I really think there’s something fun for everyone in this park, so without further ado, here are some of the different ways to visit Lindeman Lake and the surrounding trails!

Day hike to Lindeman Lake

Lindeman Lake is a great hike for beginners because like I said, it’s challenging, but it’s short. It’s a great early season hike because it’s at a low elevation, so the snow melts pretty fast, and you’ll get a great work-out on the hike to the top. It can get pretty busy (like most hikes), so I’d suggest getting to the parking lot early. The first time I visited, I was actually car camping in the provincial park, so this was a perfect easy day hike for us. One tip, the campsite area where the trail ends gets very little sun and while it provides a nice view, there are better lake views. If the water level is low enough, you can cross the logs at the river outlet to scramble over the rocks on the other side of the lake. But my recommendation would be to follow the trail at the lake edge back into the trees for another kilometre until you arrive at the far end of the lake. There’s a rock slide at the far end with lots of big rocks to eat your lunch on while admiring the view. In my opinion, this is the best view of the lake and it’s a great place to go swimming (which I’ve done twice… in May. It was really cold!)

Day Hike or Camp to Greendrop Lake

There is a great trail network in the Lindeman Lake area, so if you want to make it a longer day trip or turn it into a camping weekend, that is totally doable. If you continue past Lindeman Lake towards the back of the lake, the trail continues up a rock slide and through the trees until you reach Greendrop Lake. In total, Greendrop Lake is about a 11.5km round trip from the parking lot, or an 8km round trip from the Lindeman Lake campsite. There is wilderness camping at both Lindeman Lake and Greendrop Lake and both campsites have a pit toilet and a bear cache. Greendrop Lake can definitely be done in a single day, or if you’re looking to take your time and enjoy Lindeman Lake (like I was), it’s also great as an overnight trip. We camped two nights at Lindeman Lake and day hiked to Greendrop Lake on our second day.

Both campsites are first come, first serve. I’ve only ever camped there on the May long weekend and it’s always been busy, but we’ve always managed to get a spot. I expect it’s probably a little busier later in the summer though. I love the Lindeman Lake campsite because it’s such a short hike, so we brought up a ton of extra fun gear like hammocks and frisbees and those fancy inflatable couch things. Greendrop Lake is less busy than Lindeman, but I personally didn’t like that campsite. There’s not really a great view of Greendrop Lake and because it’s higher elevation than Lindeman Lake, it was a lot colder. Granted, I visited in May, which is really early, but there was still snow on the ground walking up to Greendrop at this time and the trail was a little more challenging to follow. Overall, I’d recommend camping at Lindeman or visiting as a day hike.

Day Hike or Camp to Flora Peak

The second time I camped at Lindeman Lake, we wanted to try a different trail, so we camped at Lindeman Lake and then day-hiked to Flora Peak. Logistically it doesn’t make the most sense because in order to go from the Lake up to Flora Peak, you actually have to backtrack back to the parking lot and take the right branching trail at the start of the trailhead. But we really wanted to camp at the lake, so we did it anyways, so ideally this probably works better as a day hike. Like I said, the trail goes in the opposite direction of the Lindeman Lake trail and is substantially more challenging than the Lindeman and Greendrop trails because of the significant elevation gain.

The Flora Peak trail is about 12km round trip from the parking lot, but has an elevation gain of ~1300 metres, which is significant! You will pretty much be climbing the entire time. There’s not much to see for the first half of the trail up until you reach a small viewpoint poking out through the trees. Continue for a little while after that and the trail will eventually spit you out on the ridge looking down over Chilliwack Lake. This was by far the highlight of the trail for me. The rest of the trail remains pretty open and you eventually start ascending Flora Peak in a loop before coming back to the ridge. Sadly for us, our trip ended on the ridge. Because it was May, there was still a fair bit of snow at the higher elevations. We used microspikes to get up to the ridge, but we decided not to ascend the peak because there were a lot of snow bridges and it would have been easy to fall through the melting snow. But it was worth it just getting to the ridge and we ate lunch with an amazing view of the lake.

Like I said, I did it as an overnight, but I do think it probably works better as a day hike. You can also snowshoe up to Flora Peak in the middle of winter. I would recommend spikes and snowshoes for this, but I haven’t tried it yet because the trail is unmarked in winter and there is avalanche risk, so I’m waiting until I complete the avalanche safety course. A great trail for summer though, just be prepared for a big climb!

Snowshoe to Lindeman Lake

So here’s the thing about snowshoeing to Lindeman Lake. Only do it if there’s been a lot of snow at lower elevations. It’s not very high and it doesn’t get a lot of snow, but it does get ice. If Vancouver has snow, I’d say its safe to grab your snowshoes and head up to the lake. In my case, there wasn’t much snow, but microspikes were definitely required. Me and my friends learned a big lesson on this trail. We showed up with snowshoes, but the trail didn’t have enough snow for it, so I was the only person with spikes, but we decided to go up anyways. We had a great time on the trail and made hot chocolate and had a picnic lunch at the top. But it’s definitely dangerous without spikes. My friend ended up falling about halfway down and broke her wrist. Fortunately she is a champ and we did have a first aid kit (ALWAYS take a first aid kit and your 10 essentials when going into the wilderness), so we were able to patch her up and help her down the mountain. We still had a lot of fun and have good memories of the trail, but definitely be prepared with the proper equipment.

As I mentioned in the trail above, you can also snowshoe up to Flora Peak in the winter, but again, be prepared. It’s unmarked, so bring a GPS and make sure you have avalanche appropriate training and gear and have checked the forecast.

Complete the Flora Lake Loop

This is the only one on the list I haven’t actually done, but if you’d like to knock out all the trails in one visit, this is the way to go. I’ve talked about two trails leaving from the parking lot, one which goes straight up to Lindeman and Greendrop Lakes and the second which branches off and goes up to Flora Peak. But the trails actually do form a 20km loop between all 3 points of interest, plus Flora Lake. 20km is doable in a day (I have a feeling it would make a great trail run), but it does have over 1000 metres in elevation gain, so I’d probably personally prefer to do it as an overnight trip. There are campsites at all 3 lakes, Greendrop is located at ~7km and Flora Lake at ~11km, so either would be an option if you were doing it as an overnight! Again, just keep in mind the season. I would wait until July to go if you want to make sure most of the snow is gone from the trail.

Tenquille Lake Backpacking Trip

/ Maria / 2 Comments

Tenquille Lake is a lesser known trail in southwestern BC, located near Pemberton, but it was the first trail I ever did on an overnight trip! Before my visit to Tenquille lake, I had never been on a backpacking trip before. I’d done lots of camping and hiking growing up, and I even went on a 5 day hiking trip to Machu Picchu in 2013, but it was my first time being wholly self-sufficient and having to carry all of my gear with me (in Peru we had horses to take the bulk of our gear). Well… I mean… I was mostly self-sufficient. I definitely couldn’t have done it without Brandon’s expertise, but I still carried most of the gear I needed for the trip.

3 years later I’ve completely fallen in love with backcountry camping and I have gotten a lot better at it, so don’t be afraid to take that first trip if it’s something you want to try. It’s important to be as prepared as possible, but you can also learn by doing. As long as you practice “leave no trace” camping and take your “10 essentials”, everything else can be learned with time!

The ideal scenario for your first time camping is to have a Brandon, by which I mean, an enthusiastic friend who has more gear and knowledge than you and is willing to help you out while you learn and accumulate your own gear. Gear is a killer when you start off backpacking. It is really expensive and deciding what to purchase is intimidating because there are so many choices and you want to buy the right gear without bankrupting yourself. Fortunately my parents already had some backcountry gear that they loaned me, but it was all really old, so while it saved me a lot of money initially, it also weighed a lot and caused us a lot of grief to carry when we were just getting used to backpacking. So if you can find a friend who’s able to lend you a tent, sleeping pad, or stove, it will definitely alleviate some of the strain of having to buy all your gear at once.

Tenquille Lake is what I would like to credit as the birth of my really close friendship with both Brandon and Carolyn. We’d all hung out together before and gone on the occasional hike or ski trip, but backpacking really cements a friendship and because Seth doesn’t really like carrying a big backpack, I’ve spent most of my backcountry experiences with either Carolyn or Brandon or both. Brandon is a great person to have with you in the backcountry because he brings endless optimism and enthusiasm and he makes the best backcountry thai chicken curry you’ll ever have in your life… actually, forget the “backcountry” part, it’s the best thai chicken curry, period. And me and Carolyn just get each other. We operate on the same schedule, we get what the other likes and dislikes, and I will confide with her about pretty much anything and everything. We’re both on a secret mission to tell every woman about the miracle that is the divacup and how it changed our lives. Plus, she’s obsessed with fresh vegetables and nothing improves a backcountry meal like fresh stuff.

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But back to Tenquille Lake. Since this was my first backcountry trip ever, I somehow convinced Seth to join me. I don’t think he had a very good time, but he still came. Brandon was our spirit guide for the trip and even though she hardly knew us, Carolyn was not deterred from joining us on a 3-day trip into the wilderness. I’m pretty sure we ended up at Tenquille Lake because it was one of the first trails listed in my hiking book and I basically looked at the first page and was like, “that looks great, let’s go there!” However, the trail in my hiking book was actually an 18km round trip hike with 1400 metres in elevation gain, which in retrospect, was totally BONKERS for a first hike.

Fortunately, Brandon, in his infinite wisdom, found out that there was a second trail that you could access with 4WD that was only 14km. I still don’t know what the elevation gain was on that trail, but having done a lot of hikes since then, I can guarantee it was WAY LESS than 1400 metres. Brandon lives for any trail with a 4WD access road so that he can play around in his Toyota 4-Runner, so he was thrilled to check out the shorter trail. For those interested in hiking either trail, the 18km trail is accessible by car from Lillooet Forest Service Road and the trailhead is located directly after you cross the Lillooet River. The second, shorter trail (which is the one we did) is located at the end of a 7km long forestry road that definitely requires 4WD. This is known as the Branch 12 entrance. Basically, you continue up Lillooet Forest Service Road and take the right fork up the hill onto Hurley River Forest Service Road until you reach Branch 12 on the right-hand side of the road (after the switchbacks).

We decided to do the trip on the Canada Day long weekend and drove out to Pemberton on Saturday morning with the intention of hiking to Tenquille Lake on Saturday night and Semaphore Lakes on Sunday night (I’ll write a separate post for the Semaphore Trip because otherwise this one will be way too long!). It was probably around 1 or 2pm by the time we reached the trailhead, so make sure you leave early if you’re planning to do this one as a day hike because even though the forestry road is only 7km, it really slows you down. I was rocking a pretty heavy backpack because me and Seth were using my parents old 10lb tent, but Brandon carried the stove and fuel and a fair bit of the food, so it definitely could have been worse. Carolyn was sharing a tent with Brandon, so I’m pretty sure she just had air in her pack because Brandon loves to share gear, but not carrying the weight.

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I’ll admit, I’m a little foggy on the details of the trail 3 years later, but I do remember a fair bit of uphill through the woods at the start of the hike that eventually transitioned into undulating meadows. We didn’t get great weather on the trip and it was pretty cold at the lake for July, but the rain stayed away, so we really couldn’t complain. It was overcast on our first day, which is probably why it felt so cold. One of the things I do remember though, is the mosquitoes (henceforth known as “skitties”). Oh boy, were they ever bad at Tenquille Lake. It would have been nice to take it easy on our first major backpacking trip, but every time you would stop on the trail, you would be completely swarmed by skitties, so we pretty much would only stop to put on more bug spray. It definitely got better when we made it out of the woods and to slightly higher elevations. I didn’t find it too bad at the lake, but Seth would likely disagree with me. They must not like my blood type that much or something, because they more or less left me alone at the lake, but Seth had no respite and Brandon let him borrow his bug hat to try and keep them away. We don’t know Seth’s blood type, but the skitties love it.

One of my main motivations for picking the trail (besides stumbling upon it and thinking it looked nice), was that I thought it was probably far enough away from Vancouver that there would be less people, and that combined with the 4WD access road, there wouldn’t be very many people camping.

I can really be a dummy sometimes. But hey, it was my first backcountry trip and I’d still only been living in BC for 2 years at this point and I didn’t realize just how crazy everyone is for the outdoors here! There ended up being probably about 60 people in a campsite that’s made for 30 because it was a long weekend and a single Meet-Up group of 30 PEOPLE decided to visit the lake that weekend. It was a little overwhelming for my first time in the backcountry, but because of the overflow of people (and our late start), we ended up getting, what in our opinion was, the best campsite at the lake!

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So I don’t condone this now that I’m a little more seasoned. When possible, you really should camp at the campsites or in a location that will cause the least harm to the surrounding area. At Tenquille, you’re not allowed to camp in the meadows because they are extremely sensitive, but because of the surplus of people in the actual campground, we were forced to find some overflow space, and yes, it was in the meadows. We avoided any untouched meadow and stayed only on the trail, but we did find an area that had obviously been used many times before for overflow camping and didn’t have any alpine vegetation anymore, so that’s where we camped. In the pictures it kind of looks like we’re in the middle of the meadow, but there was a trail there and about 4-5 campsites that are hard to see because of the surrounding vegetation. I’ve gotten a lot more sensitive about these things the more I backpack, so I always try and camp where I won’t have an impact on plant habitat.

Despite the shoddy weather though, I absolutely loved Tenquille Lake. I’ve come to appreciate this trail more since I was first there because it really is the perfect mix of alpine lakes and alpine meadows. Alpine meadows have become pretty much my favourite backcountry scene, and Tenquille has both the lake, surrounded by mountains, and the alpine meadows next to the lake. This was also one of the rare backcountry hikes I’ve done since I moved here where we were actually permitted to have a campfire. Most provincial parks prohibit campfires in the wilderness and by early July, we’re usually into full fire ban, but this was one trip where we went early enough to have a campfire. I’m realizing now that Brandon must have carried an axe up there on top of all his other gear, so thanks again Brandon!

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We definitely had to layer up at the lake because it was really cold, but I became totally enamoured with getting away from the city, eating with a kick-ass view of the lake, and waking up to see the sun just poking over the top of the mountains. We didn’t see the sun very much on this trip, but it did come out for about an hour both mornings, so I got up pretty early on that trip because I wanted to photograph our surroundings with the brief glimpse of sunshine and blue sky. Both days it clouded in by 9am, but we got a few hours of sunshine before the clouds snuck back into the mountains.

So all in all, it was a wonderful first trip into the wilderness. We did the somewhat strange choice of hiking back to the car and then doing another overnight hike to Semaphore Lakes (instead of just one 2 night hike), but more on that in a later post!

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Ski Resort Series: Apex

/ Maria / 2 Comments

I’m finally up to date on my ski series and I can write about my latest trip, which I went on in late February, to Apex Mountain resort. I’m super excited to write about this one because it ended up being one of my favourite ski trips! Originally we had planned to visit Revelstoke this year, but there are limited group reservations available on the mountain and we couldn’t find anything big enough for our growing group, so we ended up renting a chalet at Apex instead.

I’ll admit, I’d never heard of Apex and I wasn’t really sure what to expect, but we ended up getting some fantastic conditions along with an amazing condo, making for one of the best trips. I’ve heard Apex called one of BC’s hidden gems of a ski resort because it is one of the lesser known resorts and therefore sees fewer visitors than some of the other resorts. We got really lucky this year though because it snowed all over the province for pretty much 2 weeks before our trip, including the day we drove out there, so we had unbelievable conditions on the mountain! Our first runs on Saturday were some of the best skiing I’ve had in a long time because there was about a foot of undisturbed powder on every run.

For those unfamiliar with the resort, Apex is located about 4.5 hours out of Vancouver in the southern part of BC. We drove through Manning Park and Princeton to get to the mountain and it’s about 30 minutes south of Penticton. Last year we visited Silver Star on the Family Day weekend, and while it was great to make use of the holiday, it was really crowded! So this year we went the weekend after Family Day, so there were barely any crowds on the mountain. I don’t think I ever waited longer than 5-10 minutes to get on a lift and most times there was no wait at all.

Apex is definitely smaller than some of the other mountains we’ve visited, but it had a really nice variety of runs. It only has 2 lifts, but like I said, it never felt crowded. We started our day on the far side of the mountain on Stocks Chair, which is a 3-person lift. It’s not a very fast lift, but we spent most of our first morning there because it has a lot of really nice blue runs, great for getting warmed up. Then in the afternoon we switched over to the main chair, which is a high speed quad chair. Many of the runs on the main lift are blacks, so we mostly stuck to the blue runs on the first day.

On the second day I got a little more adventurous and spent the whole day with my sister, Emily, who just recently moved to BC. We slowly worked our way through a good portion of the blacks. I find the black diamond runs at Whistler to be pretty intimidating, but I like trying out the black runs at smaller mountains and working on improving my skills. We started with some of the shorter black runs and slowly worked our way up. Plus, it was a great time to try some tougher runs since the snow conditions were so good! Some of the runs got a bit chewed up over two days, but it was surprising how many still had some really nice powder on them! My only complaint about the mountain would be that they need to update their map because there are a lot of runs on the mountain that aren’t actually showing on the map right now and it made it a bit confusing trying to figure out where you are.

As usual, we ate all our meals in our condo. This was our 4th trip and 3 out of 4 of the trips we’ve had ski-out access. We had ski-out access at this place too, which makes for a really nice experience when you can come back to the warm condo at lunch to eat and have a beer. As usual, I cooked traditional Newfoundland Jiggs Dinner on the first evening and Brandon cooked hotpot on our second evening. Carolyn and Seth made some lasagnas and chili for lunches, which we paired with leftover turkey sandwiches. Finally, Karen cooked us the most wonderful hot breakfast every morning!

We found our condo on Airbnb and we definitely paid a pretty penny for it, but it was one of my favourite places we’ve stayed. There were 15 of us staying there in total and we had a great view of the hill and a nice balcony with a hot tub.

While we didn’t spend much time in Apex Village, we did discover the most precious gem hidden in the trees! Apex has an adventure skating loop that runs through the woods for ~1km. I’m so pleased that we actually did it – I saw it on a facebook post a few months ago and tagged everyone in it because it looked so quaint. You always see those kinds of cool things on social media, but you almost never go, so I was thrilled that we actually got the chance to go to this one. A few of us brought skates with us and everyone else was able to rent them in the village. The loop is really nicely done and only costs $4, although it happened to be free on the day we visited! Speaking of costs, the lift pass at Apex is also incredibly reasonably priced. I believe it’s about $85 a day, but you can buy passes in advance at Costco for just $65!

The amazing ski conditions, small crowds, and awesome accommodations all combined to make this one of my favourite ski trips.

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