Golden Ears Peak Backpacking Trip

August 10, 2025July 25, 2025 / Maria / Leave a comment

It’s hard to believe that I’ve lived in BC for 12 years now and I’ve never hiked to the top of Golden Ears Peak. Golden Ears Park is one of the closest BC Parks to Metro Vancouver – it’s only a 30 minute drive from my house – and Golden Ears Peak is an iconic hike near the city. Due to its proximity to town and the epic views available from the summit, it’s a very popular destination. However, it also has 1500m of elevation gain and is a 24km round trip hike to the summit, so it is extremely challenging.

Golden Ears Peak has been on my bucket list for a long time, but due to the length and elevation gain, I knew I wanted to backpack it. There are two campsites along the trail. Alder Flats is located at the 6km mark, and Panorama is located at the 11km mark, 1km below the summit. There are only 7 tent pads at the Panorama Campsite, so it is important to get an early start if you want to snag one. Knowing I would have to hike fast in challenging terrain to get a tent pad, I’ve avoided this hike for a long time. I don’t like rushing up a mountain and I hate the feeling of competing for campsites.

I put all that aside this summer to finally hike this iconic trail. Carolyn is preparing to move back east in the Fall (I am devastated), so she’s been working on completing some of the bigger trails on her bucket list. We decided to make an attempt of this trail in mid-July. We didn’t get ideal weather, but we planned the perfect itinerary for this trip and had great success in executing it (something that always makes me happy I work as a project manager)!

You need a permit to camp on this trail from camping.bcparks.ca, but there is no reservation system, so anyone can hike it on any given day. There are only 7 tent pads, but there’s regularly 30+ tents set up at Panorama on any Saturday night. I’m surprised BC Parks hasn’t brought in a reservation system for camping in this park yet, but my theory is that they don’t want to promote the campsite without investing considerable resources into the trail, which is very technical and in very rough shape. Either way, we wanted to get a tent pad so that we weren’t further contributing to damage to the alpine meadows around the campsite.

Our plan was to drive to Golden Ears right after work on Friday and hike the first 6km to Alder Flats, camping there for the first night. We were able to get away from work a little early and pulled into the West Canyon Trail parking lot at 5pm. The first half of the trail to Alder Flats is super easy. It’s completely flat and well graded, so we finished that section in under an hour and then stopped for a quick supper. The next 3km are more challenging, with some uphill sections and lots of loose rock. But it’s still a relatively easy trail and we completed the full 6km in 2 hours, arriving at Alder Flats around 7pm.

Alder Flats was completely empty when we arrived, which didn’t surprise me because we started pretty early in the evening, but I was expecting it to get a lot busier. Two more groups did show up, and a third group of noisy bros rolled in at 2am (I’ve never hated anyone so much), but overall, I was expecting there to be a lot more people at the campsite. The weather for the weekend was looking a little bit mixed, with some clouds and rain in the forecast, so we thought that might keep some people away (spoiler, it didn’t). Maybe Alder Flats gets busier on other weekends, but it wasn’t busy on the weekend that we went.

The bros got up at 5am to continue their hike, which made me hate them even more because they woke us up twice, and me and Carolyn got up at 6am. The bros ended up being the first ones to the campsite and took two pads, but me and Carolyn were next after that. The tent pads didn’t all get taken until a solid 2 hours after we arrived, so we could have had a bit later start, but no regrets. Lots of people get up early to hike the full distance from the parking lot, so I’m sure conditions change on any given weekend. But for us, camping at Alder Flats and getting an early start from there was very successful.

But I’m getting a little ahead of myself. Alder Flats is a nice campsite in the forest with a bear cache and outhouse, and has the benefit of being located close to a really nice river water source. There is no consistent water source at Panorama, but there’s a lot of snow up there and there’s usually run-off that you can drink until later in the summer, or you can melt snow. We’re both water snobs, so we opted to carry all our water up for the weekend. This is probably a little extreme and resulted in us each carrying 10lbs of water up the trail, but we’re both lightweight hikers and I honestly didn’t regret it. We could have treated the run-off at the top, but it was also nice to get up there and not have to worry about it.

After filling up our bladders, we left Alder Flats shortly after 7:30am. After Alder Flats, the trail gets substantially more challenging. It’s definitely doable to hike from the parking lot, but it was nice to rest overnight and only have to tackle 5km in the morning. Once you leave Alder Flats, the trail immediately heads uphill over loose cobble. This is some of my least favourite type of terrain. I call it “ankle rollers” because the loose cobble makes it really easy to roll your ankle and the rock is really tiring on your feet. The trail is like this for ~2km before you hit the next obstacle.

Following the loose cobble, you hit dense forest and have a very technical and sleep climb through the trees. There’s a viewpoint towards Golden Ears just before you hit your first set of stairs. There are several staircases at the start of this section and the first step is missing for almost all of them, so it feels very steep. The trail winds back and forth through the woods and you have to climb up and around a lot of tree wells and tree roots. There are lots of handholds on the trees, but you definitely need to use your hands to get around some of the obstacles. I don’t know exactly how long this section is, but I’d estimate around 1.5km. It goes very slowly because you cover a lot of elevation gain.

Eventually the forest thins and the trail levels out when you reach the sub-alpine. You’re still in the forest, but the trees are very short, so it feels more exposed and you can get good views. Definitely remember to apply sunscreen once you reach this section. Fortunately, it was cloudy on the day we hiked up. It still felt extremely damp and humid and we were sweating so much from climbing, but I think the hike would have been a lot more challenging on a hot day. We were both gross, but feeling pretty strong.

Once we reached the sub-alpine, the trail felt easier as you follow the ridge, but you do have to do a little bit of up and down as you cross over some bumps along the trail. We started seeing more people as everyone who had camped at the summit on Friday night was heading back down. Unfortunately, we couldn’t see any of the view because we hiked right into the clouds. This section is also ~1.5km in length, but it gets more challenging the closer you get to the campsite. There is one ladder and the last section is definitely a scramble and you should be prepared to use your hands as you climb up over the rock to the campsite.

Carolyn opted to bring Jasper with her and he did really great. Overall, I wouldn’t recommend this hike for dogs unless they do a lot of hiking, because it is a long trail and you will have to be prepared to help them through a few sections. The only tricky section along the trail to Panorama is the ladder, and maybe a few parts of the scramble right before camp. But if you plan on going to the summit, there’s a rope section where your dog may also need help. Plus you need to keep an eye on them near steep drop-offs.

Eventually, you get your first view of the emergency shelter and we confirmed that we were early enough to snag a tent pad! It took us just over 3 hours to hike from Alder Flats and we arrived pretty much right at 11am. We selected our tent pad, but rather than set up the tent, we set up our chairs and sat down to have a snack and a drink. Like I said, you couldn’t see any of the view yet, but we were optimistic that it would clear in the afternoon. Because there was no sun and we were at an elevation of 1350m, it was quite cold. We quickly layered up and after a nice break, we set up the tent and then ate our lunch in the shelter of the emergency cabin.

We had planned to eat in the cabin, but I’m sad to say, the emergency cabin is disgusting. It has not been treated well. Half of the cabin is a loft space for emergency use and storing your food, and the other half of the cabin is a urine-diverting outhouse that gets flown in at the start of the season. The cabin is dark with some abandoned gear, but the outhouse is absolutely gross. It’s a real shame because it’s actually a nice toilet and it had the potential to be nice. But people have left soooo much garbage on the floor of the outhouse that it stinks and is really disgusting. There are entire garbage bags of food waste, and then other people have left used pads and poopy toilet paper all over the floor. I’m glad people didn’t put their food waste and feminine products in the outhouse, but users at this site really need some basic education about leave no trace.

Like I said, the trail is super popular and looking at some of the groups, it’s clear that a lot of the visitors are beginner backpackers and a few people we talked to were first-timers. I find this a bit crazy because Golden Ears is such a challenging trail, it’s not an easy choice for your first trip. There’s nothing inherently wrong with it and I don’t judge people for it (if anything, I feel they were misled by social media). Backpacking is a learning experience and I don’t believe in gatekeeping it. We all start somewhere and we will all learn how to be better at it. But honestly, this campsite is just too overcrowded. I’m glad it has the outhouse, even if people don’t treat it well, because otherwise I can’t imagine the state of the meadows.

After lunch, it was still very foggy, so we decided to take a nap. Our sleep had been interrupted by the bros the previous night and we ended up passing out for the better part of 3 hours. When we left the tent, the campsite had been transformed. It was still cloudy, but there were now an additional 25 tents spread out everywhere throughout the meadow and there were people everywhere. We were just praying that it would eventually clear so that we could see the view, because neither of us wanted to ever return to this campsite.

The thing about Panorama Campsite is that it’s still located 1.1km from the summit of Golden Ears. One of the benefits of arriving early in the morning was that it left us with lots of time to explore the summit. But neither of us wanted to climb the mountain until the view cleared up. Finally, at 5pm, we got our chance. The clouds lifted and we were able to see the surrounding backcountry! If you look east, you’ll be able to see down towards Alder Flats. I thought we’d be able to see Alouette Lake, but it’s hidden behind other mountains. However, if you look west, you get the most incredible view of Pitt Lake!

Most of the people at the campsite had arrived later and were still sorting out their tents and water. But because we’d arrived so early, we decided to set off for the summit right away when the view cleared. Another group did the same, but few others bothered. Lucky for us though, the other group were frequent visitors and they were able to give us a few pointers about the route to the summit, which is still pretty technical.

We climbed out of the campsite, which is all exposed rock, but then there was a section of snow field that still hadn’t melted. We brought our microspikes for this section and I definitely wouldn’t recommend going up without them. It was easier than the ascent I did over snow the previous weekend at Brandywine Mountain, but it was still pretty steep in some sections. I’ve heard that early in the season the whole route to the summit can be covered in snow, in which case, you shouldn’t attempt it. The more technical parts of the route didn’t have any snow, so we felt reasonably comfortable.

After the snow field, there are 3 scramble sections. The first is the least technical and goes up over some rock and a few trees. Then you hit the second section, which has a rope going up the rock face. This spot was a little dicey and we debated not doing it because it looked intimidating. But up close it was a bit easier, so we continued on, Carolyn just had to help Jasper. At the top of the rope section, there’s a little plateau, which is a nice place for a break before starting the final ascent to the summit. The other group continued on, but we’d hiked back into the clouds and me and Carolyn had gotten very hungry, so we decided to stop and have our supper instead. We decided that if it cleared during our break, we would keep going, and if not, we’d stop there.

We had a really nice meal and break and then did some tiktok dancing while waiting for it to clear. It didn’t seem like it was going to, so eventually we decided it was time to head down. About a minute after we started hiking back, the clouds completely lifted and we finally got a view, so we ran back to our supper spot to take more photos. In the end, we still opted not to finish the last couple hundred metres to the summit. It was getting later in the evening and the very top of the summit never actually ended up clearing, so I’m content with our decision to just enjoy the view below the summit.

We ended up doing a bit more exploring on the way down to catch some of the views in other directions. We got back to the campsite just in time for sunset and Carolyn made us popcorn as a little treat. We ended up getting a beautiful cloud inversion as darkness set in. We’d climbed another 200m of elevation up to the summit, so we were pretty exhausted and fell asleep easily. We planned to get up for sunrise at 5:30am, but we were relieved to see that it had clouded back in overnight, which gave us the excuse to sleep in.

We had a pretty chill morning, but we were still packed and ready to head down by 9am. It’s 1200m of elevation loss to return to the parking lot, so I was really worried about my knees. They were definitely twinging, but overall did pretty good and I was relieved I didn’t have to hobble out the trail. We stopped for lunch at the helipad at Alder Flats, and then arrived in the parking lot at 2pm. So it took us 5 hours with a break to hike the whole way back down. We rewarded ourselves with burgers and beer at The Patch in Maple Ridge before returning home.

So overall, I’m thrilled that I can finally cross this trail off my bucket list, but also relieved that I won’t ever have to hike it again. I know some people do this as a day hike, but it would be a very big day (although I’m sure it’s easier with a smaller pack). I get why everyone wants to do this hike, the views are great, but the crowds are a lot to contend with and honestly, there are lots of other trails that are just as nice. I definitely wouldn’t recommend this hike to beginners and honestly, I probably wouldn’t recommend it at all because of the crowds. If you’re local and want to cross it off your list, absolutely, but if you’re just visiting, I would prioritize something else. But I can’t deny it is a pretty iconic hike.

Viewpoint Beach Girl Guides Backpacking Trip

June 15, 2022August 20, 2024 / Maria / 3 Comments

This is my third time writing about Viewpoint Beach in Golden Ears on this blog, but I did this trip with Girl Guides so I wanted to write about it again since I’m coming at it from a different angle. I started volunteering with Girl Guides shortly after I moved to Vancouver and have since done 3 years with a Brownie group (grades 2-3), 3 years with a Pathfinder group (grades 7-9) and most recently, my first year with a Trex unit (grades 7-12). Trex isn’t part of the core Guiding Program, but is a special ops group for members that just want to do adventure activities. Unlike the normal guiding program, which promotes learning and badge-work on everything from arts, to STEM, to activism, to camping; Trex doesn’t have any badges and just meets sporadically to plan adventure activities.

I’ve been wanting to do Trex pretty much since I discovered it existed, but there are limited units. Finally, last year I decided it was time to go for it and opened my own unit based out of New West (which is where I’ve been Guiding the past 7 years). We weren’t sure if we’d get enough members register to go ahead with the unit, but it ended up getting completely filled up and we’ve been working on developing adventure skills all year for when COVID finally died down enough to re-start overnight events. Our group was really keen to develop our backpacking skills this year and were thrilled to plan our first overnight trip for mid-May.

Our original plan was to hike to Cheakamus Lake, which is a pretty flat trail before Whistler. I’d been once before in mid-May and had a great time and we reserved several campsites. Unfortunately, the weather this Spring has been terrible and the access road to Cheakamus lake was still half inundated with snow, so we decided to change our trip at the last minute to hike to Viewpoint Beach in Golden Ears instead. The goal was to do a shorter hike with only gentle inclines, which the Viewpoint Beach trail definitely delivers.

Unfortunately, the weather didn’t deliver. We met up a few days before the trip to go through everyone’s gear and pack our backpacks. Camping was only permitted with 2 people per tent thanks to COVID, so we had to carry a lot of tents with us. The nice thing about Girl Guides is that we can borrow most of the gear, so we shared around pot sets, tents, backpacks, and sleeping pads. The only thing we couldn’t borrow was sleeping bags, which proved to be a challenge because a lot of our members had older unrated bags and it was hard to tell how warm anyone would be (spoiler, not very warm).

I’ve spent the last 6 years trying to reduce my pack weight and size by gradually upgrading my gear, so I was a little concerned that everyone was carrying big and heavy packs. What I didn’t take into consideration is that our group is made up of 13-16 years olds who have a lot more energy than their said Guide leaders. The weakest link on the hike in was definitely the adults!

It’s ~4km to the campsite at Viewpoint Beach and the Guides had absolutely no problem hiking there, even with their large packs. They blew through the trail in just an hour and 20 minutes! It’s possible that it was the rain spurring them on though…

It was raining pretty heavily on our drive to the trailhead, but it stopped by the time we arrived. We got all ready with our backpacks and it started to rain again just as we started. Fortunately we were under the trees, so it wasn’t too bad, but we all layered up with our raincoats and pack covers to protect our gear. We arrived around 12:30pm and our timing was amazing, because it stopped raining long enough for us to put up our tents while it was dry before eating lunch. There was one other group on the beach when we got there, so we set up along the back by the trees and got a few tarps up. One more group showed up after us, but everyone else seemed to be continuing on to Halfmoon Beach instead. I’m not sure if our big group (11 people) was a deterrent, but there were empty sites left overnight, which is more than I can say for the last two times I went with a small group.

After lunch it started to genuinely pour, so we had a bit of a rest under the tarps and in tents. Since we had arrived early, we wanted to do a bit of exploring, so when the rain eased up we decided to hike back to the bridge to try and cross over to Hiker’s Beach, which is located just across the river from Viewpoint Beach. I have seen people ford Gold Creek to get to that beach on other trips, but the water is very cold and I definitely wasn’t going to attempt it with a group of teenagers!

BC Parks has put a lot of effort into upgrading the trail as far as Viewpoint Beach in the past few years. The first time I hiked there was in 2014 and there was barely any infrastructure, since then they’ve added a really nice bridge to connect the East Canyon trail (the official trail name), to the West Canyon trail, which heads up towards Alder Flats and Golden Ears peak. It also connects to Hiker’s Beach to save you from having to ford the river.

We hiked back across the bridge, but unfortunately, there’s a second river crossing just past the junction to Alder Flats that was impassable. We could tell from Viewpoint Beach that the trail entrance to Hiker’s Beach was partially flooded, so we knew it was possible we wouldn’t make it there, but we didn’t realize we also had to worry about crossing Alder Creek. If I’d been on my own or more adventurous, I might have explored around for a way across the creek, but again, with 8 teenagers, none of whom were using hiking poles, I wasn’t willing to risk it. So instead we hiked back to the beach and enjoyed hanging out along the river as the rain had finally stopped. We didn’t see anyone on Hiker’s Beach the whole day, so I guess no one else was willing to chance the crossing either!

The rain stayed away for the rest of the evening, which made the trip a lot more enjoyable. We were able to spread out to cook dinner rather than to all huddle under the tarps. We did cold soak lunches on the trip and had coconut chickpea curry with rice for supper. It turns out there’s a big difference in how much teenagers can eat – the 16 year olds had no trouble eating their entire meal, but the 13 year olds only ate about half of theirs. We finished the evening with a chocolate pudding for mug-up. One of the Guides convinced me to try my pudding hot, which is how she loves to eat hers, but I will attest that it is not good, haha. Always go for cold pudding my friends, or if you’re lazy like I usually am, a chocolate bar.

So despite the weather, our first day was actually quite successful. Unfortunately, the rain didn’t cut us a break on Day 2. It started raining again in the middle of the night and only increased in intensity throughout the morning. We packed up what we could in our tents and then left the tarps up until the very end to try and stay as dry as possible. Unfortunately I got quite wet taking down the tarps and rolling them up, so it didn’t make for the most enjoyable hike back. Plus I think I was carrying several extra pounds in water weight from the soaked gear!

Despite the weather though, no one complained! One of our Guiders is also in Scouts and she informed us that the Scouts whine a lot more when the weather is bad, so we were really impressed with Trex. We were all satched when we arrived back at the vehicles and quickly stripped off our layers and loaded everyone up with snacks to boost morale. We stopped into Tim’s on the way back to have our lunch and get hot chocolate and donuts. I’m always worried that a bad trip might deter someone new from continuing to adventure, but our group are a real bunch of troopers and I still saw lots of smiles at the Tim’s!

Half Moon Beach Backpacking Trip

June 30, 2021July 9, 2021 / Maria / 9 Comments

Is anyone else getting Deju Vu this year? I got my first dose of Pfizer in mid-May, so the year is definitely going better than last year, but in a lot of ways I feel like I am just living the same year over again. In May and June of 2020 I was waiting anxiously to see if the province was going to open up and whether I’d be able to go on the backpacking trip I’d planned to Assiniboine in early July. In 2020, my trip got cancelled and I ended up doing the North Coast Trail instead. This year I planned the same trip for the same time and fortunately it’s looking like my plans will pan out this time, so stayed tuned to hear about Assiniboine soon! In the meantime, please enjoy post that I wrote about my 1 night backpacking trip in Golden Ears Park back in early June.

Last year me and Emily did a 1-night backpacking trip to Viewpoint Beach during the first weekend in June. Since I’m basically living the same year over, I returned to Viewpoint Beach again this year during the exact same weekend, only this time I took more people with me! It was an easy sell for Carolyn and Brandon, but we also convinced Seth to come with us and our friends Karen and Grant! Karen and Grant aren’t big backpackers, but they did once accompany me to Elfin Lakes and are looking to get more into backpacking, so I was thrilled to have them join us for a weekend in Golden Ears.

We were all stoked for the trip, the only problem was the weather was looking really dicey. I was convinced someone was going to cancel, but I think it’s a testament to how fed up we all were about being stuck at home all the time that we decided to go anyways. It wasn’t calling for rain until overnight on Friday, so we figured as long as we got set up before the rain hit, we would be okay.

We took off early from work on Friday to try and beat the traffic, we failed, but still managed to get to the trailhead for 5pm. Carolyn was ahead of the rest of us, so she decided to hike in on her own to secure a campsite. Me, Seth, Karen, and Grant followed about an hour behind her. The official trail name is East Canyon Trail and you can hike out to Viewpoint Beach either along the Gold Creek trail or the East Canyon trail. We opted for East Canyon because it is faster. It’s only about 4km to Viewpoint Beach and it’s a forgiving trail. It’s wide and a gradual uphill for the first 3km, then it switches to downhill for the remaining 1km.

You can camp on either side of Gold Creek, just cross the bridge in advance of arriving at Viewpoint Beach if you want to camp on the far side, which is known as Hiker’s Beach. I was keen to check out Hiker’s Beach because I’d camped at Viewpoint last year, but we opted for Viewpoint again since there’s both an outhouse and bear cache on that side. The water level was also very high when we visited and it did look like Hiker’s Beach may have been a bit flooded.

Despite the poor forecast, there were still quite a few other campers at the beach. Carolyn had set up under the trees and the rest of us set up our tents on the beach. We did our best to get a tarp up so that we could have a dry breakfast the next day, but it was somewhat challenging with the limited number of trees, so we managed mostly with hiking poles.

There was a very short spurt of rain while we were getting set up, but it only lasted a few minutes, so it wasn’t a big deal. Brandon was pretty far behind us, but he rolled into the campsite a few hours later to set up his tent as well. Because of COVID we were playing it safe, so we all had our own tent, which ended up being quite luxurious. Carolyn and Brandon were both in 2p tents, and the rest of us were in 3p tents, so we had lots of room to spare. I think me and Seth had it the worst though because we had to share our space with a neurotic, wet dog.

We heated up some water for boozy hot drinks and Brandon debuted his newest fad, the hand sanitizer stove. I’ve done this one with girl guides in the past, but basically he had a little pop-can stove that he filled with liquid hand sanitizer as fuel. He had a small bottle that burned for about 20 minutes. Not the most inspiring campfire, but there are no fires allowed in the Golden Ears backcountry, so it was a nice little alterative and we all got a kick out of it! Our neighbours were all having real campfires though, so a reminder to please respect the rules and the environment when you camp. Fire bans in parks exist for a reason, usually because people pillage the area for firewood and it’s not good for the ecosystem.

After that it did start to rain in earnest, so we dropped off our smellies in the bear cache and called it a night! When I wrote about Viewpoint Beach last year I said there was no bear cache, but I think I just never discovered it. Carolyn found it right at the back of the beach. There’s no sign, but if you follow the trail into the woods, you will find a bear cache hidden back there. Easy to find in the day, but I do wish they would add some signs because it’s definitely not easy to find in the dark.

It’s always a handful to take Sadie camping, but she did reasonably well on Friday. Carolyn is the dog whisperer and there were no other dogs camping on the beach, so she handled herself well. She gets really excited when you first get in the tent, which makes it challenging to get into pyjamas, but once you turn off your headlamp she settles down pretty fast. It rained on and off through the night, but she slept well until 7am. Usually she lets us sleep later than that, but she wanted out, so I got up at 7am with her and let Seth sleep a bit longer.

Fortunately the rain had cleared off in the morning and we were able to enjoy our breakfast in the dry! Pretty much everyone was up by 8am and we had a nice lazy morning. Our goal for the day was to hike 6km further along the trail to Half Moon Beach. One day I’d like to camp there, but our plan was just to check it out as a day hike and have lunch. There was a quick downpour just before we left at 10am, so we huddled under the tarp before setting out for the day.

It stayed dry for most of the hike out to Half Moon. The trail starts super easy, but it deteriorates the farther you go. I’ve heard the trail to Hector Fergusson Lake (which is past Half Moon Beach) is notoriously bad, but this section of the trail is pretty reasonable. There’s definitely some obstacles, but overall, not too bad. There’s just one confusing spot about 2.5km in where the trail markers seemingly go in multiple directions. Most of us followed the route on my GPS, which I think is the official route, but it was very muddy and wet, so I suspect the other routes exist as a bypass when the river is high. Carolyn and Brandon took that route and we were all reminded how easy it is to get separated when you split up, even if only for a short time.

Eventually we met up again on the trail, but for a short period of time we did lose voice contact with each other because the trails diverged. We were all on marked trails, so everyone was reluctant to leave the trail they were on and eventually they did catch up. In our case, both me and Carolyn had inreach and GPS, so I wasn’t overly concerned, but I did mark the location where our paths diverged just in case.

Even in the drizzle, it’s a lovely trail! Golden Ears is so green and though you’re in the canopy for most of the trail, it follows Gold Creek and has some gorgeous views looking up the valley. Eventually we arrived at Half Moon Beach and happily set up by the river to enjoy our lunch. But we had about 3 minutes to enjoy it before the clouds finally opened rain on us. It poured and we hastily ran back to the cover of the trees. We hadn’t brought the tarp, so we huddled until the canopy while we ate our lunch.

The tree cover didn’t really help us and we still got pretty wet. We hung around for a little bit in case it did clear up, but it didn’t really seem like it was going to stop, so we decided to head back. It did rain for the remainder of the hike and it took us about 2 hours each way. The trail accumulates water fast, so it was generally a lot wetter on the way back and by the time we finally strolled into camp, my pants were soaked through and my feet we were wet.

We’d anticipated this, so we decided to just pack up and abandon our plans to stay a second night (we’d been hopeful, but kind of knew from the start we would likely only stay 1 night). Honestly, if it wasn’t for Sadie, I might have been willing to stay, but camping with a wet dog isn’t really the most appealing. Once we stopped hiking she got really cold from the rain; plus our new neighbours both had dogs and Sadie is not friendly to stranger dogs.

Unfortunately, it rained the entire time we took down camp, but we all changed into dry clothes first anyways. We took the tent down in the pouring rain, but left the tarp up until the last minute to provide some shelter. Once all our bags were packed, we hastily pulled the tarp down. But of course, the second we took the tarp down the rain slowed and I kid you not, the sun came out just as we were hiking out from the beach. It was still raining, but the sun brightened up the whole scene and all our neighbours emerged jubilantly from their tents. We snapped a few photos, but knew the rain would be back and continued on.

It did thunder on the trek back to the car, but the rain slowed considerably to the point where my second set of clothing fortunately didn’t get wet. With the 12km day hike and the return trip, it ended up being 16km of hiking, which was a considerable day for all of us and Sadie. We arrived at the parking lot around 5pm, ending exactly 24 hours in the park. Somehow it felt like so much longer!

The weather continued to improve as we approached the city and I wondered if maybe we could have stayed, but then in poured all day Sunday, so in the end I didn’t regret it when I woke up in my cozy bed after having slept for 11 hours! Despite the rain, we all agreed that we still had a great time! I wouldn’t go back in the rain, but I am still keen to return again one day in the sun and this time camp at Half Moon Beach!