Berg Lake Trail Backpacking Guide

November 20, 2025 / Maria / 2 Comments

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

The Trail

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

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

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

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

Time of Year

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

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

Getting There

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

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

Permits

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

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

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

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

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

Campsites

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Itineraries

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

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

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

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

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

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

Day Hikes

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

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

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

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

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

Taylor Creek Backpacking Trip: Ridge-o-rama

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Taylor Creek Backpacking Trip: Windy Pass

November 8, 2025November 20, 2025 / Maria / 1 Comment

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!