Siwash Meadows

Continuing on from Part I and Part II, on Day 4, we had a big hike up and over Deer Pass to access the southern part of the park. It has been relatively cool in previous days, but the weather was starting to get hotter. We got up early to say goodbye to Siwash Meadows. Fortunately, we didn’t see any bears while we were staying in the meadow, but I did see 2 deer. On the first morning, I saw a doe staring at me while I made breakfast, and on the second morning, I saw a buck prancing through the meadow! Brandon wasn’t lucky enough to see either, but being at the base of Deer Pass did live up to its name.

The day started with a river crossing. Once you cross over from the meadow, you start a pretty steep climb up through the trees. We ran into our mountain biker friends again when they passed us on the trail (the first rider got spooked by Brandon and thought he was a bear), otherwise, we didn’t see anyone on the trail again that day.

I didn’t mind the hike up through the woods. There’s shade and I didn’t find it too painful. Eventually you pop out in the sub-alpine and continuing climbing until you get into the real alpine. We stopped for a break to take advantage of the shade, since the rest of the pass is extremely exposed. Deer Pass is much more rugged than Lorna Pass. Lorna Pass was a gentle uphill over established trail, while Deer Pass had a lot more switchbacks and exposure to steep run-out zones. There was one part of the trail that was a little confusing because there seems to be have been a small slide that covered the trail and we had to navigate across it.

We were much slower hiking up Deer Pass. In some ways, it’s more scenic. The summit is much more rugged and there’s a gorgeous meadow down in the valley, but you also feel much more exposed. We had to layer up because it started to get really windy and we crawled up some of the steeper sections. But I still really enjoyed it! I think I liked Lorna Pass a little better than Deer Pass, but both are really striking sections of the trail. I love being in the alpine and it felt really rewarding after a lot of forest walking!

Eventually we reached the top of the pass and it’s an incredible feeling crossing over to the other side. The Chilcotin mountains are quite barren and eroded, but when you summit the pass, you can see a whole new mountain range in the distance. They are more characteristic of the rest of the mountains in southwest BC, in that they are less eroded and have glaciers and snow-capped peaks year round.

There’s a little tarn at the top of the summit, which supposedly can be used as a campsite, but it’s extremely windy and exposed up there, so I wouldn’t recommend it. We sheltered behind some bushes to eat lunch, but it was pretty chilly and we put extra layers on for the descent. The descent is a lot more like Lorna Pass, it’s a gradual downhill through the meadows, with a gorgeous creek flowing through it. I’m sure the mountain bikers bombed down a lot faster than we did, but we definitely enjoyed the scenery more!

You stay in the alpine for a few kilometres before returning to the trees. The hike gets really steep again and we climbed down through the trees for what felt like forever, but was in reality, only a few kilometres. Once you reach return to the valley, it’s a short walk to the first of several lakes. All of the lakes have established campsites, and we planned to stop at the first one, Trigger Lake, for the evening. In total, we only hiked 12km, but it took us most of the day.

Trigger Lake is really beautiful and a deep blue colour. Unfortunately, it’s located right in the middle of a river delta. We were the only people at the campsite again, but at least this one had an outhouse, bear cache, and picnic table. We decided to take turns bathing in the lake. There’s no beach and the ground looked pretty muddy, but I found a small rocky section that I thought looked okay.

I knew it would be cold, so I decided to enter the lake at a run, which was a mistake. It turns out, the rocks almost immediately transitions to mud and before I could stop, I was knee deep in it! I more or less collapsed into the water to get my feet out of the mud, but it was hard to bathe while treading water. I eventually went back to shore and almost got stuck in the mud again while walking in. It was so gross; I can still feel the phantom plant life clinging to my toes!

So I would NOT recommend Trigger Lake for swimming. I got an inreach message from Seth, letting me know that the Northern Lights might be visible over the next two nights. I had a look for them when I got up to pee overnight, but I was so exhausted, I didn’t really look too hard. Like with my last post, I have so many photos from this section of the trail, so here’s a few more of my favourites! Continue on for Part IV.

Following up from my first post, Brandon and I entered South Chilcotin Provincial Park with only a very loose hiking plan. We had enough food for 7 days and decided to just make up the itinerary on the fly. This was a good choice because Brandon was fighting a cold and it quickly became evident that shorter distances would be better. I wanted to do a side trip up Lorna Pass and considered camping at Lorna Lake, but we decided to make Day 2 a shorter day to do Lorna Pass as a day trip.

There’s a bit of a gap in formal campsites between WD Campsite, Lorna Lake, and Trigger Lake, but there is a wilderness campsite called Siwash Meadows at the Branch to Lorna Pass. I really think BC Parks should make this a formal campsite with an outhouse and bear cache, because it’s already a pretty established campsite. It ended up being my favourite campsite on the trail as it has incredible views of the surrounding mountains.

It’s only 10km between WD Camp and Siwash Meadows, so we figured the shorter distance would allow us to get ahead with our schedule. We were pretty late getting to camp the previous night, which means you’re slower to go to bed and subsequently slower to rise. We wanted to get on an earlier schedule to do more morning hiking.

It rained overnight and it was still drizzling in the morning, but it cooled down the temperature and overall, we thought the rain would benefit us. The trail to Siwash Meadows is pretty straightforward. It’s similar to the previous day in that the trail mostly goes through the forest, with frequent breaks through the meadows. It continued to rain for a few hours, but eventually stopped and didn’t rain anymore during the entire trip.

The only real challenge on this section of the trail is that there are 4 water crossings in a row. Like I said, South Chilcotin is very remote and there’s limited infrastructure in the park. The rivers were low enough to cross, but there were definitely some sketchy sections where we had to be intentional about picking our line. We wore our sandals across and at times the water was about midway between my knee and thigh. The water is really cold and by the 4^th crossing, our feet were starting to go a bit numb.

We decided to stop for lunch after the last water crossing and encountered a group of 6 mountain bikers that were traveling from Spruce Lake to Bear Paw, which is the Tyax Camp located a few kilometres north of Siwash Meadows. They were the only people we saw for the next 3 days, but we did see them every day since we were on similar routes.

I’ve included a map of our route above so that you can visualize the route we took. On Day 1, the Tyaughton Creek Trail (red) took us into the park, and then our plan was to spend the rest of the trip doing a big loop in the central part of the park before exiting the same way. South Chilcotin is really only one part of this wilderness area and if you continue north, you’ll enter into Big Creek Provincial Park, where there’s a lot more wilderness to explore. I think I’d like to return in the future and get flown into Lorna Lake to explore Big Creek from there.

Siwash Meadows is located right at the junction of the Tyaughton Creek Trail, Deer Pass, and the Lorna Pass Trail (as well as a little trail to Lizard Creek). Siwash Meadows is huge and the campsite is located at the west side of the meadow by the creek. There’s a few rustic benches and tall tables and pretty much infinite room for tents. We set up in the meadow and did a bear hang. Chilcotin is so remote and empty of people that it’s probably the most bear aware I’ve ever been. We would never leave our bags unattended anywhere, not even to run over in the trees to use the bathroom. If one of us was at the tent or away from the cooking area, the other person was always with the food. Fortunately, we didn’t see any bears, but we did have a few deer visitors!

We enjoyed a nice meal and then went to bed early with the plan of hiking up to Lorna Pass and back the following day (shown in purple). I would have liked to make it all the way to Lorna Lake, but we didn’t want to have to hike up and down the pass twice in one day, so we settled on the top of the Pass as our goal destination.

It was really cloudy on Day 2, so we were thrilled to wake up to clear weather on Day 3. It was still pretty cool in the park and we didn’t have to carry our heavy packs, so it was nice to see some sun. We set off around 8:30am to climb the 8km up to the top of Lorna Pass. It’s 2km of forest hiking to get to Bear Paw camp, which is pretty swanky. It’s $400 a night, which I thought was pretty reasonable given how remote it is and that it’s completely catered. We only passed through and then continued up the trail towards Lorna Pass.

The Lorna Pass Trail was probably my favourite part of the entire trip. You walk through the forests and meadows for a while and there were a lot more wildflowers. I’ve become really interested in wildflowers over the past two years, so I had my little wildflower identification brochure with me and tried to identify as many flowers as possible. Eventually the trail becomes very steep as you ascend through the forest.

We did ~300m of elevation gain in the forest before popping out in the alpine. Once you leave the trees, it’s just wide open meadow stretching across bare mountain and it is absolutely gorgeous! There’s another ~200m of gain through the alpine to the top of the pass, but you don’t feel it at all because it’s so scenic! We took a break in the shade at the edge of the alpine and we were both in really high spirits as we climbed up the pass.

We planned to go as far as the Pass, but when I got there, I couldn’t stop myself from continuing to climb. There’s a nice view from the pass, but you can’t see around the edge of the surrounding peaks, so we impulsively did a scramble up to the top of the nearest peak. There’s an unnamed peak on either side of the pass, the one on the north side is much shorter and has a huge plateau on the top, so we climbed up that one. It adds another ~150m of gain, but it’s totally worth it! I’m not a frequent scrambler, but it’s not a steep peak and I felt very safe the whole time.

It’s only from the top of the peak that you can get a view of Lorna Lake, plus the view of all the other mountains is stunning! I would have been happy to keep exploring further, but I didn’t want to kill poor Brandon. It was quite windy at the top, so we settled behind some rocks to enjoy our lunch and take a break. I don’t regret not going down to Lorna Lake as I think the view from the peak was more rewarding. I’ll save Lorna Lake for a future trip!

We had a nice hike back down through the alpine and went off trail for a bit to explore a tarn. We were hoping to go for a swim in it, but it was only about ankle deep and very mucky, so we decided to skip it and hiked back to the trail. It’s a steep trail on the way down and we took a break in some meadows along the way.

By the time we got back to the Siwash Meadows, we were pretty tired and sweaty, so we took turns bathing in the river. In total, we’d hiked 18 kilometres. To lighten our packs, we’d obviously left our tent and sleeping gear set up in the meadow, and we’d hung our food while we were away and everything was untouched when we returned. It was pretty cold overnight, but there was a completely clear and I snuck out of bed for a little while in the middle of the night to enjoy the stars. I have so many photos from this section of trail, so here’s a few more. Continue to Part III.