Cathedral Park Backpacking Trip: Rim Trail

December 6, 2025November 20, 2025 / Maria / Leave a comment

Cathedral Park has been on my bucket list for a long time. I was supposed to visit the park in 2018, but my trip was cancelled due to a nearby forest fire. Fortunately, the fire never did reach the park, but I missed out on the opportunity. Even more unfortunately, another forest fire in 2023 (the Crater Creek fire) did breach the boundary of the park, doing a lot more damage to the area. The fire tore up the valley along Ashnola Road, burning everything in its wake and then continuing up towards the core area of the park.

Fortunately, the fire was contained before it burned everything, but a good chunk of the east part of the park was decimated, including 2 campgrounds and the access road. Parts of the core area of the park were saved, including the lodge (honestly, I think we have the lodge to thank that it didn’t all burn down, as I suspect they water bombed it). The park has been closed, but it was partially re-opened this summer. There used to be 3 campgrounds, but Lake-of-the-Woods and Pyramid Lake both burned down, leaving only the Quinescoe Campground.

The lodge did not burn down, but it’s not open due to the loss of the access road bridge. The road closure had a big impact on park usage in 2025. While it is possible to hike into the park, the access trail is 15km long and climbs 1400m in elevation, so it’s a big hike. Historically, most people have paid to use the lodge shuttle to access the park, even if they were camping, in order to avoid the challenging access trail. It appears that the bridge repair is almost complete, so I suspect the road will re-open in 2026, but for 2025, hiking was the only way to access the park.

When I saw the re-opening announcement, I impulsively booked permits for the Labour Day long weekend. Carolyn and I has planned to spend the weekend together and I thought Cathedral would be a nice option. In the past, it’s been hard to get permits for Cathedral because of its popularity, but with the road closure in 2025, it wasn’t a problem. Carolyn wasn’t really sold on the idea, but when she learned park usage was low due to the closed road – and that there were 5 lakes in the core park area – she quickly got on board with the idea. We decided to meet at the trailhead on Thursday night before the long weekend to spend 3 nights camping at Quinescoe Lake.

If you’ve been following along my previous posts, you’ll know that I was already on a road trip with Seth, so we all met up at the Lakeview Trailhead on Thursday evening. Accessing the park is a bit tricky as it’s not close to any cities. From Vancouver, it’s a 5-hour drive through Manning Park until you reach Keremeos. From there, you take Ashnola Road to the Park entrance. Ashnola Road is a gravel road, so it’s a bit slow going, but it’s in good shape and you can drive it in any vehicle. It was humbling to see all the damage from the forest fire on the way. Everything along the road has burned down, leaving many rec sites exposed. It’s a very fresh burn scar and it’s honestly hard to witness.

Once you reach the park entrance, there are two rec sites along the road, one is at the Lakeview Trailhead, and the other is a few kilometres away, called Buckhorn. We camped at Lakeview since that’s where we were leaving Carolyn’s car, but it only has a single walk-in site and no outhouse, so I wouldn’t recommend it. We ended up camping in the parking lot since we were the only ones there. I didn’t drive down to Buckhorn, but from the map, it looks like a more traditional rec site and I would recommend that one if you’re doing a similar trip.

There are actually 3 trails that hike into the core area of the park, but the Ewart Creek trail on the east side of the park is still closed because it completely burned. The most common access to the park (for the limited number of people who actually hike in) is the Lakeview Trail, which runs parallel to the backcountry road. In any other scenario, we would have hiked in and out on that trail. But because Seth was still with us and heading back to Vancouver the next day, we had the unique opportunity to do a thru hike. There’s a third trail, the Centennial Trail, that you can access from the west side of the park. At 16.5km and 1200m gain, it’s slightly longer and has slightly less gain than the Lakeview Trail. It’s another hour of driving to get to the trailhead, but Seth was nice enough to drop us off. So we left Carolyn’s car at Lakeview, with the intent to finish the trail there.

It was calling for a very hot weekend, so we got an early start. It’s a pretty steady incline for the first 8km of the trail. You get a reprieve when you reach the alpine, followed by another climb up to the Rim Trail, before you head down to the Quinescoe Lake Campground. We kept a steady pace on the initial uphill hike, which was forested, but after a few kms, we entered a burn scar. Because we knew the lodge hadn’t burned down, we thought the damage from the Crater Creek fire had been limited to the east half of the park, so we were disappointed to see the burned trunk. It looked like the damage along the Centennial Trail may have been from another fire, because it didn’t seem as recent, but I couldn’t confirm online.

In any case, it was exposed and hot along the trail, with no tree cover. We were wrong in assuming we’d have shade in the morning, so we ended up slogging through the first 8kms. Eventually we reached a plateau and found a small section of unburned forest where we were able to enjoy lunch. We both brought our helinox camping chairs, so we had a really nice break in the shade before setting off again. Fortunately, it got cloudier in the afternoon, so we had some relief from the heat by the time we reached the alpine. We hiked through nice meadows before starting the ascent up to the top of the Rim Trail.

The Rim Trail is one of many defining features in the park. There’s a cluster of lakes that are surrounded by a towering alpine ridge. It’s a very rocky park and it’s aptly named “Cathedral” because of all the stone monuments found along the Rim Trail, which encircles the core area in a 16km loop. We had to hike up to the ridge to connect with the Rim Trail at Scout Mountain before heading down to the lakes. It’s very exposed along the ridge and some dark clouds rolled in while we were hiking up to the pass. We were a little bit concerned about possible thundershowers while we were exposed, but fortunately the rain held off until we got to camp.

As we started hiking down, we could see a few larch trees that hadn’t burned, but we very quickly entered a complete burn zone. It was very eerie and sad to experience. It felt like there was a heaviness over the park the entire time we were there to the extent that I felt like we were almost grieving with the park. There’s a thick layer of black ash over everything and it was really dusty to hike through the burn scar. There’s absolutely no shelter and the only sign of life was the fireweed that had started to pop up. I lament the fact that we’ll never get to experience the park pre-fire. There are still some sections of unburned larch forest that were beautiful to witness – I can only imagine what it was like before.

It was a Friday night, so we didn’t expect the campsite to be very busy, but we were surprised to discover that we were the only people there, leaving 29 campsites empty. 2 girls did show up just before dark, so a total of 2 groups at this once popular site. More groups showed up on Saturday, but I think there were probably a total of only ~8 sites in use the entire long weekend.

We enjoyed the solitude on our first evening and went for a swim in the lake before watching the sunset. It’s an interesting campsite because, while bears are always a concern, mountain goats seem to be the bigger issue. Signs advise not to leave anything out that might entice the goats, and to only pee in the outhouse, as they are attracted to salt (so they will lick your pee off the ground). There are cages where you can put things you don’t want the goats to get, and of course, still a traditional bear hang (don’t use the goat cages for food!). We did see a mama and baby goat hanging around the campsite, which made a reappearance every day that we were there, as well as a few deer.

Carolyn had a very rough first night in the tent. Immediately after lying down, she commented that her sleeping pad had a leak. She found it very quickly and patched it up with tenacious tape, only to lie down again and immediately put another hole in it. We found a very sharp rock under the tent that had clearly put both holes in her pad. She patched that one up with tape too, but it caused her trouble all night. She’d get an hour of sleep, only for the tape to give out. We dug out some duct tape to try and fix it up and she had so many layers of tape on it. We didn’t want to waste our patch kit on a mediocre fix in the dark, so she suffered through the night on minimal sleep. The next day we fixed it with the patch kit, and fortunately, that solved the problem.

We got up early again to hike the Rim Trail. There’s lot of ways to customize this hike as there are several connector trails that come down at each lake. But I recommend just doing the whole thing because the connector trails are very steep and exposed. The highlight of the park is seeing Smokey the Bear (pictured above) and the Giant Cleft (pictured below), so we decided to do the trail clockwise to hit these highlights first. We ended up hiking the entire day without seeing a single other person, so it was a pretty special experience.

We started by hiking to Pyramid Lake and then climbed up through the trees to Ladyslipper Lake. Everything is burned to Pyramid Lake, but there’s still a small larch forest between Pyramid and Ladyslipper. It was early when we arrived at Ladyslipper, but we wanted to swim in all 5 lakes, so we stopped for a quick skinny dip. Ladyslipper Lake is really beautiful and I recommend hiking there even if you’re not doing the Rim Trail. At the end of the trip, Carolyn decided Ladyslipper Lake was her favourite lake in the park, but it was second on my list.

Once you leave Ladyslipper, be prepared to be in exposed terrain for the rest of the day. There’s a big climb after you leave the lake and the trail is not easy to follow (though it’s still hard to get lost). It’s obvious where you’re headed and it’s open terrain, so it’s a bit of a choose your own adventure up to the first plateau. You get a great view of the Giant Cleft as you hike up, and eventually the trail levels out briefly before you start a second steep climb to the top. This was probably the worst part of the hike, it’s a narrow exposed trail with lots of scree, so choose your path carefully. You’ll know you’re at the top when you see the junction and the sign for stone city.

It is a big day to do the entire Rim Trail. It took us almost 10 hours, but one of mine and Carolyn’s favourite things to do in the wilderness is film tiktok dances, so we stopped a lot to eat, film, and dance! Some people will just hike up to see the stone city and Smokey the Bear, returning the way they came. We had a quick break in the shade at the junction and then decided to do the 1km detour to see the rock features before lunch. I’m not really sure about the geological history of the park and how all of these stone formations came to be, but they have made it a special place for indigenous peoples and modern day visitors.

The first highlight is the stone city, which is a compilation of large scattered rocks, after which you arrive at Smokey the Bear. You can climb up to the top of Smokey, which we did, and then continue onto the Giant Cleft. This is exactly what it sounds like – a big gap in the cliffside. More adventurous hikers will scramble up Grimface Mountain, but we opted to turn around after the Giant Cleft, returning to the junction to eat lunch.

The rest of the hike is pretty straightforward as you circle around the top of the rim, but it is still surprisingly challenging. Like any ridge walk, while the net gain around the rim is minimal, there is a lot of up and downhill from peak to peak. Our first ascent was up to the Devils Woodpile, next to Pyramid Mountain, which has a great view of Ladyslipper Lake. The terrain is still really interesting because there’s a lot of rock, but over time, its become arranged into what looks like big waves of rock. I don’t know how this happens, but guessed it might be related to snowmelt, creating riverlike features. If I have any geologist readers, I’d love an opinion!

Our next milestone was hiking down to a lookout over Glacier Lake, before hiking up to the top of Quinescoe Mountain. Like I said, the trail isn’t always easy to follow and we got off it a few times throughout the day, but it’s always very obvious where you’re going, so we didn’t worry. The climb up Quinescoe Mountain wasn’t too bad, but we had one more ascent left on Red Mountain. It looked like a shorter and easier climb than Quinescoe, so we weren’t too worried about it, but it ended up being the worst one of the day.

The trail was the hardest to follow as Red Mountain was one big boulder field. You have to hop your way around the giant rocks up to the top, and then once there, the descent is even worse. My GPS track looks like we more or less followed the trail back down the mountain, but it sure didn’t feel like it! It was very steep and I felt unsure of myself in several areas because the boulders were so large. I was concerned about taking a wrong step and kicking up loose rocks. Fortunately, we made it to the bottom almost without incident, except that Carolyn’s bottle of electrolytes opened in her bag and coated everything in sticky, sugary liquid. Not her finest moment!

Eventually we reconnected with the Centennial Trail to follow our path from yesterday. We saw a few more deer on the way down, but were happy when we finally stumbled back to the campsite. There were a few more groups when we arrived, but overall, not very busy. We went for another swim before making supper for the evening. Tune back in next week to hear about the second half of the trip!

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!

Berg Lake Backpacking Trip

September 21, 2025October 6, 2025 / Maria / 5 Comments

There are a lot of amazing hiking trails in the Rocky Mountains. Over the past few years, I’ve been lucky enough to visit a handful of the big trails – Assiniboine, Rockwall, Lake O’Hara – but this year, the real hot spot to hike in the Rockies was definitely the Berg Lake Trail.

The Berg Lake Trail is located in Mount Robson Provincial Park in BC. Mount Robson is the tallest peak in both the Canadian Rockies and the province of BC, so this has always been a popular trail. However, in 2021, there were massive floods in the park, which resulted in helicopter evacuations of park users and a subsequent 3 year closure of the park for trail repairs. BC Parks completed upgrades to the trails and campgrounds earlier this year and the entire trail re-opened to the public at the start of the summer. As a result, it seemed like everyone was desperate to visit this magical place.

Since BC Parks had been teasing the re-opening of the park, I was really determined to visit this year. I try to do one big multi-day hike a year, and I passed on obtaining permits for any of the other major hiking trails when they were released. When BC Parks finally announced the re-opening in early April, I was ready!

If you’ve ever done a popular Canadian trail that requires permits, you’re probably familiar with how challenging they are to obtain. Hiking and backpacking have become increasingly popular, among both the locals and tourists (domestic and international). The popular hikes in the Rockies usually release permits for the entire season in the Spring, and it is always a battle to obtain permits. This experience was no different and I spent the better part of an hour fighting for permits.

If you’re looking to visit, permits can be obtained from camping.bcparks.ca. Traditionally BC Parks releases their sites 4 months in advance of your visit (so it’s a rolling window), but on this occasion they released the entire season at once due to the late announcement about the re-opening of the park. I’m not sure what they will do in the future. The challenge with this hike is that you have to go in and out on the same trail, so people are booking campsites in both directions. In addition, you have to build your itinerary day by day, so you have to essentially refresh the page after you add each day. If you are unable to get what you want for a certain day, you can’t continue the booking to the following day because you can’t leave a gap in your itinerary. Due to the scarcity of sites, most parties will have multiple people online at the same time trying to book sites, which results in campsites appearing full, but later showing vacancies as groups eventually release sites. This creates more opportunities for website bugs and overcrowding to wreak havoc on your cart.

The Berg Lake Trail is a 21km trail that runs from the trailhead on Highway 16, to Robson Pass. There are 7 campgrounds, shown below, but the most popular is, of course, the Berg Lake Campground. As a result, everyone is trying to get permits to Berg Lake, usually with a campsite somewhere along the trail midpoint on the way in and out (or sometimes just on the way in). It’s really hard to get permits at Berg Lake, so my advice is not to waste your time refreshing if you can’t get Berg Lake. There are several other campsites in close proximity to Berg Lake, book one of those instead so that you can at least secure an itinerary. You can look for cancellations at Berg Lake later. There is a $6 change fee to change campsites, so it does cost a little more, but in my opinion, it’s better to secure a booking to another site quickly, rather than risk getting no permits.

The first couple hours after the permits release is chaos because people are constantly adding and releasing sites from their cart. So if you’re struggling to get what you want, keep refreshing for at least a half hour because there’s a lot of changeover of campsites. My preferred itinerary was to stay at Kinney Lake on the way in, 3 nights at Berg, and then Whitehorn on the way out. I wasn’t able to get any of those sites, except Kinney Lake, so I booked sites at Marmot and Robson Pass instead. With all the turnover, I was able to change my site at Robson Pass to Berg Lake within the hour. I wasn’t sure if I would get other cancellations, but I watched all summer and I was able to get my entire preferred itinerary (including 3 nights at Berg Lake) in advance of the trip! So it’s better to have something than nothing. Once you have a booking, sign up for cancellation notifications on Schnerp – they scan the sites and will email you as soon as one becomes available for your selected dates. I got most of my cancellations in the week leading up to the trip (with the final one a day before I left), so don’t be discouraged, most people wait until the last minute to cancel.

That’s a lot of information about the permit process, so let’s move on to the fun stuff! After getting through the reservation gauntlet, I was super excited about the trip and planned to do the trail with Brandon. We left Vancouver after work on Friday night in late July and drove halfway to Kamloops. We did the second half of the drive in the morning and arrived at the Visitor Centre around 1pm in the afternoon. We were starting our hike the same day, but it’s only ~7km along mostly flat terrain to Kinney Lake, so we weren’t worried about a later start. You’re required to stop at the visitor centre in order to pick up your permits, so plan your start time accordingly as it closes at 4pm.

Unfortunately, the weather was looking absolutely abysmal for our trip. We kept checking it every day leading up to our departure, but it consistently showed rain for the entire 6 day trip. We were optimistic it wouldn’t rain the whole time and that we would get some nice weather windows throughout the week, so we didn’t even consider cancelling. But I do think this is why I was able to get last minute cancellations at Berg Lake. It started to pour as we approached the visitor centre, so we were in no rush to start the hike. I spent some time lining my backpack with a garbage bag and then we hit up the Mount Robson cafe and gift shop to kill time.

Eventually the rain started to lighten, so we drove to the parking lot to get ready. We dressed in full waterproof gear, but the rain stopped very soon after we started hiking and we quickly got sweaty from the humidity and ditched our layers. The view up towards Mount Robson was completely clouded in, but at least we were dry, and I was optimistic that we’d see Mount Robson at some point in the next 6 days.

The hike to Kinney Lake is very chill. You mostly hike through the forest along the Robson River and you can see where they’ve reinforced the trail against flooding in some spots along the way. It’s a easy hike and there were quite a few day hikers along the trail. Eventually, you hit a bridge at the edge of Kinney Lake, which has a gorgeous view of the lake and river, with Mount Robson in the background. The trail continues along the lakeshore, but it was a bit flooded throughout, so you can take the perimeter trail if you want to avoid that.

It took us ~2 hours to reach the campsite on the east side of the lake, where we were surprised to find that more than half of the campsites were empty, despite it being 6pm. Apparently ‘no-shows’ has been a common theme in the park all summer. There was a viral tiktok of someone complaining about all the empty sites at Berg Lake. I did find this to be the case at most of the campsites, but not at Berg Lake. There were maybe 1 or 2 empty sites, but overall, in the 3 nights I spent there, that campsite seemed pretty full.

We were happy to arrive at Kinney Lake dry because most of the other campers had gotten completely soaked on the way in. The Kinney Lake Campsite is really beautiful and has several waterfront sites. We were too late to get one, but it also has a big open air shelter that is amazing on a wet or sunny day. I think this site is passed over a lot because it’s so close to the trailhead, but it’s a great place for families and it was my favourite site after Berg Lake. If you want a late start, this is a great option.

The first thing I did after arriving was go for a swim. The water is cold at Kinney Lake, but warmer than I was expecting. It’s definitely the easiest lake to swim in! We had a very chill evening and mostly hung around at the shelter after setting up our tent. Fortunately, the rain didn’t reappear and the clouds lifted. We were able to catch a glimpse of the backside of Mount Robson and we got really cool views as the fog settled over the top of the lake.

When we woke in the morning, it was cloudy, but not raining. The forecast was showing rain in the afternoon, so we figured it was a good idea to get an early start on the day. From Kinney Lake, we got an idea of the number of day hikers that visit the park in the span of a day. It’s 40km round trip to hike to Berg Lake, so I didn’t expect to see many day hikers past Kinney Lake. Was I ever wrong! There was a steady stream of visitors attempting to do the entire trail in a day. Since it’s such a long hike, they all start early, so we saw lots of people hiking into Kinney Lake as we were preparing to start our day.

The amazing thing about this hike is that pretty much the entire journey is scenic! Once you leave Kinney Lake, you hike through the forest to the end of the lake, where you come to a junction. There’s a few bike racks here because you are allowed to bike as far as Kinney Lake, which is a popular option for day users. There’s two routes at the end of the lake. There’s the Kinney Flats route, which crosses the river delta at the end of the lake, or the alternative high route, for when the Flats are inundated. It was dry, so we chose the Flats route, which is more scenic and saved us unnecessary elevation gain.

Once you reach the end of the Flats, the climb begins. It’s uphill for most of the rest of the day. It still wasn’t rainy and we were pleased about the conditions overall. At least with the clouds, we were spared from the hot sun on our climb. The next landmark is Whitehorn Campground, which is ~2km from Kinney Flats. This entire section of trail is new since the flood. The trail used to climb up the west side of the valley, but now it goes up the east side. The Robson River flooded the banks during the 2021 flood, so the new route avoids crossing it at the bottom of the Flats.

There’s ~150m of elevation gain in this section and the trail mostly switchbacks through the forest. I didn’t find it too strenuous and before we knew it, we had arrived at Whitehorn Campground! This campsite is also beautiful as it overlooks the Robson River and has an incredible view of the Valley of a Thousand Waterfalls. The name accurately captures the vibe and we had a snack break along the river while spotting all the waterfalls. There is a large open-air shelter at Whitehorn and it’s located close to the midpoint of the trail, making it a popular stop on the way to Berg Lake.

We continued hiking up the valley and the trail again diverges from the old trail. The new trail is longer than the old trail and now you cross the Robson River at Whitehorn Campground, and then again before you start heading up to Emperor Falls (with the new trail on the west side of the river rather than the east side). The trail is relatively flat for 2km after Whitehorn as you hike along the valley. There’s a huge new bridge crossing the river that provides an awesome view of the surrounding waterfalls.

After you finish the valley walk, the trail difficulty really ups the ante. For the next 3km, you’ll do the bulk of the elevation gain as you climb up towards Berg Lake. At first, it’s very steep and there are lots of warnings not to take breaks because of the risk of rockfall. There are a few landmarks though. The first is a beautiful view of White Falls, followed by the Falls of the Pool viewpoint. The clouds continued to break-up all morning and there was actually a lot of sun as we sweated our way up to Emperor Falls.

Emperor Falls is one of the larger waterfalls on the trail and involves a short detour, but it’s definitely worth it! It’s a huge waterfall and it gives off a lot of spray, so either grab your rain jacket or prepare to get wet. At this point, we were getting really hungry, so we didn’t stay too long and continued another 500m along the trail to the Emperor Falls Campground, where we planned to have lunch.

Emperor Falls is one of the smaller campgrounds on the trail and unfortunately, it doesn’t have a shelter. It does have a picnic area and some beautiful tent pads along the river. I don’t think this campsite is very popular because it’s so close to Berg Lake and people would rather stay at Berg Lake, but it’s still a nice spot. We set up on one of the tent pads and ended up taking a pretty lengthy lunch break. It started to sprinkle on us when we were getting ready to leave, but it was short lived and the sun came out again as we started the last section of our hike.

From Emperor Falls, it’s ~2km to Marmot Campground, which is located at the head of Berg Lake, and then another ~2km to the main campground at the foot of Berg Lake. The good news is there’s very little elevation gain along this stretch and it is incredibly scenic! As you leave Emperor Falls, you hike along the river at the edge of the mountain. With the sun out, we could see Mount Robson and the short arm of the Berg Lake Glacier coming down the mountain. I remember feeling so incredibly happy at this part of the hike. We weren’t sure how much of the scenery we would get to see with the poor weather forecast, yet here we were already admiring Mount Robson and the glaciers! We both had huge smiles as we continued towards the lake.

After 1km, you start hiking across the flats to the edge of the lake, where there are dozens of streams crisscrossing the terrain. It’s easy to see how this part of the trail could have flooded. I believe the trail was re-routed in this area too – you still cross the flats, but BC Parks have made a trail of stepping stones so that you can (for the most part) avoid getting your feet wet. I’m not sure how long this will last with the streams constantly changing, there was one section where I switched to my sandals because the water was coming up over the rocks and I didn’t want to risk wet shoes so early in the trip.

If you’re not able to get a campsite at Berg Lake, then I think Marmot Campground is the next best option. Marmot is also located directly on Berg Lake, just on the opposite site. You can’t see the main part of the Berg Lake Glacier from Marmot, but you can see the smaller arm and it still has incredible views. I had 2 nights at Marmot on my original booking and was only able to get the cancellation for Berg Lake right before my trip. I’m glad we ended up with 3 nights at Berg (even if only so that we didn’t have to move our tent), but I would have been very satisfied at Marmot too. Plus, Marmot has a brand new shelter and outhouse!

Despite it’s beauty, we didn’t stay long at Marmot because we were itching to get to our campsite. It’s only 2km along the lakeshore to get there, but it did feel like a bit of a slog at the end of the day. We tracked 15km on my GPS with the detour to Emperor Falls, which is a pretty big day. With our long lunch break, it took us 7.5 hours to hike from Kinney Lake to Berg Lake, so we were ready to ditch our packs. The hike along the lakeshore is in the forest, but there are breathtaking views of the lake and Berg Glacier as you get closer to the campground.

Eventually we made it and Brandon wondered off in search of a campsite (he prides himself on always finding the best site available). There’s only 1 tent pad at Berg Lake that actually has a view of the lake, so I didn’t care too much where we stayed, my main concern was going for a swim as soon as possible. So while Brandon was wandering the campground, I snuck down to the waterfront and changed into my swimsuit for a dip. Alpine Lakes are always cold and I knew Berg Lake would be no exception with the glacier draining directly into it. But I love lake swimming and I have to say, it honestly wasn’t as cold as I thought it would be. It was obviously cold, but not the immediately numbing kind of cold. I was able to stay in the water for a few minutes and it felt lovely to wash all the sweat off.

Brandon returned with 2 potential sites and we ended up picking one along the river, behind the shelter. There’s a few campsites at the edge of the campground that do have a view of Mount Robson, but I really liked being close to the shelter, which is where the main open area of the campground is, with the best view, so I was very happy with our site. We set up our tent for the next 3 nights before heading to the shelter to make supper. There’s a bunch of picnic tables with a good view of the mountain, but we weren’t sure if it might rain again, so we opted for the shelter.

Hargreaves Shelter is fully enclosed with a bunch of picnic tables inside. But the crown jewel of this shelter is the patio, which has a great view of the lake! We made some friends and enjoyed a nice night chatting and taking in the view (while stuffing our faces). Communal cooking spaces are one of my favourite things about the parks in the Rockies. You know you have at least one thing in common with everyone there, so I love hanging out and getting to know the different people visiting the park. Most of the campers we met were from BC or Alberta, whereas a lot of the day hikers were international tourists.

Eventually, we relocated to the lakefront for sunset and hung out for a while, basking in how lucky we were to actually be there. The scenery at Berg Lake is unparalleled and even though it’s a busy site, there’s so much energy and appreciation present. I was mostly thrilled that it wasn’t raining and I was full of optimism for the days ahead! Sometimes you want to just be, and this is one of those places where I wanted nothing more than to just sit in silence and stare at nature’s beauty and marvel at the height of Mount Robson. Check back next week to read about my day hike to Hargreaves Lake.