Tetrahedron Park Backpacking Trip Part II

December 13, 2023July 11, 2024 / Maria / 3 Comments

The first half of our trip centered around Mount Steele (featured in Part I), so the second half of the trip was about McNair Lake. Like I said in my last post – there are 4 cabins in the park. Edwards Cabin is the most central and could be used as a home base for day hiking. Bachelor Cabin is located the closest to the parking lot and is really popular among both families and partiers because of the short hike for hauling in children or booze, depending on your desires, I guess. These two crowds probably don’t mesh very well, so my opinion is to leave this cabin for the families!

I think Mount Steele is the most popular hut because of it’s location for skiing, and I’d heard McNair Cabin is one of the least frequented in the park. It’s certainly the hardest to get to. You’d think that Mount Steele would be the most challenging because of the hike up the mountain, but it’s a longer hike to McNair Lake and while the terrain is flatter – it’s more technical. In the shoulder season, it can get very muddy on the trail to McNair and there are several detours around boggy areas.

It was another gorgeous day when we departed Mount Steele and we hiked our way back towards Edwards Cabin. Just before you get to the cabin, there’s a branch towards McNair Lake. We weren’t ready for lunch yet, so we skipped Edwards and immediately carried on towards McNair. It’s a nice forested trail at the beginning, but it does deteriorate as you continue on. It’s not really in bad condition, but there’s a collapsed bridge and a detour before Chapman Lake that were pretty muddy.

Eventually our hunger caught up with us, but it’s pretty swampy and we didn’t see many places to stop. We decided to aim for Chapman Lake for lunch and we did find a small dry spot right at the head of the lake to take a break, but overall there’s not many good places to stop at the lake either. We didn’t see anyone on the trail except for one father and son who were leaving the cabin. Apparently on this particular weekend McNair Cabin had been the party cabin and they told us they had a great time participating in “beer olympics” with a bunch of partiers the previous night. They were crowned champions at the end of the night as the only ones not blackout drunk.

The partiers must have gotten up early though, because we didn’t see them. There are some large meadows just before the cabin and a short climb to get up to the top of the hill. The Cabin is still a few hundred metres from the lake, so you can’t see it, but there is a really beautiful view looking down to the meadows. The father-son duo told us they had seen a bunch of elk down there the previous day, so we kept our eyes peeled for them. We saw lots of evidence of where they had been bedded down, but unfortunately we didn’t see them.

We were the only people at the Cabin when we arrived and it ended up staying that way all night. We loved meeting new people at Steele, but it was nice to have the cabin to ourselves at McNair. I don’t know how McNair got its reputation as the least popular cabin though, because we absolutely loved it! Don’t skip it if you’re visiting the park, it’s definitely worth the muddy trek out there! Someone has strung lights around the edge of the cabin that can be plugged into a power bank, so it has a really great atmosphere!

We made a trek down to check out the lake as the clouds moved in for the evening. It’s a pretty small lake and if you’re feeling adventurous, there is another day hike that can be done up to Panther Peak. Definitely do your research for this one though as there’s no marked trail and it wasn’t even shown on my GPS. Instead, we hung out at the cabin and ate supper and had a cribbage tournament. Girls vs. Boys and me and Adriana absolutely smoked the boys!

The hut is very similar to Mount Steele, but McNair has a little balcony on the front of the cabin, which is a nice spot to hang out. I didn’t sleep well though because I woke up in the middle of the night and was absolutely convinced I had forgotten my rain pants at Mount Steele when I’d been repacking my bag in the morning. I only recently bought rain pants after a very wet episode at Lake O’Hara and I was feeling dejected thinking that I wouldn’t have them for the following day.

Fortunately, I lost sleep over nothing and found them in the bottom of my bag the following morning. It wasn’t raining when we woke up, but it started while we were having breakfast. I wouldn’t say it was heavy rain, but it rained consistently throughout the entire day. We had a nice breakfast before packing up for the hike back to the car. We made for a colourful crew with our rain jackets and pack covers!

As muddy as the trail had been the previous day, it was much worse in the rain. In the very first meadow I went calf deep in the mud and got my shoe wet and Brandon took a tumble backwards into the mud. It continued to rain on us all morning and it was a slow hike back to Edwards. Adriana was very worried about crossing the broken bridge and she did take a little tumble off it right at the start, but was otherwise okay. Eventually we made it back to Edwards for lunch and were thrilled to find 3 other guys there who were getting ready to leave, but had a fire going.

I was pleased with my new rain pants, which were only $15 from value village, but kept me quite dry on the trail. We stripped off all our wet layers and enjoyed our lunch warming up by the remnants of the fire. Brandon literally had steam pouring off him as we dried out our gear as much as possible.

Given the rain, it would have been an easy choice for me to skip Bachelor Cabin on the way back. It’s a slight detour (~2km) to get there and we skipped in on the way in to secure spots at Mount Steele. But I’m glad Eddie was there because he was determined to check out Bachelor Cabin to come back in the future with his family. So he convinced us to detour and now I can say I’ve been to all 4 cabins! Bachelor Cabin is located in the woods, but not far from Bachelor Lake. We didn’t stop for too long and it was only a short hike back to the car after that.

It was pouring by the time we finally got to the car, which made for an interesting dynamic of 4 people trying to change into dry clothes! We had a ferry booking for 8pm, which was the only sailing with reservations left, but we were hoping to get on one of the earlier sailings. We checked the ferry status as soon as we got service, but even though it was only 3pm, the ferry was already ticketing for 8pm, so we just kept our reservation. Instead, we got to enjoy some time in Gibsons and had a delicious meal at Lunitas Mexican Eatery, followed by ice cream!

So overall, I think it was a very successful trip and had a great time backpacking with some different friends than I usually go with. My love for the Sunshine Coast stays alive and well and I hope to be back one day on skis!

Tetrahedron Park Backpacking Trip Part I

December 6, 2023July 11, 2024 / Maria / 6 Comments

I think I fall a little more in love with the Sunshine Coast every time I visit. This was my third trip to the coast for the year and I was really excited to explore a new provincial park. The Sunshine Coast has a pretty extensive network of huts and I was keen to check out some more after having such a great time on the Sunshine Coast Trail last year.

Tetrahedron Park is a year round destination and my friend Eddie proposed that we check out the park in late September, with the goal of doing a bit of reconnaissance to come back in the winter on skis. So I obviously said yes and we were joined on the trip by Brandon (of course) and his friend Adriana. It was a long weekend, so we set off early on Saturday morning to catch the ferry and drive up to the trailhead.

Tetrahedron Park is located on the north part of the lower Sunshine Coast, nestled between Sechelt Inlet and Howe Sound. You have to drive all the way to Sechelt and then continue up past Porpoise Bay Provincial Park towards Tuwanek. From there you get on the Grey Creek Service Road and head up towards the park. The road starts with a pretty steep climb up Suicide Hill, but I don’t think you need 4WD or high clearance for it (though winter is probably a different story).

After a few kilometres on gravel road, you hit a branch, with the left branch going up towards Richardson Lake, and the right branch continuing to the trailhead for Tetrahedron. There’s a lower parking lot, which was empty when we arrived, and then 1.7km further, the upper lot. The upper lot is definitely intended for 4WD, so just stick with the lower lot if you don’t have the right vehicle. There were a few other cars in the upper lot when we arrived, but there’s 4 huts in the Park, so we figured it wouldn’t be too busy.

The huts in Tetrahedron Provincial Park are managed and cared for by the Tetrahedron Outdoor Club. You can visit their website here and you should e-transfer them the fee for the huts before you go. It’s $15 per person to stay overnight in the huts, or $10 per person if you’re a member. Brandon got the membership, but the rest of us just paid $30 for two nights. We didn’t know there’s also a facebook group for the park, but we learned from other campers that it’s common courtesy when visiting the huts to post your details in the facebook group so that the cabins don’t get too crowded.

The park isn’t set up as a thru hike like the Sunshine Coast Trail, but more of a loop of huts extending to different points of interest around the park. We could only stay in 2 huts, but we were keen to visit all 4 and planned our trip accordingly. A few other important things to know before visiting though is that most of the park is located in the watershed. As a result, dogs are not allowed in the park and you’re not allowed to swim in the watershed either. You’re also not supposed to do any tenting in the park and all overnights should be limited to the huts. This is to minimize impacts to the natural environment and preserve the quality of the watershed.

There were some people breaking these rules (we saw some dogs), but we opted to follow them, which for me mostly meant no swimming. However, when I examined the map at McNair Cabin, it looks like McNair Lake is actually outside of the watershed, so potentially you are allowed to swim at this one, but we still refrained because we weren’t certain.

It was a gorgeous sunny day and I really wanted to stay at Mount Steele Hut, so we decided to hightail it up the mountain for our first night. On the way in you have the option to detour to Bachelor Cabin, but we opted to postpone that visit and head straight to Edwards Cabin first instead. The hike starts on an inclined gravel road and then progresses into the forest where it flattens out. It’s approximately 5km to Edwards Cabin, which is the most central hut in the park. If you’re not a fan of backpacking, this would be a great place to camp because from here, you’re ideally situated to day trip to both McNair Cabin and Mount Steele.

It’s a nice enough cabin and we stopped and ate lunch on the front deck. There’s a wasp nest there currently, so definitely exercise caution. From Edwards, we started our ascent up to Mount Steele. It’s another ~3.5km to the Mount Steele Cabin, but it’s all uphill and covers 400m in elevation gain. You pass through some meadows 1km before the top and we stopped again to fill up our water bottles from the creek. We assumed there would be a water source at the top, but I wasn’t sure how stagnant it would be, so I took advantage of the creek (but fortunately the source at the top was also a nice running creek).

In terms of reconnaissance for a winter trip, the climb up through the woods is steep, but it’s all in the trees, so I think I’d be comfortable there in the winter. The only part I didn’t really like is after the meadow there’s a steep edge section at the top of a potential terrain trap. I’m not sure I’d be quite ready to hike up on skis, though it might look different in the winter.

The hut itself is really cool though. Most of the hike is in the forest, but shortly before the top you poke out into the sub alpine and get lovely views of the surrounding mountains. The hut isn’t located at the very top of the mountain, but rather at the base of the peak, so I assume in the winter that skiers run laps up and down the peak. The hut seemed more tailored to winter use than summer use, but I also assume it gets really popular on a nice, snowy weekend.

That said, I still loved the Mount Steele Cabin! It had gorgeous views in all directions and it was totally empty when we arrived. Like most huts, all the cabins in this park had communal kitchen space and tables on the main floor and a sleeping loft above. The huts are advertised as sleeping 12 people and I thought this was very accurate. There’s a wood stove on the main floor, but they have to helicopter in the wood, so it’s only intended for winter use. Mount Steele had a brand new outhouse that was in fantastic condition and one thing I really liked is how they’ve set up the grey water.

There’s a double sink that drains into buckets in the cabin and then another sink in the outhouse that drains into the pit. So you essentially dump all your water in the outhouse, which is a pretty elegant solution to managing food bits and scents.

20230930_144006 — The view from the cabin

We were the first to arrive to the cabin, but we were joined shortly after by a mom and 3 boys. They live in the area and were super friendly and huge fans of the cabin, so it was nice to meet them. Later on in the evening 2 other guys showed up, followed by a trio very late at night. So the total number of people in the cabin was 13. 11 people slept upstairs and the 2 guys slept downstairs because they were planning to leave really early in the morning.

We hung around the cabin in the afternoon and around 5pm packed our bags to hike up to the summit. Me and Brandon have gotten in the habit of hiking up to viewpoints for supper, so we brought all our food with us and figured it would be the optimal spot for sunset. There is a clear path up the to top of the summit, but Eddie and Brandon wanted to try another route and we reluctantly followed them. For the most part it wasn’t too bad, but it did involve a little bit of bushwacking around some steeper sections, so I wouldn’t recommend. Just follow the trail.

The view from the top is incredible though! On one side, you can see the whole park out to Tetrahedron Peak, while on the other side you can see down to Sechelt Inlet. Brandon made us thai curry chicken at the top and we enjoyed the view. It was a bit windy and cold up there, so Eddie and Adriana held out until the sunset and then started to head back. Me and Brandon stayed a bit longer and started to make our way down closer to dusk. We got most of the way without headlamps, but needed them for the last 10 minutes.

Eddie taught us to play Wizard to end the night. It ended up being a lot longer than we expected and we were all very tired, so we didn’t end up finishing, but when we called it quits at 10pm I was comfortably in the lead! One nice thing about the huts is that you don’t have to bring a thermarest if you don’t want to because there are mats in the loft. I brought mine anyways because I wasn’t sure how busy it would be, and I ended up doubling up because the hut mattresses are pretty soft. It wasn’t the best night’s sleep with so many people in the loft, but it was nice and warm with all that body heat!

Check back next week for Part 2!

Rockwall Trail Backpacking Trip Part I

October 4, 2023July 11, 2024 / Maria / 6 Comments

Backpacking the Rockwall Trail was undoubtedly one of the highlights of my time in the Rockies this summer. There are a lot of iconic multi-day trips in the Rockies that I’ve been wanting to do and this year we landed on the Rockwall Trail. It’s a 56km backpacking trail in Kootenay National Park that is extremely popular and requires permits for camping. There are several entrances to the trail, so it’s not a bad option for beginners because you can exit out if needed, or you can just do a portion of the trail.

The full trail goes from the Paint Pots trailhead to the Floe Lake trailhead. There’s a total of 5 campsites on the trail to choose from and most people do it in 3-4 nights. You only need a park pass to visit as a day hiker, but if you’d like to visit overnight, prepare early. The campsites are released for the entire summer in March from Parks Canada and they disappear within minutes of being released. Me and Carolyn were both online trying to get permits in March and it was still a challenge to get what we wanted.

The trick to the Parks Canada site is to log in on a lot of devices (I had mine and Seth’s computers and both our phones). Before the sites release, it puts everyone in a random queue, so you’ll be in different places in line on every devices. Whatever device is the lowest in the queue, focus on that device and abandon the rest. I was actually #700 on my computer, which is really low, but I had a brain fart when booking the sites (it’s a lot of pressure!) and accidentally booked the wrong campsite for one night. But we watched for cancellations for months and were eventually able to switch to our preferred site about a week before the trip. So even if you don’t get what you want, don’t lose hope. A lot of people do cancel because you have to make the bookings so early and plans do change.

That said, I do feel very lucky to have scored 2 campsites for our 3 night trip. Me and Brandon tented together and Carolyn had her own site. We started hiking the day after attending my friend’s wedding outside Calgary, so we didn’t get an early start and it wasn’t the most well rested I’ve ever been, but fortunately it was an easy-ish day.

We dropped Carolyn’s car at the Floe Lake trailhead (which was easier said than done because it’s a small lot, so we had to wait for a spot to open up), and then all drove in Brandon’s car to Paint Pots to start the hike. It was around 1:30pm when we finally hit the trail and we had 15km to do to our first campsite at Helmet Falls.

Fortunately it was an easier day terrain-wise. It’s pretty easy forest walking and there’s limited elevation gain, only 400m over 15km. The trail starts at Paint Pots, which is characterized by the red ochre in the ground that has tons of traditional uses, particularly as a dye. We did the first 6km to the Helmet-Ochre Junction Campground relatively quickly and ate our lunch there. It’s a nice little campground next to a beautiful river, but it was completely empty when we arrived. We did pass a small group later in the day that were hiking there, but they were the only other people we saw all day and I suspect there were multiple empty sites.

We had 9km left after lunch and most of the uphill is after the campground. The entire trail is a gentle incline, but I only noticed in it for the first half an hour after our lunch break, after which it levels out. The trail continues along the river through the valley and it is very beautiful. I was a bit worried for the hike because I still have plantar fasciitis in my right foot, but I did lots of preventive care and it managed really well. Mostly that just meant that we stopped every ~4km for me to stretch and roll my foot with one of my dog’s tennis balls. So halfway to Helmet Falls we took another break along the river. It was hot out, but not too hot, and I put a lot of effort into starting this hike hydrated (which wasn’t the case with the HBC Trail), so overall I was feeling really good!

We got to the campsite after 5 hours of hiking and immediately set up camp. There were a lot more people at Helmet Falls than the ochre junction campsite, but there were still several empty sites around. The campground is located in the forest, but it’s surrounded by mountains and you can see Helmet Falls thundering down from the cooking area. Despite the hot afternoon, it cooled down really fast in the shade and we immediately had to add some layers. It ended up being our coldest night on the trail, but me and Carolyn kept warm filming some dancing reels for instagram!

On Day 2 we had the option of going to either Tumbling Creek or Numa Creek and we chose Numa Creek to get us closer to Floe Lake for our last night. It’s 20km from Helmet Falls to Numa Creek, so it was our biggest day on the trail and I was a little nervous about my foot. But Day 2 ended up being my favourite day on the trail! I’ve come to the conclusion that 15-20km of hiking is really my preferred distance for backpacking. After 20km, the day starts to feel long and your feet get sore. You have less time to actually enjoy the trail and the tiredness compounds day after day when you don’t give yourself enough time to rest.

We tried to get up early, but it was ~9:30am when we finally made our departure. The day started with a big climb, but I found the Rockwall Trail has a lot of switchbacks on the climbing sections, so overall, not too bad. Plus it was still cool. We took a break at the top of the pass before starting the highlight of the trail, the aptly named, “Rockwall”.

Floe Lake has a big reputation as being the most gorgeous place on the trip, but personally I think the actual Rockwall was my favourite. It’s easy to understand the trail name when you do it because you are essentially hiking along a giant wall of rock all the way from Helmet Falls to Floe Lake. You get to the top of the pass after 4km and then you’re hiking along the Rockwall for at least the next 10kms. It’s incredibly beautiful and I had the best time hiking it with Carolyn and Brandon.

Unlike the HBC Trail, where I was super worn out, we had a great energy on this trip. I was honestly giddy for most of it and the more we hiked the sillier the 3 of us got. I was genuinely thrilled to be hiking with my friends and the mountains brought me a lot of joy that translated into a lot of laughter while on the trail. There’s always things that characterize a trip and they’re usually challenges. When I think of my time on the North Coast Trail, I think about the tiring and muddy terrain; when I think about Assiniboine, I think about how draining the heat wave was; when I think about HBC, I think about overdoing it and injuring my foot. But the characterizing feature of the Rockwall Trail for me was how much joy it brought me, and I think that’s really special.

We spent a lot of time goofing around, singing, and filming tiktoks. Say what you want about Reels and Tiktoks, but I always have so much fun filming silly things to put on the internet and embracing that only makes me happier. I don’t actually have Tiktok anymore, but check out my Instagram for lots of fun content from this trail!

That said, I did encounter some difficulties on Day 2, they’re just not as memorable as the joy. I was on my period for this entire trip, so we had to make an emergency stop along the ridge for a period poo (just being honest) and after that I popped some advil and pepto and then I felt a lot better. It was a Tuesday, so we all celebrated Taco Tuesday for lunch, which is my favourite cold soak that I make (dehydrated ground beef and veggies). I just crunch up doritos into mine for a taco salad, but Carolyn goes the whole 9 yards and brings taco shells into the wilderness!

We had first lunch on the ridge along the Rockwall, where we met Jason, who was doing the final section of his 30 day hike along a portion of the Great Divide Trail! The GDT is a bucket list hike for both me and Carolyn (it’s 1200km of hiking through the Rockies), so we were both keen to hear about his experience and ended up making a new friend along the rest of the trail since we were all on the same track.

Then we had our second lunch at Tumbling Creek Campsite, which meant we had done 12km of trail and had 8km left. Tumbling Creek was also pretty empty, but it was earlier in the day, so I know it got busier later. We ate by the river, which is really beautiful, but very silty. We decided to cross the river in order to shave off ~1km of walking down to the bridge. It wasn’t that deep and was totally safe to cross, but it was very wide and very cold, so it was an appropriate post-lunch wake up!

Unfortunately we had a really big climb after lunch. It’s not the biggest climb on the trail by any means, but I remember it as the most draining because it was mid-afternoon and quite hot when we climbed it. But once you get to the top, there are incredible glacier views before you start your descent down to Numa Creek.

It’s a really big downhill to Numa Creek and it’s totally exposed along the side of the mountain, so I was really glad I didn’t have to climb up it. It was around 5pm by the time we got to it, so it was starting to cool down. It was hard on my feet to end the day on a huge downhill, but we made it to Numa Creek after ~9 hours of hiking. In total we tracked 21km and over 1000m in elevation gain.

Unlike Helmet Falls, Numa Creek was extremely busy. We were the last people to arrive, so it took us awhile to find a campsite. We thought they were all full at first, but then we found 2 tucked away next to each other at the back by the river and somehow I think we actually may have scored some of the nicest sites there! We all had river baths and then Jason joined us for dinner and Carolyn treated us all to ‘worms and dirt’ for dessert.

Growing up in Girl Guides, I am very familiar with ‘worms and dirt’, but it took us awhile before me and Carolyn realized that Brandon and Jason had no idea what ‘worms and dirt’ was and were reluctantly pretending to be excited about this mythical dessert. Once we explained that it’s actually chocolate pudding with crushed oreos and gummy worms, they quickly got on board! But we all agree that the worms are best eaten on the side rather than mixed in – but both me and Carolyn are purists and insisted on eating it all together. So overall, an excellent first 2 days! Stay tuned for Part II.