Cape Scott and North Coast Trail: Part II

July 22, 2020August 12, 2020 / Maria / 3 Comments

Continuing on from Part I, after an eventful journey to the trailhead and our first night on the trail, we still had 5 more days of fun ahead of us!

We never made it to Nel’s Bight on Day 1 and still had 8km to go to the beach, so we decided to aim for it as our lunch spot on Day 2. We weren’t in too much of a rush in the morning, but we made good time taking down camp (ended up being our fastest day packing up), and had a speedy start, hiking the 4km to the trail junction in just over an hour. At the junction one trail branches off to Nel’s Bight and Cape Scott, while the other continues on the Nissen Bight and the rest of the North Coast Trail. We’d be heading there eventually, but first we wanted to see Cape Scott.

It’s another 4km from the junction to Nel’s Bight and we continued on with ease. The trail was reasonably muddy on Day 1, but it was surprisingly clear on Day 2. I would say this is the easiest section of trail in the park (except perhaps for the trail to San Jo). The trail continues through the woods with the first landmark being detritus from one of the old Cape Scott settlements. Cape Scott was originally settled by the dutch in the late 1800’s, but it was too remote and the government wouldn’t subsidize any services because they didn’t want to encourage the colony, so it was abandoned. It was settled again in the early 1900’s and peaked at a community of around 200 individuals. There’s not much left now, but you can see some old debris from the community that settled at Hanson’s Lagoon.

On the way to Hanson’s Lagoon, you pass across a large open marsh area. There is a small road that continues on to the lagoon, but our path took us around the lagoon to Nel’s. It’s very green and lush, but the clouds decided to drop a quick bout of rain on us as were passing through and we ended up running most of the way across to the safety of the trees. Though of course once we reached the trees it had pretty much rained itself out, so Brandon joked we must smell bad and nature was just treating us to a quick shower.

We made it to Nel’s Bight before noon, which Brandon affectionately refers to as Tent City. Along the way we ran into one of the Rangers that lives on Nel’s and he told us the previous evening (saturday night), he’d estimated there were 100 people camping on the beach, so the name was definitely accurate. Fortunately Nel’s is a giant white sand beach with lots of space for tents, so there’s no concern about finding a campsite. It’s the most popular beach in the park because you can hike there in a single day and it’s a popular stopping point for people visiting the lighthouse. Most people camp at Nel’s and day hike to Cape Scott. Since we’d stopped at Fisherman’s River, we had a different destination in mind. Guise Bay is located 4km past Nel’s Bight and it was Brandon’s favourite beach in the park, so we decided to lug our packs the extra 4km.

It was an excellent choice! We stopped at Nel’s for lunch and it was extremely windy, sending huge crashing waves along the beach. It was a little drizzly, so we sent up a tarp but didn’t stay too long. The drizzle didn’t last long though, so it was a nice 4km stroll to Guise. You head back into the woods briefly at the end of Nel’s and then come out at Experiment Bight – another long sandy beach. It’s also perfect for camping, but there’s no water source or facilities so I don’t think it gets used very much. After Experiment Bight you go back into the woods, this time crossing the peninsula to Guise Bay. Because Guise Bay is on the opposite side, it doesn’t get as much wind and the water was a lot calmer. I immediately liked it and with only 1 other tent on the beach, we got a great campsite without the crowds.

It was overcast most of the day, which I think is super common at Cape Scott, but the rain stayed away for the rest of the day and it did slowly get clearer as the day progressed. We set up our campsite and decided to continue on to finish the rest of the trail to the lighthouse as a day hike. We left our backpacks behind and stuffed our pockets full of snacks. From Guise Bay it’s ~5km round trip to the lighthouse, which is located just outside the park boundary and is a government facility.

I didn’t love the walk to the lighthouse. My feet were starting to hurt after so much walking. I didn’t have any blisters or hot spots, but it was just a general throbbing on the soles of my feet from being on them for too long. Emily was also having a rough time. She has awkwardly shaped pinky toes and she always gets blisters, so she was battling both sore feet and a blister. It was cool to see the lighthouse though. There’s not a whole lot there – it’s just a wire frame tower and what looked to be 3 houses and an office building. I’m not sure if all the houses are occupied, but we talked to one of the inhabitants and he said he’d been living there for the last 20 years! Apparently he gets a supply drop once a month and that’s what he lives on. It was neat but I can’t imagine living so remotely, especially in such a foggy place (sounds like home lol).

We topped up our water bottles from the tap at the back of one of the buildings (filtered water yay!) and then headed back to Guise. Emily was a bit out of it when we got back – her feet were hurting her a lot and in retrospect, I suspect she may have been a bit dehydrated – so she took a nap. I helped Lien start re-hydrating dinner and Brandon went in search of the water source on the far side of the beach. Lien followed him about 10 minutes later and I was treated to a little show from the other side of the beach. Our timing with collecting water was really good because we didn’t realize the water source was only accessible when the tide was low. I watched as Lien zigzagged his way across the pinch point and disappeared into the woods. He came back out with our water bladders about 10 minutes later and as soon as he reached the pinch point again, he suddenly turned around and took off running back towards where Brandon was still collecting more water. He popped in and out of the woods and ran back across the beach and over the pinch point and was followed moments later by Brandon in a desperate attempt to not get his feet wet! Fortunately we all kept dry and we had collected enough water to see us through the evening and the next day.

It had been a bit of a mauzy day, both weatherwise and in spirit. Including the lighthouse, we’d trekked 17km, so we were feeling pretty tired. Brandon, our eternal optimist, decided to get a campfire going and I can definitely say the evening improved a lot from there! We got supper started and coaxed Emily out of the tent. The wind dropped down, the clouds lifted, and the fire warmed us all up! It ended up being one of my favourite nights on the trail. We had chili for dinner and then spent the rest of the evening lounging around the campfire listening to music on Brandon’s speaker. The sun never really peaked out, but the clouds did break-up and treat us to a lovely pink glow over the beach as the sun was going down. It was the last week of June and we were further north, so the days were extremely long. We found ourselves staying up so late every night because it would be after 11 by the time it would finally get dark.

On Day 3 we awoke to a bit more of the same. Again, it wasn’t raining and it was brighter than the previous day, but still pretty cloudy. It was on the cooler side, but it was good weather for hiking. We packed up camp and started back the way we’d come, repeating our 4km hike back to Nel’s Bight and then another 4km to the junction. Just before we left the beach we heard some guys coming down the trail yelling into the woods. We figured they were just making their bear calls because they were the first ones on the trail (we regularly yell into the woods to keep the wildlife away). We were right, but it was because they’d actually seen a bear. They were on their way to the lighthouse and came on to the beach fully armed. One guy had his bear spray held a loft and they were both sporting knives. Apparently a bear had followed them for most of the trail from Experiment Bight to Guise Bay and while he didn’t seem aggressive, they weren’t taking any chances. The bear finally spooked off when they got to the beach, but since we were going back the way they’d just come, we had a nice sing-a-long on the way back – no sign of the bear.

Along the way we ran into some more rangers who were doing maintenance along the trail. They asked us about our plans and we told them we were going all the way to Shushartie Bay. They informed us they were the North Coast Trail maintenance crew and while they had conducted their initial assessment for the year, they hadn’t done any maintenance to date because of COVID. They warned us a lot of the brush needed to be cut back and that some of the trailheads might be difficult to find if the buoys were knocked down, but that the trail was still doable. So with that ominous warning we set off towards it.

After re-tracing our steps 8km to the junction, we had to go 2 more kilometres to Nissen Bight. It was a long day on the trail because we wanted to go all the way to Laura Creek, a total of 17km with our packs. I always like to do more hiking before lunch than after, so we pushed 10km to Nissen Bight before stopping for lunch. My feet were definitely throbbing by the time we reached the beach and I wasn’t looking forward to another 7km after lunch. But we pushed the thought from our minds and tried to enjoy our lunch. Nissen is another big beach, pretty similar to Nel’s in that there’s lots of camping space and big waves crashing along the beach. I had exhausted my egg salad wraps, so I was on to cheese and salami wraps with dehydrated hummus. The hummus worked out really well, so it made for a filling lunch, though it got a bit repetitive as I ate it for the next 3 days.

Nissen Bight marks the transition from the Cape Scott Trail to the North Coast Trail. Cape Scott has been a well developed trail for ages and sees tons of visitors, while the North Coast Trail is a new trail that was only created in 2008. From Nissen Bight it’s 43km to Shushartie Bay and the water taxi that would bring us back to Port Hardy. We had 3.5 more days of hiking and 3 nights to complete it. I wasn’t too thrilled to be back on my feet, but I was excited to start exploring this less busy and more rugged part of the trail. We trekked another kilometre across the beach as the sun finally started to peak out from behind the clouds and then started our North Coast Trail adventure! To continue, read Part III.

Wedgemount Lake Backpacking Trip

September 26, 2019May 28, 2021 / Maria / 3 Comments

It’s been 3 years since I hiked Wedgemount Lake, but this trail still haunts me!

Wedgemount Lake is a 14km round trip hike with a whopping 1200 metres in elevation gain. All I can say is, don’t underestimate it. Wedgemount has recently been added to Garibaldi Park’s database of reservable sites, so you now have to book to go up there, which wasn’t the case when I visited. I suspect this may have actually increased the traffic up there though because people that aren’t able to get a spot at Garibaldi Lake or Elfin Lakes, see it on the map and decide to go there instead. I don’t actually know if this is true or not, but I did meet a group of 5 guys at the trailhead to Elfin once who were changing their plans to go to Wedgemount when they realized Elfin was full, but just a guess!

Wedgemount is incredibly scenic once you get to the top, but boy is it a long slog to get there. I went in late August with Brandon the first summer I started camping and I believe we started hiking sometime after noon. There’s very little to see but forest until you reach the halfway point across a short boulder field. After that, it’s back into the woods again until just before the end when you have to climb a steep boulder field to get up to the top. Don’t get me wrong, the whole trail is steep, but the boulder field is definitely tough with overnight packs as you’re basically climbing up over the rocks.

When you get to the top of the landslide, you’re in a valley of sorts, with Wedgemount lake at the bottom, surrounded by another set of peaks and the Wedgemount glacier. You hike down into the valley, which is completely wide open with very little shelter. Over the years, people have moved the rocks around to create little rock-walled campsites to protect from the wind that funnels in through the valley across the lake. There is a small hut up there as well, but I think most people opt to camp as there’s tons of space up there and lots of sites to choose from.

It was certainly windy when we went up there. Even though it was August, it’s one of the coldest camping trips I can remember. I was fine once I got in my sleeping bag and went to bed, but until then, it’s freezing sitting out on the ridge with nothing to shelter you from the wind. We set up our tent as fast as we could and tried to find the most sheltered place to quickly make and eat out supper. Then we hit the sack pretty early because it was just so cold outside.

It’s a beautiful location though. Wedgemount Lake itself is quite large, but the soils must be a lot siltier than other lakes in the park because it has a much paler blue hue to the water. The wind died down overnight and we got up early to do a little exploring around the lake. Like I said, it’s a wide open space surrounded by other mountain peaks, so there’s tons to explore up there. Our exploration was pretty limited, which kind of makes me what to go back, but that landslide still haunts me and I don’t want to have to haul my backpack up over it every again.

We did explore to the glacier though. If you walk around to the head of the lake, you can see the Wedgemount glacier. I’m sure it looks different every year depending on how the ice changes and melts, but the year we visited had left another lake at the base of the glacier with lots of bergy bits (real technical term – I’m a Newfoundlander, I would know) floating around. The glacier is huge and looks misleading in pictures, but Brandon got a few great photos of me standing at the base of the glacier that really put the size in perspective.

The lake is nice, but the glacier was definitely the highlight for me. The only other glacier I’ve hiked to is the glacier at the top of Brandywine Mountain, so it was a landscape quite unlike where I usually hike (the Brandywine Glacier was very different as the ice melt was flowing down the mountain instead of pooling). I can’t decide whether Wedgemount makes for a better day hike or overnight though. A day hike seems like it might be rushed, but having just a day pack sounds a lot nicer, so it might be a judgement call based on your fitness level.

The clouds were looking pretty threatening though, so we didn’t stick around too long at Wedgemount. We packed up our things just before the rain hit and hiked back over the landslide and down again. Wedgemount is just as tough going down as it is going up. It’s a steep hike over the landslide and then the trail feels like it goes on forever after that, with nothing to look at and no respite for your knackered knees. It was a relief when we finally hit the parking lot.

Tenquille Lake Backpacking Trip

April 15, 2019June 20, 2022 / Maria / 2 Comments

Tenquille Lake is a lesser known trail in southwestern BC, located near Pemberton, but it was the first trail I ever did on an overnight trip! Before my visit to Tenquille lake, I had never been on a backpacking trip before. I’d done lots of camping and hiking growing up, and I even went on a 5 day hiking trip to Machu Picchu in 2013, but it was my first time being wholly self-sufficient and having to carry all of my gear with me (in Peru we had horses to take the bulk of our gear). Well… I mean… I was mostly self-sufficient. I definitely couldn’t have done it without Brandon’s expertise, but I still carried most of the gear I needed for the trip.

3 years later I’ve completely fallen in love with backcountry camping and I have gotten a lot better at it, so don’t be afraid to take that first trip if it’s something you want to try. It’s important to be as prepared as possible, but you can also learn by doing. As long as you practice “leave no trace” camping and take your “10 essentials”, everything else can be learned with time!

The ideal scenario for your first time camping is to have a Brandon, by which I mean, an enthusiastic friend who has more gear and knowledge than you and is willing to help you out while you learn and accumulate your own gear. Gear is a killer when you start off backpacking. It is really expensive and deciding what to purchase is intimidating because there are so many choices and you want to buy the right gear without bankrupting yourself. Fortunately my parents already had some backcountry gear that they loaned me, but it was all really old, so while it saved me a lot of money initially, it also weighed a lot and caused us a lot of grief to carry when we were just getting used to backpacking. So if you can find a friend who’s able to lend you a tent, sleeping pad, or stove, it will definitely alleviate some of the strain of having to buy all your gear at once.

Tenquille Lake is what I would like to credit as the birth of my really close friendship with both Brandon and Carolyn. We’d all hung out together before and gone on the occasional hike or ski trip, but backpacking really cements a friendship and because Seth doesn’t really like carrying a big backpack, I’ve spent most of my backcountry experiences with either Carolyn or Brandon or both. Brandon is a great person to have with you in the backcountry because he brings endless optimism and enthusiasm and he makes the best backcountry thai chicken curry you’ll ever have in your life… actually, forget the “backcountry” part, it’s the best thai chicken curry, period. And me and Carolyn just get each other. We operate on the same schedule, we get what the other likes and dislikes, and I will confide with her about pretty much anything and everything. We’re both on a secret mission to tell every woman about the miracle that is the divacup and how it changed our lives. Plus, she’s obsessed with fresh vegetables and nothing improves a backcountry meal like fresh stuff.

But back to Tenquille Lake. Since this was my first backcountry trip ever, I somehow convinced Seth to join me. I don’t think he had a very good time, but he still came. Brandon was our spirit guide for the trip and even though she hardly knew us, Carolyn was not deterred from joining us on a 3-day trip into the wilderness. I’m pretty sure we ended up at Tenquille Lake because it was one of the first trails listed in my hiking book and I basically looked at the first page and was like, “that looks great, let’s go there!” However, the trail in my hiking book was actually an 18km round trip hike with 1400 metres in elevation gain, which in retrospect, was totally BONKERS for a first hike.

Fortunately, Brandon, in his infinite wisdom, found out that there was a second trail that you could access with 4WD that was only 14km. I still don’t know what the elevation gain was on that trail, but having done a lot of hikes since then, I can guarantee it was WAY LESS than 1400 metres. Brandon lives for any trail with a 4WD access road so that he can play around in his Toyota 4-Runner, so he was thrilled to check out the shorter trail. For those interested in hiking either trail, the 18km trail is accessible by car from Lillooet Forest Service Road and the trailhead is located directly after you cross the Lillooet River. The second, shorter trail (which is the one we did) is located at the end of a 7km long forestry road that definitely requires 4WD. This is known as the Branch 12 entrance. Basically, you continue up Lillooet Forest Service Road and take the right fork up the hill onto Hurley River Forest Service Road until you reach Branch 12 on the right-hand side of the road (after the switchbacks).

We decided to do the trip on the Canada Day long weekend and drove out to Pemberton on Saturday morning with the intention of hiking to Tenquille Lake on Saturday night and Semaphore Lakes on Sunday night (I’ll write a separate post for the Semaphore Trip because otherwise this one will be way too long!). It was probably around 1 or 2pm by the time we reached the trailhead, so make sure you leave early if you’re planning to do this one as a day hike because even though the forestry road is only 7km, it really slows you down. I was rocking a pretty heavy backpack because me and Seth were using my parents old 10lb tent, but Brandon carried the stove and fuel and a fair bit of the food, so it definitely could have been worse. Carolyn was sharing a tent with Brandon, so I’m pretty sure she just had air in her pack because Brandon loves to share gear, but not carrying the weight.

I’ll admit, I’m a little foggy on the details of the trail 3 years later, but I do remember a fair bit of uphill through the woods at the start of the hike that eventually transitioned into undulating meadows. We didn’t get great weather on the trip and it was pretty cold at the lake for July, but the rain stayed away, so we really couldn’t complain. It was overcast on our first day, which is probably why it felt so cold. One of the things I do remember though, is the mosquitoes (henceforth known as “skitties”). Oh boy, were they ever bad at Tenquille Lake. It would have been nice to take it easy on our first major backpacking trip, but every time you would stop on the trail, you would be completely swarmed by skitties, so we pretty much would only stop to put on more bug spray. It definitely got better when we made it out of the woods and to slightly higher elevations. I didn’t find it too bad at the lake, but Seth would likely disagree with me. They must not like my blood type that much or something, because they more or less left me alone at the lake, but Seth had no respite and Brandon let him borrow his bug hat to try and keep them away. We don’t know Seth’s blood type, but the skitties love it.

One of my main motivations for picking the trail (besides stumbling upon it and thinking it looked nice), was that I thought it was probably far enough away from Vancouver that there would be less people, and that combined with the 4WD access road, there wouldn’t be very many people camping.

I can really be a dummy sometimes. But hey, it was my first backcountry trip and I’d still only been living in BC for 2 years at this point and I didn’t realize just how crazy everyone is for the outdoors here! There ended up being probably about 60 people in a campsite that’s made for 30 because it was a long weekend and a single Meet-Up group of 30 PEOPLE decided to visit the lake that weekend. It was a little overwhelming for my first time in the backcountry, but because of the overflow of people (and our late start), we ended up getting, what in our opinion was, the best campsite at the lake!

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So I don’t condone this now that I’m a little more seasoned. When possible, you really should camp at the campsites or in a location that will cause the least harm to the surrounding area. At Tenquille, you’re not allowed to camp in the meadows because they are extremely sensitive, but because of the surplus of people in the actual campground, we were forced to find some overflow space, and yes, it was in the meadows. We avoided any untouched meadow and stayed only on the trail, but we did find an area that had obviously been used many times before for overflow camping and didn’t have any alpine vegetation anymore, so that’s where we camped. In the pictures it kind of looks like we’re in the middle of the meadow, but there was a trail there and about 4-5 campsites that are hard to see because of the surrounding vegetation. I’ve gotten a lot more sensitive about these things the more I backpack, so I always try and camp where I won’t have an impact on plant habitat.

Despite the shoddy weather though, I absolutely loved Tenquille Lake. I’ve come to appreciate this trail more since I was first there because it really is the perfect mix of alpine lakes and alpine meadows. Alpine meadows have become pretty much my favourite backcountry scene, and Tenquille has both the lake, surrounded by mountains, and the alpine meadows next to the lake. This was also one of the rare backcountry hikes I’ve done since I moved here where we were actually permitted to have a campfire. Most provincial parks prohibit campfires in the wilderness and by early July, we’re usually into full fire ban, but this was one trip where we went early enough to have a campfire. I’m realizing now that Brandon must have carried an axe up there on top of all his other gear, so thanks again Brandon!

We definitely had to layer up at the lake because it was really cold, but I became totally enamoured with getting away from the city, eating with a kick-ass view of the lake, and waking up to see the sun just poking over the top of the mountains. We didn’t see the sun very much on this trip, but it did come out for about an hour both mornings, so I got up pretty early on that trip because I wanted to photograph our surroundings with the brief glimpse of sunshine and blue sky. Both days it clouded in by 9am, but we got a few hours of sunshine before the clouds snuck back into the mountains.

So all in all, it was a wonderful first trip into the wilderness. We did the somewhat strange choice of hiking back to the car and then doing another overnight hike to Semaphore Lakes (instead of just one 2 night hike), but more on that in a later post!

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