Illal Meadows!

The first proper camp of the year. Despite this summer's tireless efforts to keep us inside, we managed to wrest some nice recreation from her cold lifeless hands. We sat down, found a nice spot in our books, packed, and took off early Friday, and camped by the side of the road to be ready for an early start the next day. Naturally, given our quick start, we forgot some items: mainly Sarah's jacket - which was somehow my fault, and my pants. Still, despite what might seem like a bit of a setback, we assessed our gear and took off anyways.

I think there needs to be an informal survey regarding the leaving behind of my jacket...  Say you were getting your own jacket out of a closet (hypothetically of course) and the jacket of the love of your life happened to also be in that closet (again, hypothetically), would you not (hypothetically) take out said jacket so that it wouldn't be forgotten?  I know that when I was packing granola bars and bathing suits, I thought of Remi's needs as well.  Just saying... (hypothetically, of course)

The hike was shockingly easy. It was up a short way on a disused logging road. We did have to ford a river, which would have been easier if I hadn't thrown the poles across in an effort to free up our hands. I'm sure Sarah will have something to add on that front.

There was a premature tossing of our poles across the river, but I did appreciate the ice cold water on my feet ...  NOT!

 We got to a pretty nice scree slope. Usually when we read about these it involves walking at about 0.5 km/h over huge boulders risking death at each turn. This had a  nice clear path.

This was the best scree slope of ever.  It may be the best in BC.

More of me being intrepid on the scree.

Eventually we hit the snowline. Followers of our blog have probably figured out by now that the weather this summer was a little slow in coming, so it's not too surprising we ran into this. I should also use this opportunity to say that we also forgot our gaiters. We're thinking of putting together a checklist of some description to avoid this next time.

We've been talking about this checklist for at least 6 years.  Just saying...

I hate when we end up with a bunch of junk hanging off our packs. We look like like amateurs (which may be the case if you look at the list of things forgotten).

I just want to say how cool it is to climb up snow in shorts.  I guess I'm saying that Remi and I are cool for doing such things and think that you should all visit us because we're so cool.  (we have a spare room now!!)

Finally, eight kilometers later, on a bare plateau, we set up camp. It was sunny, but the wind was screaming down the snow slopes to the west forcing us into our sweaters.

The wind was INSANE!!  I've never experienced anything like it.  You had to tuck yourself away behind a rock in order to be warm enough to sit out in a t-shirt.  It was a hot day if not for that wind!  And it was relentless!!  Remi might mention this below, but it was driving wind for two whole days and when we woke up the third morning it was still windy but blowing in the other direction!  INCREDIBLE!

We lounged for a bit. Not quite the sunbathing we'd get in a normal year, but still pretty good.

 Then I got bored, and because I was expecting lousy weather on Sunday, we went to explore the ridge overlooking Coquihalla Mountain (on the left there). It was relatively pedestrian.

Haha, pedestrian ;)  Remi's a total snob.  There, I said it so that our readers don't have to leave comments about it ;)

 I get vertigo when I look at pictures like these.

The view was AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I can't put enough exclamation points.  I'd better add a few more: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This ranks up there with one of the most beautiful places we've ever camped.  And I'm sure Remi mentions this at some point, but we didn't see a single person over the entire three days!  More of these are needed: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

 This is the best of fifteen or so shots.

Maggie's hard to get to sit still and look at the camera.  In fact, almost any picture with her looking into the camera comes with great effort, so enjoy it! ;)

I like playing with those options on cameras that no one uses, but that are somehow selling features. Sepia does look good in the mountains.

And we look good in sepia!  What a good looking couple ;)

That evening these high clouds came screaming in. They pretty well foretold the lousy weather we'd have the next day.

This picture is epic.

It was an interesting night. Despite the fact that it felt like a gale all day, the wind seemed to intensify somewhat at night. It felt like the tent was going to roll off the mountain... At least until the rain started pelting the fly, then it felt like the fabric would just rip in half before flying off the side of the mountain. It held though, our lines kept the tent dry, and we were no worse for the wear. I also coaxed Maggie into my sweater, so while miserable, at least she was warm.

I think we should take a moment to appreciate how awesome Megan and Julien are for getting us this tent all those moons ago.  THANK YOU!!  Any other tent probably would have ripped in half and thrown us off the side of the mountain!  I will admit to be mildly concerned ALL NIGHT.

 

As expected, we woke up to rain, so having spent a relatively sleepless night (see above), we managed to cook breakfast under the fly, then sleep and read until noon when the clouds lifted (which is nice, because otherwise we might have had to cancel the wedding). I set up our tarps with this view, of what I called Polar Bear Rock. Sarah somehow inexplicably thought it looked like a frog.

This calls for another informal survey: frog or polar bear?  Remi clearly wouldn't do well with ink blots...

 Foggy light is pretty good for pictures though. Interestingly, this area must have been covered with snow until relatively recently, because the heather is usually green.

That's another thing that was cool about this trip: winter clearly just left!  The wild flowers were coming out on the sunny slopes, but down where we were tenting, everything had a post-apocalyptic feel to it.  Very cool.

 Notice how she's wearing my jacket. I had to bundle up with a few tee-shirts, base layers, and both my sweaters. Still, weather like this is awesome: nice and cool, dry, and the wind sucks the moisture right out of your face. I felt alive.

I felt half frozen.  Despite the jacket!! (which again, I believe was my right to wear after the [hypothetical] situation described above)

 Sarah periodically felt grumpy. For some reason.

Grumpy?  Or introspective?

 I look pretty intrepid here too.

Intrepid?  Or goofy?  (I can't help it, that hat...)

 I just like this picture.

 What do you do when you forget pants, you might ask. You put on your long johns, then shorts, then tuck all of that into your striped socks. It all makes for some pretty good high alpine fashion.

I'm forced to ask: what am I doing with this guy?!

 From a distance it's almost not bad.

Wind or no wind we were fed up, so we decided to build a fire in a small sheltered nook. I cut a log about the size of the one by my left hand and counted about 80 rings. Nothing goes quickly in the alpine, it's a more civilized pace for life.

I am forced to mention here that only the fire had a "sheltered nook".  We were still out in the driving wind.  That's the thing about the alpine - there isn't much to hide behind!

 The next morning I resurrected our fire, so we had breakfast with this view.

More of these are needed: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 

 This was a small tarn (that's an alpine pond for you flatlanders) near our camp.

 You can just see our tent in this photo. You wake up to this and for a while it feels like everything is right in the world.










Excited about the nice weather, I dragged Sarah up Illal Mountain, a nearby bump of a summit. There were mountain goat tracks right up to the summit. We saw nothing. There were elk tracks lower down the mountain side too, we saw nothing there as well.

This "bump" has an elevation of 2020 metres.  It's a mountain.  Just saying...

This is just one of those photos we like to take because it makes us look cool.

It's not hard to look cool when you are cool. (visit us!!)

I didn't monkey with these pictures in Photoshop. When alpine flowers are out, there are incredibly bright (paintbrush).

 So we took a million pictures (pink mountain heather)

 (partridgefoot).

 I've only ever seen this once before, it's silky phacelia. I think that's cool.

 More of me looking cool.

 A shot for the parents.

I saw this lake on the map and thought it would be a nice spot to camp. It was another kilometer or so, and there was no real shelter, so all in all it was better below. It would have been nice for a swim here. (if you were looking to catch hypothermia)  Note the iceberg blue.  So gorgeous!

I still haven't sorted out what this little guy is. I have to look it up.

Sarah started wearing a hat because she's mortified that she can't straighten her hair when camping, and it tends to become a greasy mess when camping. Funny story, if you try to rinse your greasy hair in a frigid alpine stream, it gets congealed, and somehow more gross.

Well, that was our long weekend. Pretty epic all told. I'd been having a bit of a craving for adventure, and this filled that gap.

This most recent weekend we went kayaking. We'll publish that next week.
Remi featuring Sarah