This past long weekend we went to Chilliwack Lake Provincial Park for a 4-night trip. Here are the pictures and video. Uploading these takes a lot of work, so appreciate the effort.
All of our trips start like this - with Maggie whining.
A short hike got us to Lindeman Lake. A beautiful little lake with perfect clear water. Unfortunately, a bunch of loud jerks also found the lake and ruined it for the rest of us. Not a big deal though, the next morning we were up bright and early and we were outta there!
(This is Sarah) Beautiful and cold this lake was! And yes, those jerks were unfortunate. They had a dog with them that barked all night, which is probably why so many people are anti-dog in provincial parks out here.
Of course Maggie had to have a quick swim.
After a horribly steep climb, we got to a gently valley that led to our next destination, Flora Lake. Of course the valley crosses countless rock slides, so our progress was slow and dangerous, but we made it unscathed thanks to our designer leather Italian leather boots.
That's right, designer boots ;) Thank God for the boots though! I don't know how many times I lost my balance or toppled a bit only to be saved by my boots! If you're planning on doing any hiking out here with us (will anyone ever visit us??) get a good pair of hiking boots.
The valley in question
Flora Lake.
Notice how the snow comes right down into the lake. It was FREEZING!!
The view from our camp just before bed. I trudged that tripod all the way for this shot alone, so enjoy it.
Our camp. You'll notice the snow on the left and in the background. This site gets sun for about 2-3 hours a day, and we were gone for most of that time. Not a huge shame because the water was
very cold.
There is also a creek to the right and one to the left, actually. But the one to the right brought down a very cool breeze, so we cuddled up with a campfire and fleece blankets at night.
The first of the two summits. This was a pseudo summit, but it was high, and there was a good view - and we climbed it - so it counts.
And what a climb it was.
Seeing as we didn't hurt ourselves on the way up, we tried our best to do so on the way down.
Still trying. For the record, this is quite a bit of fun. Way better than jumping off of wimpy cliffs in Killbear, like some people I know.
This is our second climb - up Flora Peak. A bit more demanding, as you might be able to tell from this picture.
I decided to become a quadruped for this climb. Maggie's really on to something! There's a good reason she always reaches the summit at least 10 minutes before we do ;)
But the view was spectacular in all directions.
Chillin'.
Below is a panoramic showing Chilliwack Lake, which we didn't visit, but is the namesake of the provincial park we spent the weekend in.
I have terrible vertigo, standing like this is pretty hard for me.
(i.e. Remi's a big wimp)
Like this too. It didn't help that this is what we had to go down. Flora Lake is in that little depression at the bottom. This is roughly 600m above the lake, a little more than the CN tower.
The last three videos are kinda fun. It takes an hour to go up, 10 minutes to go down.
Maggie was pooped!
Walking across the rock slides.
The day after climbing up to Flora Peak we decided to walk back out the way we came in and spend our last night at the other lake (Greendrop) near the Flora Lake Loop. Our other option was to haul our giant packs up over the ridge we climbed to get up to Flora Peak. We didn't feel safe doing so, so back we went! The trail to Greendrop Lake, our next stop, was a little flooded. We got wet.
Greendrop Lake, we camped here for our last night.
This lake was warmer and absolutely full of trout (rainbow, we think - naturally occuring, not stocked). We could see them from pretty much wherever we stood along the lake shore.
Devil's Club. It's pretty, but it has huge sharp spines on virtually every surface, even the leaves.
This was was very warm... well, at least it wasn't very cold. I got to play a bit and clean myself up.
As you might guess, Maggie had a fit when daddy was in the water, so she had to join him.
Our cozy campsite. Shortly after I took this picture, some very strong wind came up, complete with ominous thunderheads. We scrambled for 20-30 minutes to stow away our gear, lash the tent down, cover the food, store firewood, batten down the hatches, and for nothing.
The sky cleared up and there wasn't a cloud in the sky for the rest of the evening, which is a good thing because we had neither tarps nor rain gear. That's what you call trust in the local weather guy.
We're pretty much retarded. It wouldn't have killed us to carry one tarp! Although with the wind I don't think it would have done much good.
A dead trees with lichen. Neat.
Sarah cooking up some nutritious Tuna Helper, our new favourite camping food.
Stoking the fire.
Don't be fooled by the flames you see here. Remi's fire-building/maintaining abilities leave something to be desired. It's like pulling teeth to get him to put more wood on the fire!
On the way out we decided to wear our sandals through the wet part of the trail. A wise decision. It saved us lots of time.
The water was so cold! But as Remi mentioned, trudging straight through was much easier than trying to get around.This is a good example of what it's like walking on a rock slide. You have to be very vigilant.
Back at Lindeman Lake. The water was chilly here, but it was do-able, especially after our quick dips in icy Flora Lake.
It was so cold! I just jumped in without touching because I knew if I tried to ease myself in I wouldn't be doing any swimming ;)
Showing off.
And Maggie needed a final little bit of help across the last hard parts. The harness works pretty well for this.
Although you might be able to tell from the look on her face, she doesn't enjoy the "help" very much ;)And to cap off our trip in BC we decided to go on a wine tour on the way home. It was pretty awesome. There are four wineries right off the highway in Abbottsford. Only one of them was any good, but we still got to buy lots of wine and try a bunch of stuff. I couldn't take a picture because Sarah wasted the last of the batteries taking pictures of the scratches and bug bites all over her legs. Too bad.
It really is too bad! We were FILTHY! Not exactly wine-touring attire ;)
All in all, it was a fantastic weekend. We were very lucky with weather (30 degrees and sunny) and barely sunburned at all!
Remi and Sarah :)
