Just a little walk...

Two weeks ago, I had the energy of a sloth, and the BF was feeling a little under the weather.  It was a rainy day in town, but we both wanted to get out of the house, so we decided to do some exploring in his pick-up rather than on foot.  Armed with the Backroads Map Book, we headed out down a familiar road, looking for a less familiar road to check out.  It wasn't long before we found one that would do a big loop around and end up at Bowron Lake Provincial Park. 

As we drove, the sun came out and we both perked up a bit.  The map noted a trail off the road and we agreed that a little fresh air would probably do us good and decided to find the trail and go for a wee walk, maybe 30 minutes out and back.

After one miss, we turned around and found the trail that had clearly not seen too much recent use.  Once a road up to a forest fire watch tower, the path was well grown in and for the first 20 minutes, we were battling branches coming out at all angles.  Once we got out of that mess, we were battling swarms of mosquitoes, but we kept walking.  After a while we thought we heard a river, so we kept going to check that out.  When it turned out to be a big run off stream from the snow, and we were still swatting mosquitoes, we kept going uphill.

And up.

And up.

At the bottom of the trail, it had felt like summer.  It was warm, and the dense brush made it muggy.  As we went up, it cooled a bit, and the plants were smaller.  It was like we had gone back in time to spring.  And then to winter.  It was July, but we were walking around snow for awhile.

And then there was no going around it, we were going through it.



Still, we kept going up.

The view was great.

And then it got very windy.

And very cold.

Remember that we had left not planning to hike, so we were definitely underprepared for the change in weather seasons.  I know this is a silly mistake, but we lucked out when we came across the old forest fire lookout.  The cabin was actually in quite good shape, and we were able to get inside for a break.  And just in time!  We waited out a quick, blustery, blizzard!

As quickly as it came, the snow stopped, and the clouds cleared, and we hiked back down. When we arrived back in summer, we'd been hiking for 6 hours.  We'd seen moose tracks, groundhogs, and bear poop, and discovered a cache of supplies on a side trail part way down. 

It was a great hike!