Opinion:
Some quiet time in a beautiful area that’s yet to be discovered by social media – and I hope it stays that way. Perhaps the fact that it’s beyond Joffre Lakes and up a 14-km dirt road will mean it remains out of tourist reach. We can but hope.
The relatively mellow terrain in this area just invites gentle exploration and relaxation – and that’s just what we did. We didn’t have firm plans going in, other than to find a nice place to camp but once the tent was pitched, we just hung out in the meadows, content to enjoy the scenery and wander up to a nearby ridge around sunset. Apart from chatting with a couple of day-hikers (the original trail builders no less), we saw no one else up in the meadows. No one. It was bliss.
Fact
The Downton Creek FSR was in pretty good shape, with just a few minor rocky patches. There was a small debris slide just after the 5 km marker that is now dry and has become a little water bar. It might be OK for low clearance with care, but I wouldn’t swear by it.
Branch 2 was fine too, with plenty of grass between the wheel tracks that will probably tickle the underside of most cars. The road was a little brushy on the upslope side, while the downslope side of the road was, well, a little slopey in places, which was a little disconcerting. A couple of the water bars were a little deeper than the last time we were up there in 2012, thanks to potholes developing at the bottom. Not really a problem, but something to watch.
The trail was in good shape – some snow near Holly Lake (which has almost completed melted out); more closer to Lorna Lake (which was still mostly icy). The turnoff to the trail up into the meadows was hard to spot – I didn’t see any flagging, I just remembered the intersection from our previous visit. There was sporadic flagging along this route, and the footbed was mostly well-defined. We lost it in a couple of places but really the way ahead was pretty obvious. Best of all, we had the entire basin to ourselves the entire weekend.
Flowers galore! Oh my goodness, the flowers! First up, glacier lilies – hundreds if not thousands of glacier lilies adorn the meadows at the treeline. One of the best displays we’ve ever seen. Just fantastic – I was in heaven! Naturally, keeping them company were western anemone, western spring beauty, globeflower, alpine marsh marigold, alpine buttercup, spreading phlox, coastal strawberry, Arctic lupine, western meadow rue, pink heather, alpine forget-me-not, wood betony, heart-leaved twayblade, Sitka valerian, and sweet coltsfoot. Arnica and paintbrush also bloomed along the road.
Birds: I’m not sure we could identify any birds other than robins, but we were surrounded by bird song from start to finish, and even overnight. Just beautiful! Whistling marmots alerted us to the presence of bald eagles scouting the meadows for morsels.
Distance: 12 km
Elevation gain: 450 m
Key moments
- 😀 Oh the glacier lilies! 😍
- 😀 Having the entire alpine bowl to ourselves was incredible
- 😀 The silence – beyond the sounds of the creek, marmots, and a few birds, it was blissfully silent
- 🙁 Nothing really – perhaps we should have spent more time there?
This beautiful weekend was spent on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the St’at’imc people.
Story
Saturday: to be, outdoors
Once upon a time I vowed that I would not repeat a hike unless we had processed the photos and put them up on Flickr. I figured that would be a pretty good incentive to get through our humungous backlog of hiking photos. Turns out I was wrong: it made no difference, and here we are several years down the line with literally thousands of unlooked-at photos sitting on the hard drive of our computer.
But with that stipulation relaxed, I found myself planning hikes based on where I wanted to hike rather than where I felt I shouldn’t hike (yet). This weekend away up in the Downton Creek basin was one of those trips. The forecast was stellar and we wanted an easy backpacking trip to somewhere (relatively) snow-free. I wasn’t sure where we could camp up there but I knew that the snow was disappearing fast. I also had a strong suspicion that we’d see some glacier lilies.
We set off early Saturday morning in very light traffic, stopped briefly in Squamish and Whistler before continuing on to Pemberton and up towards Cayoosh Pass on the Duffey Lake Road. We twisted and turned our way along the road, realizing that it was further than we remembered. The morning was beautifully calm and Duffey Lake was a giant mirror. We stopped by the boat launch at the eastern end of the lake and admired the almost perfect reflection of the Joffre Group. We almost decided to just park up here for the weekend and enjoy the peace and quiet. I’d stopped here a few weeks back on a mini-roadtrip with Gabriela on a similarly calm morning, though that day was dull and cloudy. Today was deep blue skies, pierced by shining white peaks. The only thing that could possibly improve on this view would be to see it at sunrise. One day…
We were held up for a short time by construction of a new bridge but were soon on our way again. Reaching the turnoff for the Downton Creek forest service road (FSR) we left what little traffic there had been behind and began the bumpy 14-km drive up to the trailhead. Crossing the first bridge (always a bit nerve-wracking) I was struck by the creek: it was a raging torrent, in full snowmelt freshet and was pure white – not a drop of blue or turquoise anywhere. It was quite the sight and I was very glad of the sturdy bridges; in this state, it was not a creek I’d be tempted to try and cross in any way.
The road was in pretty good condition and we had no trouble making our way up. A few patches of red paintbrush decorated the upper stretches of the road, along with carpets of strawberry flowers and a few arnica blooms. We reached the turnoff onto Branch 2 and turned uphill onto the narrow road. Barely a car wide, we followed the twin wheel tracks, the growing grass in the median tickling the underside of the car. The alder reached out in a few places, gently scratching itches that I’m pretty sure the car didn’t have. This time I noticed how few passing places there were, so I hoped we weren’t going to encounter any downhill travellers. The waterbars posed no problem for us – it’s always so satisfying to drive a road where we can make use of the extra clearance of our little SUV.
The road levelled off, we passed through a small grove of unlogged forest, and arrived at the landing where we parked. To my surprise we were the only car – I expected there to be at least one more vehicle up here on such a gorgeous weekend. Not that I’m complaining! We got out of the car and began sorting out our packs. The sun was crushingly hot, but there was just enough air movement for us not to feel overheated and put us off hiking.
We pulled on our backpacks and walked across the landing to pick up the trail. I remembered our mistake from our previous visit in 2012, and kept my eyes open for the faint trail and tree stump with its “Trail” sign. Even so, it came up sooner than I expected, and I still almost missed it. It was a short but steep climb off the road and into the old cutblock. We were in no hurry and took a very relaxed approach, talking loudly to alert any animals of our presence, at least for a short while before we ran out of steam!
Despite being a recent cutblock, the trail was actually quite pleasant – flowers were beginning to bloom along the way, mostly lupines and Sitka valerian with more western meadow rue in bud than I’d ever seen before. In the boggy sections, marsh marigolds and globeflower poked their flowers above the mud.
With some relief, we entered the shady forest and paused for a quick breather. The trail then wound its way steeply uphill; actually, the trail pretty much went straight up the hill, not much winding at all really. But it levelled out here and there, with a lovely section as the trail paralleled the creek draining the lakes and meadows we were heading towards. It too was roaring, but in a much gentler way than the main Downton Creek. The air was deliciously cool here and I noticed some sweet coltsfoot blooming alongside the globeflower and marigolds.
As we began to climb once more I looked ahead and caught sight of a single small yellow flower. Maria was in front, and I voiced my thoughts. Sure enough it was a lone glacier lily in a tiny meadow of globeflower and spring beauty. I was already in a good mood, but my spirits soared with the expectation of seeing even more of my favourite flowers. Maria called back to say that she’d seen more ahead, and our leisurely pace slowed to a flower-photography crawl. We’d only been hiking for half-an-hour – how many trails can you get into glacier lily country in such a short time?
We stopped and took a few portraits of these beautiful little flowers before moving on. We encountered a snow patch at the edge of a meadow, and could see that beyond lay an expansive carpet of yellow. I knew instantly that we’d made the right call. It made me indescribably happy to see such an expanse of glacier lilies. (I am so fond of these flowers I wrote a separate article all about them, which got published on the Outbound website, and a couple of years ago I wrote a blog post as part of a nature writing challenge on Twitter/X.)
At my feet lay a vast array of yellow flowers covering almost every part of the meadow between the trees, pretty much as far as I could see. It was probably the best display we’d seen since our first big meadow sighting in Blowdown Pass in 2010. I was in heaven! For the next – oh I don’t know – twenty minutes or so, we crawled around finding the best possible flowers to capture. It was quite overwhelming really, just so many flowers – how could I possibly find the best one? Well, you gotta try, right? And so we tried! :-)
In all that I should remember to point out that between all the glacier lilies were untold numbers of tiny spring beauty flowers. I feel guilty ignoring these flowers as they are gorgeous little blooms in their own right, but they are totally overshadowed by the lilies. We tried to capture some of them too.
It was so hard to drag ourselves on, but eventually we did. A couple of hikers came up behind us just as we came to a fallen fir blocking the trail at about shoulder height. As I lifted the tree out of the way, the couple passed us walking straight across the meadow. I mentioned that I was trying to avoid doing that (hopefully not sounding too annoyed), and I expected either a shrug or a clueless reply. Instead the guy told us that he was the original trail builder for this hike, and as such he felt that he had earned the right to be a little less careful. I don’t think that was a particularly good response, but I let it slide and we chatted for a bit about the area.
They were heading as far as the first lake (Holly Lake) just for the day, and that whenever they have guests they always bring them on this hike. They inquired as to our plans, and we said we were heading for the meadows. They were skeptical, and even when I said that we knew of snow-free areas to camp, remained skeptical, continuing on their way as we found a new patch of flowers to photograph.
It’s true that the return on time invested in this area (hiking, anyway) is phenomenal, and I must admit it would be nice if it were a little closer to Vancouver. But on the other hand, that distance probably ensures that the area isn’t overrun and trashed. The trail is still only a single pair of boots wide and sometimes even disappears for a short time – it’s so nice to walk such a trail.
We passed the “scary tree” – a colourful dead snag with some great, almost face-like features – and entered another meadow. More glacier lilies, more globeflower, and of course more spring beauty. The peaks lining the basin rose all around us, many still coated in snow.
Continuing on, the trail re-entered the trees and at the last minute I remembered that the trail we wanted carried on straight up the drainage ahead of us. The faintest of trails appeared to go straight as the main trail turned left. Maria paused at the bottom while I went up to verify that we were in the right place. I went up through a wet marigold-lined meadow and found more footbed and some flagging. Yes, this was our route. I almost wiped out twice in the little wet meadow on the descent, the surface was so slick. Somehow I stayed on my feet and I got back to Maria to let her know we were on track.
We followed the faint trail directly up the slope, through the wet meadow, pushing through some tiny firs (where we couldn’t see a trail at all) and emerging on a steep dry slope. The trail zigzagged up through strawberry and phlox, and began to level out as we reached the upper valley, crossing the first of several patches of snow, before leading us through the open meadows dotted with juniper and stunted pines.
Now the trail became more intermittent, which wasn’t helped by the ever-larger snow patches, but the terrain was straightforward and we could see where we were headed. We followed our noses and came to a little knoll of shattered shale where we dropped our packs so that we could explore a bit further in search of a good camping spot. Until now we hadn’t seen many anemone flowers, but the upper meadows were covered: it was hard to avoid them, there were so many new buds pushing up through the soil. Where there was no anemone, there was spring beauty or phlox. So many flowers! And we were catching it right at the beginning of the bloom – perfect timing!
We found a small dry meadow, sparsely populated with phlox – a good indicator given that they only grow in dry soil. It was a little closer to the creek than we should have camped, but it was flat and dry. And we figured we were only here for one night. A mere 10 m away and up the slope was a large pool of water that I expected to seep through to our spot. But instead, it drained in a little cascade over the heather well away from our tent, and our site remained totally dry. It was an interesting lesson in local rock and soil conditions!
Having retrieved our packs, we had lunch and set up our tent in the warm afternoon sun. We boiled some water and sat with coffee and tea just enjoying our surroundings. I still couldn’t believe that we were the only ones up here. The creek burbled away to our right, and the birds sang all around. All we had to do was sit back and relax…
We lounged around for a couple of hours, something we rarely do on backpacking trips and it felt so good. What luxury! Despite the long summer day, we cooked and ate dinner fairly early to give ourselves more time to enjoy the long twilight. Unfortunately, our choice of meal was uninspiring and it didn’t match up to our surroundings, but at least we had some wine to enjoy with it…
The sun got closer and closer to the ridge and eventually dipped below as we finished up after dinner. We hung our food bags and went off to explore a nearby ridge. Marmots whistled across the meadow, and we caught sight of the occasional scamperer. We re-emerged into the sunshine as we climbed up onto the ridge, albeit for only a few minutes, and our cameras were kept busy as the light changed on the landscape. From our vantage point we could see both Holly and Lorna Lakes, the latter still mostly covered in ice and looking decidedly chilly in the evening shade. We didn’t get far along the ridge, but it looked like a great area to explore some more.
As the sun dipped below the western ridge-line for the last time, the temperature began to drop quickly. We started feeling pretty chilly and returned to our dinner spot for a hot drink. By the time we had finished, we were starting to shiver – I suppose we were at over 2100 m, but it was quite the transition from the hot summer sunshine of earlier. The light faded to a cold blue as I hung around to take a few final dusk pictures before hanging our food bags and crawling into the tent.
Oh, now that’s better! It was so cosy inside the tent and we were very glad to be out of the chill air. We curled up and relaxed into our sleeping bags as the night darkened. Being close to the summer solstice, the sky never got truly dark, and a little bird sang its liquid song all through the twilight hours.
Sunday: savouring time
As ever, I was hopeful of a good night’s sleep followed by the desire to get up and watch the sunrise. And as ever, I tossed and turned and felt like I spent most of the night waiting for morning. We stirred around 7 am (which is early for us, but felt late up in the alpine) and set about making some breakfast, the sun already warm and high in the sky. Wandering up to retrieve our food bags I noticed a thin film of ice on the little pond above our tent. I guess it had been chilly in the night. We were quite cosy though.
I put water on to boil and just sat admiring our surroundings once more. I don’t know if we parked ourselves near an ant’s nest but we had loads of them crawling all over us and our gear. Several decided to investigate my morning coffee only for it to be the last thing they ever did. (Shakes head slowly.)
Despite drinking Starbucks VIA instant coffee (hint: lots of milk powder), I found myself quite enjoying it and the view, and it was one of those moments when everything felt right. Truly a terrible-coffee-in-a-beautiful-place moment. I briefly pondered the idea of making a rapid ascent of Statimcets. But doing so would have gone counter to the relaxed nature of the rest of the weekend, and I remained content to relax in the meadows.
I found myself thinking that I hadn’t got a good marsh marigold photo, and I’d seen a few on the opposite side of the creek (between the water and the snowbank) in the fading light of yesterday. The creek was running quickly, and felt a little too wide to jump. But I persisted and found a spot where I thought I could make it. And I did – but only just. As I landed my foot slipped and I did an excellent windmill impression for a moment before I regained my balance. Now safely on the other side, of course I had to make it back again, but I decided I’d worry about that after I’d got my photos.
I spent a little while looking for the perfect flowers. OK let me restate that. I took dozens of photos of a whole slew of gorgeous fresh little marigold flowers, thinking that I could make the final decision at the computer. They’re harder to capture than they look so choosing the best was quite easy. Getting back across the creek was easier as I found a sturdier rock to aim for (one we’d used last night for filtering water) and I made the jump quite easily.
It was time to pack up the tent and make our way back down to the car. Amazingly, the tent was completely dry – not a drop of condensation to be found, which made our pack-up quick and efficient. We had time to set up a daft group shot. Given that the weekend had been all about relaxing, I framed a shot where we could both lie down, head-to-head. I think it turned out well, and really did sum up the weekend.
With that done it was finally time to leave our home of the last 18 hours or so and head back to the car before the heat of the day really kicked in. We considered exploring the terrain a bit more and making our way down to Holly Lake, but in the end decided to rely on the trail. Retracing our route was easy and we were back at the junction with the trail to the lakes in no time. Since we had time to spare we decided to head up to Holly Lake and see how things were up there.
The trail meandered through open forest, around big rocks, and through globeflower-filled meadows before leading us over a creek. A small, fallen tree had been placed over the creek to make a bridge, but it still required a bit of care and use of our poles in the stream to get across safely. While we were here, we noticed that the creek came spilling out of the meadow where we’d been in a gorgeous cascading waterfall. Neither of us remember that from last time, and I don’t know how we could have missed it but it was really quite lovely.
Beyond the creek, patches of snow obscured the trail and we relied on faint flagging, occasional sightings of the trail, and the lay of the land to guide us to the lake. In places it was really wet, marsh marigolds and globeflower almost defining the trail, let alone lining it. Thankfully, a couple of large rocks by the lake were dry and snow-free and made for very handy rest spots. We took a few photos and then relaxed for a bit longer by the still water. A few patches of melting ice still floated in the lake, but it was mostly clear.
While Maria lazed some more on the rock, I explored a bit further along the lake shore in search of more perfect flower photos. I really can’t get enough of these early flowers. I love all the melting snow, running water, and the explosion of fresh flowers that comes with it; I find it just so uplifting and cheerful. Of course I could’ve spent hours here soaking in the peace and taking more photos of the flowers, but we painfully and slowly dragged ourselves away, rejoining the trail and retracing our route.
We dawdled through the meadows, stopping for a few more flower photos here and there. I was overwhelmed again by the sheer expanse of glacier lilies around us – I just wanted to sit down and “be” among them. The snow patch had melted back by at least a foot compared with yesterday, exposing new flowers and allowing new shoots to push through the thinner snow. It was a wonderful example of how quickly spring can take over in the mountains.
As we re-entered the forest, we decided we wanted to prolong the experience a little more and found the perfect log to sit on for lunch within sight of the first of the glacier lilies. It was wonderful to sit there out of the hot sun and listen to the rushing creek brimming with snowmelt. From here it was only another 20 minutes or so back to the car. The heat in the cut-block was stifling as we picked our way through the young trees, emerging on the landing to find we were still the only car up here. We opened up the car to try and get some cooler air inside and changed out of our sweaty hiking clothes into something more comfortable for a sunny summer’s day.
Just before we set off, a pickup sped past us heading down at the kind of speeds that we fervently hoped we’d never meet coming the opposite direction. I don’t know how the people in the truck bed survived the bumpy journey as we found their licence plate near one of the water bars on the Branch 2 road… Oops. 😂 Thankfully we met no one else for the rest of the drive and enjoyed a leisurely run back to Pemberton for more coffee and gelato before heading home.
Was that really only 24 hours? We felt totally blissed out by our night high in the alpine and couldn’t believe our luck at having it to ourselves. How often does that happen? (And now, as I finish this post in 2023, is it even possible any more?) What an amazing little micro-adventure that was!
Being. Outdoors. 