The Accidental Hiker

Middle Joffre Lake She moved gingerly across the log bridge, her silver hair dispersing flecks of sunshine into the air, tossing starlight in the shadowed realm of the trees. Her two grandchildren cheered as she came across to the side of the small creek that I was waiting at. A couple with humungous backpacks followed. "Planning to spend the night up there?" I said cheerfully, realizing that it was more a statement than a question. "Yes," the grandmother replied, with equal cheeriness. I smiled, wished them well, and hurried down the trail to the lowest of the three Joffre Lakes where my wife Margaret and our dog Baby waited. I had left them an hour earlier to quickly hike up to the Middle Lake. We had driven a long way from Richmond, stopping briefly at Shannon Falls near Squamish, and were absolutely blown away when we set eyes on Joffre Lake, barely five minutes' walk from the car park. Its blue-green beauty was enough to take one's breath away...

Slesse in Spring Question : How long does it take to walk 6 km? Answer   : 6 Years! Yes, that is how long it took me to finally complete one of the finest hikes in the Chilliwack area of British Columbia, Canada. Slesse Mountain is an imposing peak of 2439 m at the northern end of the Cascades as the range nudges its way into Canada from the United States. On the 9th of December 1956 Trans Canada Airline Flight 810 disappeared while on a flight from Vancouver to Calgary. Five months later climbers found the crash site near the third peak of Slesse Mountain. In 1995 a 586 hectare reserve was created around the crash site. Some recovered debris from the crash, including one part of a propeller, are gathered in a heap of stones appropriately named the Propeller Cairn and constitutes the end of the Slesse Memorial Trail. The trail ascends 940 metres, from 660 metres at the trailhead to 1600 metres at the Propeller Cairn, and traverses a distance of approximately 6.5 k...