Our hike started off up many impressive wooden staircases. We marvelled at the amount of effort that must have gone in to building this trail. There were planks hauled all the way near the top. The trail itself consisted of many switchbacks heading steadily up through large trees and over moss and pine needle-covered ground. There was a large abundance of all kinds of mushrooms. I even spotted a few chantrelles. As we hiked the morning sun peaked through the trees and the sounds from the highway slowly disappeared. |
Not long after we started hiking I noticed that Trevor's boots did not look right. He had bought these boots 7-8 years in Alberta. They were great looking Asolo mountaineering boots… However, when we stopped to investigate the plastic bottom of the boots was beginning to crumble… Not good. Nevertheless we carried on up the trail. On our way up I noticed how the leaves on some of the huckleberry and wild blue berry bushes were turning a beautiful yellow. The light streaming in made everything look golden. The trail was a very easy to follow. It didn't appear to be recently well booted, but you could tell at one point it got some use. Many of the wooden structures were beginning to lose the odd board and there was some deadfall the required manoeuvring over, but for the most part the trail was great. It did not take long until Trevor's boots were literally disintegrating. I grabbed ductape from my bag and we tried to wrap them together the best we could. Trevor was determined to do this hike, but things were looking sketchy. After about 3 hours at a leisurely pace with many stops to tape Trevor's boots, we arrived at Brigade Lake. We searched around and found a nice big bluff to put our tent atop. From our camp we had an amazing view overlooking Brigade Lake and Mount Klitsa. We set up our tent, had some lunch, and made a pretty awesome food cache before carrying on to see how close we could get to Mount Klitsa. The trail after Brigade Lake was no longer well booted so we followed a flagged route while keeping an eye on my GPS, which had a route programmed in. The terrain was pretty great as far as bushwhacking goes. Small brush and grass with some spread out trees. In fact we found some pretty interesting looking dead trees along the way. One even looked like a creepy throne. |
It didn't take long before Trevor's shoes were absolutely toast and more of a hazard than foot protection… He tried ripping off the remainder of the grip, but the rigid support inside of the boot turned into a slippery disaster. There were a good few slips and then Trevor made the call to switch to his only other piece of footwear, aqua socks. That's right folks, those fun neoprene booties you wear in the water. All I could do for a period was laugh. Unfortunately this meant that our adventuring for the day had come to |
We made it back to camp by about 1530, still fairly early in the day. We set up our camp a little better and had another snack of cream cheese and salmon on crackers. Something I would not personally pack on a hike due to my healthy fear of attracting wild animals; however, Trevor felt differently. Regardless, it was pretty darn tasty and I wasn't going to complain too much. We also lounged around down by the lake and soaked in the sun for a while before it set over the trees. I wish I had a fishing rod because I caught a glimpse of a few decent sized trout swimming around. | While rooting around our camp I noticed a bag tucked under a tree. To my surprise when I pulled it out I found a geocache! Man those things are everywhere. Pretty darn neat. I signed it just for the heck of it. Plus I was feeling a little sad that I never got to sign a summit register. That evening we lounged around chatting and taking in the view. It was nice to just enjoy being out in the wilderness for the night. Eventually the stars came out and I laid back on the rock we had set up camp on to take in the sky. |
Eventually we packed up camp and headed back down the trail. Along the way I picked a few chantrelles that I had spotted on the way up too cook up for supper. The hike down was great. The trees shielded the sun and the trail wasn't overly steep so it was easy on the knees. it took us around two hours to get back to the truck. |