June 30th, 2016
After successfully conquering Mount Cheam (blog post coming soon) the previous weekend, it was time to try and conquer another one of my favorite hikes, Mount Macfarlane. You're about to witness why it is ranked #1 in my top 5 hikes.
The beauty about Mt.Macfarlane is that you get to see two amazing lakes (lower and upper Pierce lake) and an incredible 360 degree summit view. All this beauty comes at a cost though, a mighty "knee-knackering" 23.5km hike. If you're up for the challenge, DO IT. Most will only hike to Lower Pierce lake, a popular camping location, which is no easy feat by itself. Upper Pierce lake is also a wonderful place to camp, albeit much more chilly and unprotected from the wind.
The hike begins at a small parking lot just off Chilliwack lake road, just past the Canadian Forces shooting range, 21km from the Vedder bridge.
Here's a map on how to get there:
For more details, visit
http://www.clubtread.com/routes/Route.aspx?Route=95
Where to begin...
I wasn't planning on hiking Mt.Macfarlane until late July. Which is when I assumed all the snow would be gone, but my girlfriend Stella invited me to come hike it with her and her friends, Jade and Adria. I quickly got the day off work, as I couldn't miss the opportunity to hike up Macfarlane. We all met at 7am at the parking lot at the Vedder bridge (a great location to park if you're looking to carpool to go hike along the Chilliwack River Valley). As always this was a very early morning for me, but luckily I got to wake up during the half hour drive to the trailhead. New this year, are signs along Chilliwack lake road marking the start of different hikes. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of one of them, but the trailhead to Mt.Macfarlane is at the "Lower Pierce lake" trail sign. At this point, there's a little parking area that leads to the start of the trail, where an outhouse (with lots of toilet paper, thank god) is conveniently located.
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| The trailhead, with the outhouse just beyond the cement blocks. |
The first few hundred meters of the trail are on an old logging road, littered with salmonberries if you're fortunate enough to hit them in season... I wasn't. :(
Not too far down this road you will reach a small clearing where you'll take a right, and you'll test your ninja skills as you jump over some deadfall before finally accessing the trail.
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| The clearing where the trail officially begins. This is a photo taken in the summer of 2015, there's now deadfall just past this log. (photo cred: Stella) |
About a hundred meters past the clearing, the grind begins, and I'm serious, Macfarlane kicks you right in the *insert proper body part* right off the start. I don't have many pictures for this first bit of the hike, because there isn't much to it, just a grind. If you cross two old gravel logging roads on the way up, you're on the right track. You shouldn't worry about getting lost though, the trail is very well marked and fairly popular, at least until lower Pierce lake.
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| An hour or so into the hike you will have to traverse an old rockslide. The trail may be tricky to follow, but again there's markers. Cutting straight across will land you right back on the trail. |
Shortly after the rockslide there's a creek crossing with a new bridge that was built just last year (2015). This bridge roughly marks the halfway point to Lower Pierce lake.
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| Stella showing off the nice new bridge, which already has a tree that tried to sabotage it. To the left you can see remnants of the old makeshift bridge that used to be there. |
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| The old bridge. In my opinion this bridge was better, more "exciting" you know? But hey, I guess it's always good not risking getting your shoes wet just an hour into a 9+ hour hike. (picture was taken in summer of 2015) |
For the next hour or so, you'll probably spend a lot of your time swearing at the switchbacks and wondering why the hell you put yourself through this. Just hold on, the wait is almost over.
BOOM. Lower Pierce lake.
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| Lower Pierce lake and it's crystal clear greenish blue water with Mount Macfarlane lurking in the background. |
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| Here we have a wild Eric in his natural habitat trying to catch the perfect shot. (photo cred: Stella) |
As I mentioned earlier, Lower Pierce is a great area to camp with multiple spots already cleared due to multiple uses. Bonus, there's even fish in the lake for those who dare bring a fishing rod up. Coincidentally we saw a gentleman doing just that on our way down. If you're really really lucky, you'll see a bald eagle swooping about trying to catch himself some supper, it truly is awe-inspiring.
As you can imagine, the view at lower Pierce gave us renewed energy to keep us going towards the summit. From this point forward you're almost out of the tree line, a few more patches and that's all. Just past the lake you enter a large meadow that could have been formed by an avalanche many years ago. The meadow brings so much color and life to a rock dominate landscape. As a biologists with a certain affection for botany, the wildflowers are always a delight.
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| Eyeing up our goal as we traverse the meadow. |
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| My favorite wildflower in the meadow. |
I think I speak for everyone when I say that we were happy to get out of the meadow. Although it is incredibly beautiful, the trail is steep and shaly, making footing extremely difficult.
As we pushed on, we entered a muddy area where I was overjoyed to see more work had been done on the trail since my last visit. I brought an extra pair of socks specifically for this section, thankfully I didn't need them.
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| Walking path/bridges that cover the whole marshy area. |
The views just kept getting better from that point on. We were now in an old avalanche bowl , jumping back and forth across run-off creeks...another one of my favorite areas on this hike. I have a lot of favorite areas on this hike, I love it all!
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| Making our way up along side a roaring run-off creek. |
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| A nice view of the multiple run-offs coming from the col. |
Now completely out of the tree line, we were able to stare out into the distance in awe while we took breaks to catch our breaths. The last bit before Upper Pierce lake is quite steep with some sandy, rocky terrain. Mix that with patches of snow, footing became a bit of a challenge.
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| This view alone, makes it worth it, but we weren't done yet. |
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| Stella and Adria drudging there way up through the snow. |
4 hours later into the hike, we made it to checkpoint #2, upper Pierce lake. This is where we had our lunch break and of course, much to my dislike, an overly long photo shoot. I must admit though, the girls got some pretty cool shots!
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| For some reason, I love this picture. It really puts into perspective how giant everything around me really is. A truly surreal feeling. |
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| If I were to look behind me in the last photo, this is what I would see. The Cheam range off in the distance and upper Pierce's run-off going over the edge. Who wouldn't want to camp here? |
I thought it would be a good idea to soak my feet while I ate lunch, you know, ice them a little to help take off a bit of the swelling from the hike up...HA, yeah right. That idea lasted 3 seconds.
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| The royal blue water was just so appealing, I had to try. |
All we had left now was a 45 minute scramble up the ridge with a little bit of exposure. Nothing too crazy, but nothing too simple that you didn't have to pay attention to what you were doing.
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| Stella leading the way as we scramble up the ridge. |
As you get closer to the summit, the exposure worsens as you traverse a few narrow sections of the ridge. The aching pain in our legs was now gone, the summit was in sight and our adrenaline was at it's max.
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| The final stretch - A fall to the right can have deadly consequences. |
A few steps from the summit, Stella and Adria were racing to the finish line. According to them, anyone but me was aloud to summit first, seems fair right? Sucks being outnumbered, I was consequently put on picture duty, yay my favorite...
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| MADE IT!!! |
11.5km and 5 hours later, we reached the summit of Mount MacFarlane!
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| Your typical summit pose, staring far into the distance. The Canadian flag has had better days. |
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| KING OF THE WORLD. |
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| A log book, we found in the summit cairn. This post was written on June 28th/1992. There was tags and other books from 1974 and on. Such a cool find. We signed them and tucked them back away, safe from the rain. |
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| The tale of two seasons - My favorite picture from any hike so far. A view of Lower and Upper Pierce lake with the Cheam range in the far left. |
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| A very close replica of the last picture. I took this picture last year on July 3rd. Last year's exceptionally warm weather is in full display. |
Unfortunately the clouds starting rolling in while we were at the summit, making it hard to take good pictures. Accompanying the clouds was a cool wind forcing us to put our sweaters back on. We stayed at the summit for roughly half an hour before starting our trek back to our cars. The way down felt incredibly long, our legs crying out, not willing to hold us up anymore. Over 11km of downhill, in my opinion, is more difficult than going up. On the plus side, we got to take advantage of a few patches of snow. Jade brought a crazy carpet long enough to fit the three girls. Me, I had my trusty two feet, that's all I needed. Here's a few fun videos of the whole ordeal. The video doesn't do justice on how steep the slope actually is.
We made it down from the summit in 2.5-3 hours, for a total round trip of 9 hours, which required a mandatory froyo stop afterwards. Let's just say my frozen yogourt had lots of oreo crumbs and cookie dough. What better way to replenish all my lost calories?
Here are some more highlights from the trip:
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| Upper Pierce Lake |
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| Slesse standing tall to the left of the frame. A picture I had to snag from my trip last year. This area was just one massive cloud this year. |
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| "Eric, take some pictures" "Not that angle" "Don't get too much of the rocks" "one more shot (x1000)" |
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| One of the many run-offs coming from Upper Pierce Lake. |
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| A few summit wildflower blooms. Always incredible to see where some plants will grow. |
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| Always amazing to share an experience like this with your bestfriend. |
If you made it this far and you want to see more pictures/different perspectives, let me steer you into the direction of my hiking partners' instagrams:
In conclusion, this hike is no easy feat, but it's also one of the most rewarding hikes in the valley. It will be hard to dethrone Mt.Macfarlane from my #1. As always, bring lots of food and water. Have fun and be safe!
Feel free to comment, critize and share! Love to hear your feedback.
Until next time,
Eric Boudreau
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