It was Friday June 9th and three brave Germans were on the way to see Canada's highest waterfalls. Before continuing may I introduce the crew. First of all we have Martin the Path Finder, who finds the smallest footprints in the snow to guide us to our destination, then there is Andy the Node King, who is able to tie the tightest nodes into whatever you can tie a node into and last but not least there is me the Mountain Goat, who hikes up the mountain so fast like there would be no elevation at all.
Path Finder, Node King and Mountain Goat
The crew arrived at 6pm the Ark Resort, which is close to Port Alberni. By the time Rosi, our boats captain, was done telling us more or less funny jokes and ready to drive us across the Great Central Lake to the trail head it was already 7pm. An ho
ur later we were there, far away for civilizations, at our luxurious campsite, luxurious because it had the best pit toilette ever (Note: the flush does not work, so don't even try :-) ) Since it was already quite late and we hikers didn't manage to have lunch nor dinner yet we sat down and enjoyed our last non-dehydrated food for the next 3 days. After we finished our Subway Sandwiches it was already time to build up the tent that we bored from a friend of mine. It was now that we realized that the tent we bored was not a 3 people tent as we assumed, no it was a 2 people tent. So can imagine how cosy it got during the night, especially for me in my -12C sleeping bag in the middle of the two guys. I was just boiling. Whereas Node Kind in his better bed sheet (that's how I would call his sleeping bag) was freezing, well just on the side where I was not sleeping.
After a more or less good sleep and 1000 mosquito bites we woke up the next morning had a yummy breakfast and started hiking. The trail starts off easy and flat, but quite muddy, well what can you expect from hiking in BC. Approximately 1¾ hours into our hike we saw the first little bit of snow, brrr, no it was actually not that cold and since there was a nice spot on the river we decided to take a small break to tank some energy. Another 2 hours into the hike and after a second sun-bath-get-energy-break we met the only two people that were on the trail with us. For sure there were Germans as well :-) However they were there only for the day, so the rest of the time it was only the three of us in the forest. If you think about it a actually a quite scary thought being the only on in the forest. I mean if the bear really feels like eating a human, he won't have a choice and will have to eat you. But we will leave that thought behind. The two other Germans already told us that they were not able to see the campsite we wanted to take and that another 100m into the hike the snow really starts and more or less everything was covered in snow. We still went ahead, but also had to realize that we couldn't find the campsite underneath all the snow. So we had to turn around in order to find a nice spot to sleep in our cozy 2 people tent.
The next morning was the day of the falls and since we needed
to go back to the same spot where we spent the last night, we decided to leave our stuff there and pick it up on the way back. But as experienced bear-county-backpacker
you know that you can't leave your food or other stuff some where without hanging it on a tree. So Node King and Path Finder did a good job hanging our food as well as two backpacks bear proof in the middle of the hiking trail. And now we were ready to go, through the snow. Soon we noticed that the snow gives us two little problems. First of all you needed to watch out that you don't break through the
snow, since sometimes it was hollow underneath the snow. Breaking though the snow can cause injuries that have to be treated seriously. And second of all and that was the bigger problem, if everything
is covered in snow, there are no signs to show us the way. But that's where Path Finder Martin came handy and was able to guide us to the base camp of the Della Falls, where we had another
break before we set off to the Love Lake, from which you apparently have the best view to the falls. The way up to Love Lake is quite steep (not that snowy though) and I was thankful not having to carry my backpack , especially when we had to cross a creek, whom's bridge was washed away from the snow and that would have taken you down hill in case you slip. About half way up, there was snow on the way again and soon we could only guess where the way actually leads to and we decided that it was too dangerous to hike further. So we enjoyed the view to the falls from there and had another long break before we went back.
Della Falls
Since we didn't want to sleep in the middle of the hiking trail again we picked up or stuff at the place were we camped the night before and hiked another 5 km to the next real campsite, where we had a fresh “bath” in the river filled with glacier water. Brrr that was super freaking freezing cold Brrr.
The next day we only had a 8km easy hike back to the trail head, which we managed in 2 hours. We got the 3 hours before the water taxi was picking us up and so we had some time to hang out on the jetty. The sun was shining and so we all put on the 30+ Sudanese sunscreen, which helped as much as no sunscreen at all. But we tried no to get sun burned, that's all that counts. At 2:10pm Rosi was back to pick us up and once we were sitting in the boat it started to rain, what a timing, since we didn't see any rain during our hole trip.
All together it was an awesome trip, with lots and lots of fun. I recommend you to do the trail, but also I recommend you to take really water proof shoes with you, don't forget the mosquito spray and if you have the chance do the trail at the end of the summer, since then chances are there there s not as much snow and you will be able to find the actually trail, but actually having all the snow was fun as well.
More pictures can be found at www.linse.tk
