Elfin Lakes, November 8th

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Drove up early Saturday morning, left North Van at 7am, snowshoes in hand. We didn’t know the exact route and made the mistake of turning up an old logging road that got smaller and smaller untill it was the end part of a mountain biking trail. We only realized this after engaging 4 wheel drive, driving through many ditches, through some very deep puddles, rather slippery mud patches, and finally seeing a mountain biking trail map with a “you are here” sticker many miles from where we were supposed to be.

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We doubled back,  caught our first glimpse of snow for the year and made it up to the parking lot. After a longer than usual gear up, we were both wearing snowshoes for the first time and were ready to depart on our journey up to Red Heather cabin. We left at 9:10am (oh how I love camera metadata) and quickly got used to using snowshoes.

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We soon passed some snowboarders who were hiking up to get some turns down Paul Ridge. I can imagine they had a pretty tough time hiking through the powder up to the ridge wearing snowboarding boots. Even with snowshoes on, Tyler and I sunk down a decent ways whenever we stepped off trail.

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We arrived at Red Heather in good time, 10:35am and had a lunch break (neither of us had had breakfast and our sandwiches were rather appetizing). I also brought out a couple rows of chocolate as per tradition.

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It wasn’t long after leaving the cabin that the trail ended and we had to start making our own trail towards Elfin Lakes. By 11:25 it was so socked in, and progress was so slow that we made the disappointing decision of turning back. Next time, skis are a must!

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It took us about five tries to get this shot alright. I couldn’t figure out how to enable the 10 second timer on my camera, so I had only 2 seconds from pressing the shutter to getting into frame. It worked out well in the end though.

Overall a good adventure away from the city. I mean, how often do we have this much snow by November 8th? It’s pretty unusual. I will definitely be heading into the mountains as much as I can from now on.

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