Canablog

Joffre Lakes is a very small provincial park, about 30km north-east of Pemberton. But lets not get ahead of things. There are 3 lakes, lower, middle and upper Joffre Lake. And there is one trail that will lead you to the Upper lake were the campsite is. The trail is about 5.5 km long, gaining just under 400m. in elevation. With just a daypack, the Upper Lake can be reached in 2-2.5 hours.
But we needed more than just a daypack. Robin is not yet able to walk such a distance. The most he has managed by himself so far was 2 km on a flat road (in the Lynn Valley parade). So we had to make sure one of us could carry him at least part of the way. Since carrying Robin requires one of us to carry his backpack (which has little space to carry other things) the other person would have to carry all camping gear for the three of us. That is one backpack filled with: 1 tent, 3 sleeping bags and mattresses, 3 sets of extra clothes, a stove, pots and food for 3 for 2 days, and some more small stuff. Well, that didn’t all fit in one backpack, we had to pack the tent and a small pack with our food on the outside of the big backpack. It weighed 32 kg!

(Image by Shrubhugger)
On our way back it was approx. 27 kg. we had eaten the 5 kg. of food we took.
Bas had to carry this big backpack; I had Robin (only 20kg.) and an extra 14 kg. from being pregnant. We knew it would be tough, but decided to give it a try. We both had an extra day off, and we scheduled plenty of time for the hike. In the end (with Bas sometime speeding ahead, dropping his load, and then coming back to carry Robin) it took us just under 5 hours to get to the campsite at the Upper Lake. Robin actually did walk part of the way. About one third I think, and most of it going uphill. Even though Robin walking slows us down it was nice not having to carry him all the way. It great to see he likes it.

So was it worth all the effort? Definitely! It’s the most beautiful campsite we went to in BC so far. By the glacial lake, glacier hanging overhead. It had 1 outhouse 500m. away from the campsite. Quiet, except for the waterfall, and beautiful… Just look at the pictures http://gallery.brijn.nu/JoffreLakes.

The rest of the weekend we just watched Robin throw rocks in the Lake, hiked (without heavy packs) up a bit further through some snowfields towards the Tzill glacier, and watched how daring Whiskey Jack’s and chipmunks try to steal some of our food. Though technically considered rodents, chipmunks are actually really cute (like rats, only nicely striped with a fluffy tail).

Our way down was a lot easier. The big backpack was better packed too, so it was more stable. And just when we thought we’d never get to the big boulder field we both remembered to be difficult from our trip in, we suddenly saw Lower Joffre Lake, meaning our car was less then 1 km. away, and we had somehow missed the big boulder field. We did cross a boulder field on our way back, but it was not nearly as big or difficult as we remembered from our way in.
And Robin, well he hardly walked himself. He was too tired of all the stones he had thrown. And he fell asleep in his backpack, which doesn’t happen often anymore. He probably dreamed of going camping again. He still asks us often if we are going camping again……… soon Robin soon.