Cathedral
First Part of a Summer Trip
In the spring of 2021, the COVID fight
wasn't going well. There were travel restrictions - people
from the lower mainland weren't allowed to travel to the Island or
the interior unless they had a valid reason like school or caring
for a parent. Police enforced this on the highway. At
that point, planning a summer vacation was tough, but there was
light on the horizon - Vaccines were starting to arrive in
quantity. In this environment I booked our summer plans to
be conservative - stay away from crowds and ensure there was a
good cancellation policy. Part 1 of my summer plan was to
take the family to Cathedral Provincial Park. I actually
visited Cathedral
Provincial here once before in 2005, but only as a day
hiker.
We left Vancouver at a decent time and stopped at lightning lakes
in Manning Park for lunch. While I had planned the road trip
out in advance, Google Maps on my phone gave very worrying times
for the travel so we didn't stick around long for lunch.
It turns out Google estimated the dirt
roads at less than 30km/h when the speed limit was
50km/h. We arrived at the base case and gor outselves
ready for the one hour drive to the top of the mountain.
Nara got the front seat because it's a steep twisty road up to the
top.
We arrived at the camp at 5pm and unloaded into
the cabin. Because we were arriving later we booked dinner the
in the lodge that night. It was spaghetti night with ice cream
and peach crumble for desert and the kids really enjoyed it.
After dinner I went for a short walk up to a viewpoint over the
lake.
Hiking Lake of the Woods and Pyramid Lake
From the base camp area there are number of loop trails. We
picked a started day - hike to Lake of the Woods and then Pyramid
Lake.
We were most of the way around Lake of the Woods when I spotted some
white in the trees off the trail. We quickly figured out it
was a mother mountain goat with a juvenile and baby in tow.
The animals were certainly aware we were there but they didn't seem
to care too much. They were eating and moving and it didn't
take to long before they were out of sight. What a great
visit with a large wild animal!
After dinner (Helen made in the cabin) Nara and I went out for
walk. We were covering the same trail we did in the morning
looking for good light. We were quite lucky to stumble upon a
grouse eating berries in the short plants.
Hiking Diamond Trail
The Lodge has a weather report updated every day and it looked like
Tuesday was going to be our best weather day. Diamond trail is
a new trail to me and the lodget suggested there would be lots of
wild flowers as we went around the mountain.
Around Quiniscoe Lake
Wednesday weather was going to a mixed bag - nice in the morning,
a rain storm around lunch time and then a nice afternoon. We
were hurting from the big hike the day before so we decided to
just take a short walk around Quiniscoe Lake.
At the far end of the lake is a waterfall which you can hear from
camp. There isn't a good angle to really capture it's size,
but it is quite a bit of water coming down. I have
seen this waterfall
before on my previous trip.
We came back to camp just before it started raining and then raining
hard. We had lunch listening to the water hitting the windows.
Life at Camp
There is quite a bit to do in camp if you aren't out on a
hike. They have canoes available for use - being a calm day we
had no problem paddling across the lake and bake.
They also have Japanese style Hot Tubs!
All of the hot water in the camp is made from a central wood fired
boiler and the second story has a outdoor hot tub area. You
can book one of two time slots a day in one of three hot tubs.
The water started out really hot so you have to mix it down to a
comfortable temperature and then enjoy the soak. Too
cold? Add more hot water!
Being a long way from any city, there is also lot of opportunities
to see stars at night! It was early July (only two weeks from
the summer solstice) so night was quite short. I woke up at
midnight to leave my camera taking photos on the dock and then woke
up again at 1:30 to finish it up. The Milky way was quite
clearly visible in the night sky.
There are also a
surprising number of wild animals close to camp!
On the morning we were leaving, Helen woke up early and saw mountain
goats outside the window! We got dressed quickly and found the
goats were in camp close to the lodge. They were eating some
of the soil and licking wood - apparently they really enjoy
salt. There were two females present and a number of one year
old and this year young.
And all too short, it was time for us to pack up and be on our
way! We had booked a spot on a 9am truck down so we could get
on with the rest of our trip.
Tags: butterfly(2), lake(2), astrophotography(2), milky way(2), hiking(2), baby(1)
People: Claira(6), Nara(5), Helen(2), John(1)
From: John Harvey Photo > Blogs for 2024 to 2005 > Cathedral
From: John Harvey Photo > John's Overnight Page > Cathedral
Last Modified Sunday, January 22nd, 2023 at 00:10:05 Edit
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