Southern BC - Hiking the Dream(s) 6

So, after an adventurous set of hiking trips, a peacefull winery tour, perfect weather and perfect storms...we settled in on our final backcountry destination - Cathedral Lakes Park. Too much beauty to describe, and to an onlooker perhaps it all looks similar to earlier pictures, but this trip was a we biut more memorable. It was longer, it was harder, it was more varied and it made my legs feel like jello assailed with a gattling gun by the end of it. A good 'jello-gattling-gun' feeling, though. The feeling of accomplishment, of compeltion, of satisfaction....

We hiked up the 20km trail to the Cathedral Lakes - camped for the night - did a 20km dayhike the following sunrise to a ridgeline that parallels the US border somewhat - returned to the Cathedral Lakes to camp another night - and returned home via the 20km trail that brought us here. Alot of hiking, a lot of strenuous hiking. But, as normally happens, the harder the hike the more beauty that you are greeted with. And of course we met this relationship with each peak we summited and each ridge we clambered along.

Us on the ridge overlooking the Cascade mountains in the background.

Mornings and nights were freezing at this altitude, about 2000 masl, but the days were scorching hot. Here, we ponder ... warmth ... over a cup of tea.

We went for an evening hike after reaching the Cathedral Lakes the first night to a lake dubbed Glacier Lake. Quite a way to end the day - alone beside a glacially filled lake, within a craggy cirque of mountains, watching birds and pollinating insects ease themselves into the night.

View that followed us most of the day. Clear skies, the setting gibbous moon, and the dazzle of millions of years of tectonic crunching.

Smokey the Bear. All natural.
Mountain goats. We ended up walking by, I believe, 12 of these critters this one day!

Me on the ridge, prior to lunch on our second day.

Cathedral Park was a higher effort that we ever imagined but it was the best way to end a trip - on a ridgeline basking in the summer heat and the buzz of adrenaline in our bodies.