Last weekend I hiked two hikes; Headwall Lakes and Iceberg Lake, which were my 20th and 21st hikes of the year if you count all the walk/hikes I completed with Julie in Wells Gray Provincial Park. The first hike I completed was Headwall Lakes. Headwall Lakes is a moderate difficulty 16km hike that has 652 metres of elevation gain.
The hike starts in the same parking lot as Chester Lake, a hike which I completed a few weeks ago and you can view
here. The start of the hike is an easy 3km saunter along an access road, before venturing into the forest. The forest trail was quite tight in some areas so I decided to put on my pantlegs on my Columbia Silver Ridge Convertible Pants (which I highly recommend by the way).
About 5.5 km into the hike I was about to emerge onto the rock scree when I heard the roar of a bear!!! It made all the hair on the back of neck stand up, and I cautiously turned back to head towards the parking lot, while announcing my presence loudly.
About 10 minutes on my journey back I ran into a group of 7 male geologists and told them about my experience. They said that with a group of 8 the bear wouldn’t be scared of us and asked if I wanted to tag along. In the group there were 2 Rob’s, 3 Ian’s, and a cool old Romanian guy who I chatted with for a bit. I learned a bit about the different rock formations and had a great time with them. After about an hour I split apart from the group and blazed my own trail towards the first lake.
The wind started to pickup towards the first lake, and at times I was actually starting to get a bit cold, so I decided to put on my hoodie. Emerging at the first lake I was completely awe-struck at the sheer beauty of the scenery around me!
At the first lake I took a break for some water and a sandwich before venturing up towards the second lake. The climb up towards the second lake was beside a beautiful waterfall with alpine flowers growing up alongside the waterfall edge.
Gazing backwards towards the first lake I was presented with such an astounding view that I couldn’t help myself from continuously looking back at.
Finally, I arrived at the second lake, which was quite the different perspective. It wasn’t as beautiful as the first lake, but was still pretty in its own accord.
After taking a rest at the top I ventured back towards the car, without any more bear drama! The total time on the hike was 4.25 hours, but if it were not for my encounter with the bear it probably would have been closer to 3.5 hours.
Stay tuned for the next installment in my hiking series; Iceberg Lake!
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Ian Griffin Photography 