Mowich Lake to Golden Lakes, August 11
We woke up to wet tents and gear and slept in a little to try to let things dry. It was much warmer today but shady. Early in the day we met the trail crew that had been working on rebuilding bridges. Just the day before we’d learned from another ranger that the bridge across the S. Mowich was in. Back when I was booking these trips I knew that sometimes the bridges hadn’t been placed and you might have to ford the rivers, and I’m not sure exactly what I was expecting that to look like, but on day 0, when we were camped next to the White River, I knew that I did NOT want to ford anything here they called a ‘river’. The White River was a boulder field with a jet of rock sludge shooting out of a glacier. It was a gray-brown cataract and standing next to it I was aware of a vibration and a low rumble, which I realized was the sound of boulders rolling beneath the water. Now I presume that they wouldn’t be advising hikers to cross exactly THAT, but so far the Carbon and a few other crossings had looked just as bad.
No matter how much I complain about the bridges being scary, they are a big improvement!
We climbed a long uphill to Golden Lakes where we met a ranger in residence at a little log cabin. Golden Lakes was lovely. We were so hot when we got there that we jumped into the water. I don’t have many photos from today and it’s partly because I didn’t want to start snapping away when we (or other campers) were partially undressed. There were mosquitos at the campsite so we stayed near the lake where there was a breeze to cook our dinner. We met several other hikers sharing the site with us and also spoke to some trail runners. There were a ton of people we’d passed on the trail, carrying almost nothing and heading north past us. At Golden Lakes we met one of the organizers who was running ‘sweep’ to make sure all their runners made it safely to Mowich. They were doing the whole loop in 3 days: 31 miles per day. And they said, ‘well, it’s easier because we aren’t carrying all that gear’. Friends – let me tell you that I would not be covering 31 miles with or without gear.
We went up to a lookout point near the tents to watch the sunset with other campers. Two of our fellow campers were from BC and had suggestions for hikes there: Porto Cove, Garibaldi, and the West Coast Trail, all in BC
