This turned into slightly more of an energy sapping mission than we’d expected. We left our tents etc set up at Lake Helen so felt light and free as we left the campsite with just our day packs. We set off for Kwai Lake via Cocteau Lake and soon found ourselves walking on big patches of snow and ice, sometimes falling in up to our knees. The trail to Cocteau Lake was fairly easy to follow though as there were footprints all the way, we were just a little slower than anticipated due to the snow. We stopped at Cocteau to look at the group camping site and cool yurt type structure there and to have a snack. A few trickier parts of the walk led us to Kwai Lake, still frozen and very snowy around it though it was beginning to melt in the early June sunshine. We sat on a bridge for another snack and were watched by a big group of eager birds who perched very confidently close by. Lots of gorgeous cold fresh water flowed out of the lakes and streams so filling our water bottles was easy.
After leaving Kwai Lake we followed deep, packed snow and soon found the trail harder to follow because the footprints disappeared sometimes. Luckily i remembered i had a trail map app on my phone and somehow had plenty of battery too, a miracle! So we managed to stay on track using that, otherwise I fear we would have been out there a considerable amount of time longer and we had already wildly underestimated how many snacks we needed. We passed a cool rangers station on a snowy meadow (I later met the ranger at the campsite before we left and told him about our snowy trip). It took longer than expected and even using the mapping app it was difficult to stay on the trail at times. I was very happy when we got to a forested area where the trail was snow clear and much simpler to follow. We wound our way back down to the far side of Lake Helen Mackenzie and eventually back around to our campsite to make the trip back to the car park after a very welcome lunch. We also met a really nice student from Nanaimo called Jacob who joined us for the last bit of our walk and met us down at the coast at Miracle Beach afterwards. It was amazing to be by the sea less than an hour after leaving the mountains, but that’s British Columbia for you. I slept very well after this 5 hour hike (with another hour back to the parking lot).
#21 between Lake Helen and Kwai Lake about 14km of trails i reckons.
1Year/52Hikes 2019 