Fall hikes and colors

Despite the dry summer there was an amazing display of great fall colors this year. Nice weather lasted throughout October and gave opportunity to many hikes. On the trail to Blanca Lake in the Elaho valley we discovered some huge King Boletes. We finally scrambled up Mt Jim Kelly on a lot of rubble and loose shale (not the greatest hiking). My favorite was the area around Mt Bake with easy access and well groomed hiking trails (Chain Lakes, Lake Ann, Yellow Aster Bute, Skyline divide and Railroad grade). Blueberries were fantastic too!

Blueberries and colors were better closer to Heather Meadows parking lot

November Flying - November 4

What an amazing flight for November! Eagle were showing us where to stay up in light thermals. One-and-a-half hour airtime floating around clouds that formed and dissipated in front of us. But winter is coming: first snow is visible on the higher ridges and my fingers were cold.

AlexR Photo... finally a photo of me and not me taking photos of others flying ;-)

Glorious Fall Colors at Illal - September 13

 Wonderful fall colors at Illal Meadows this weekend. The meadows had been on my list of places to explore and a couple of weeks ago a paragliding friend confirmed that it was well worth a visit. Its a relatively quick hike in so carrying over-night gear was not much of a pain. The trail is about 4 or 5 km long and elevation gain around 500 m. There are very nice camp spots in the meadows, but care should be taken to pick a sheltered spot as it gets windy here - a look at the trees tells the story ... they have no branches on the windward side.

We wandered up some ridges to Illal Peak and enjoyed views of Needle, Yak and other peaks in the Coquihalla area (even saw Robbie Reid and the Judge on the horizon). On the second day we circumnavigated Jim Kelly. Although the scramble to the top is reportedly not too bad we skipped the summit as winds were still very strong and we didn't want to get blown off the ridge.

Glorious yellow mountain ash and red blueberries leaves but the berries were almost done; the ones left had started to dry out and ferment. I had much better luck with berries at Elfin Lakes 3 weeks ago. We didn't see any wildlife such as goats or grizzlies, but some disturbed spots could have been grizz digs. Up on windy (white-capping) Illal Lake we met hunters who said they were looking for deer - not exactly deer country ?

Some more notes: Trailhead is off a branch road of Tulameen FSR (from Coquihalla highway, around 19km mark), the last 3km on the branch requiring 4WD and reasonably high clearance (the Tracker had no problem).

Glorious colors with the Old Settler, Robbie Reid and the Judge

Pete hiking on Illal Peak, Coquihalla Mt in the back

Looks like a painter had an accident and spilled his/her colors

The Milky Way from the sleeping bag. Without realizing I also captured 2 shooting stars in this exposure. Quite different from the outing on Mt Seymour to watch the Perseids when we spotted only a few meteorites and I captured just a single one.

Glorious Indian Summer

Phenomenal fall weather for 6 weeks! Record breaking sun shine and lack of rain. Well deserved after the very late start to summer this year, if the weather would care about human sense of fairness and merit. Fall air isn’t the greatest for paragliding and we switched into hiking mode. We went back to Downton Creek, a great area off the Duffey Lake Road where the logging road leads up into the subalpine. We hiked up to Linus, a fun ridge scramble with a short knife-edge ridge (but too pointy to cross it au-cheval style).

My other fall hikes lead me to Yellow Aster Butte and Table Mt in the Baker area, Mt Laughington and Flora Peak in the Chilliwack Valley and last but not least Mt Strachan. Stunning hues of red, orange and yellow of the fall leaves of blueberry, mountain ash and willow. New perspectives of the border mountain range from south and east.

Mt Baker from Yellow Aster Butte

Clouds cover Howe Sound seen from Mt Strachan (CBC Listners' Lens mug winner)

Chilliwack Valley from Flora Peak

Vine Maple leaves