Blanca Lake: Before the Smoke Rolled In

Blanca Lake has been at the back of my mind for some years now. A remote area “near Squamish”, accessible via a short hike, beautiful lakes, surrounded by glaciers, off the beaten track? Sign me up! There was just one thing I didn’t quite realize. Although the hike is short, the drive is long… We did leave the highway near Squamish, but that wasn’t even the halfway point due to all the logging roads involved. The drive took us almost three hours, and we didn’t even make it to the trailhead! The final stretch was steep and loose, and there were water bars which caused us to leave our car 3 kms from the trailhead.

Our friends and their five year old had driven up a bit earlier, keen to get an early start as usual. When we made our final turn onto the little logging road that would take us to the trailhead, we were surprised to see their car parked right there! We figured they would make it part way up, but they were stopped by a rough section right at the start. The hike up the logging road was very hot, causing some of us to cool down in the creek and to choose strategic rest stops in the shade. We met some hunters at the trailhead and on the trail, hunting for mountain goats but thankfully they were empty handed. Once we got into the forest, it was much cooler, it felt like air conditioning. At least, until some hornets found us, which led to some running up the trail to escape, and a few tears. Nothing that some gummy bears couldn’t fix though! Up we went, to the meadows and finally, our first view of the mirror-like Blanca Lake.

We set up camp right by the lake, and the kids ran off to play by a nearby tarn. It was a beautiful night, totally clear and with no moon, and being so far away from any town or city, there was very little light pollution. We spotted some planets, a few constellations, and later the Milky Way. It’s been a while since I’ve seen stars so clearly – in summer the days are long and we’re usually in the tent by the time it’s dark enough to see stars clearly.

In the morning the sun was toasting us nicely in our tent, and seemingly begging us to get up and enjoy the beautiful day. After a lazy start to the morning, we headed off on a day hike to see some views. On the way the kids did some bouldering. There were lots of huge granite boulders scattered about, many of them split cleanly and beautifully into two or three chunks. It was quite eerie, as if a giant had split them with an axe. We reached the top of the ridge and the views were incredible, down to a very picturesque and oddly round lake, named… Round Lake! and over to many mountains and glaciers. From there we hiked down to Round Lake and climbed up to another bump, with more good views, and a nice little puddle for the kids to entertain themselves.

Here we said goodbye to our friends – they stayed one night while we stayed two. We didn’t realize it at that point, but once they arrived back to the road they were unable to get a ride, so they had to hike down 8kms back to their car, all this with a five year old. In the meantime, we took a more roundabout way back to camp, stopping for a swim at a nice little tarn. Importantly, it was much shallower than Blanca Lake, and hence warmer… Back at camp we noticed something was changing – gone were the clear skies of the night before. Later we realized that it was smoke rolling in, causing the sun to look like an orange fireball, and leaving us with a smoky smell for the rest of the trip. The kids played in the creek, and we realized that the most reasonable way to keep Kai’s clothes dry was to let him play naked – that kid sure loves water!

Being the weekend, lots of people showed up that evening, but after they passed us by they disappeared. Luckily the area allows people to disperse quite widely. The next morning the smoke was heavy, the views were gone, and it was very cold. It was hard to believe that we were baking in the sun the previous morning. We stopped to collect yummy blueberries and huckleberries, enough to fill a bowl nicely. After that Neil ran most of the way down the trail and it was sometimes hard to keep up, especially while carrying Kai. As we burst out onto the logging road, the scene of piles of logging debris and smoky skies seemed momentarily like the scene of some kind of horrible disaster, and I guess, it is… Luckily a couple with a beefy pickup truck and a big dog were just about to start driving down, and they were happy to give us a ride right to our car.

It was still cold, so we put on most of our clothes and had one last snack before driving home. As usual, both kids fell asleep, and the drive home was quiet, in a very welcoming way. A good time to reflect on the beautiful three days we spent in the mountains!