Iain writes:-

This was a long, hard tough day for the eleven of us. Book time is 8h30m, we were on the trail for 10h50m. Temperatures were high, 28C at the top according to my backpack thermometer, in the shade. Plenty of water and electrolytes were consumed.

Fortunately the first part of the journey, kicking off around 0800, was shaded through forest. Shortly after rounding the river bend at the falls we left the shelter of the woods, 4kms into the hike and entered a sub-alpine bowl before climbing steeply up a rock chute.

Mild drama ensued when a descending hiker dislodged a hefty rock which rolled a considerable way down the hill. Shouted warnings saw lower down hikers scrambling for cover. The heat at the top was pretty ferocious, five hours in and the sun around its zenith. The original plan was to continue east around the lake and to the next small lake, with a potential glacier cave trip. As we know “Coming Down is the Hardest Thing” so we needed to allow adequate time for the return trip. Nevertheless we enjoyed the spectacular scenery at the top of the hike while a few of the group went to the lake shore for an extra few hundred metres and a quick dip - although photographs do not exist of the actual dip - but Alex S did provide this photo below.

We did this hike on Parks Day and discovered that for overnight campers the Park Rangers make pancakes and coffee for breakfast on that one day a year. What a pancake location that is. For future reference it’s the third Saturday in July.

The trip will be repeated but we’ll aim for cooler weather next time and try and catch the ice on the lake, as well as making it to the next lake. This time though , it was not to be.

We wrapped up the day with birthday celebrations for Alexander and Tamsin at the trail head. Happy Birthdays!

Here is the route from Iain’s GARMIN GPSMAP67i