26.08.2012
Monkeyflower Meadows, Mud Meadows, Mosquito Meadows - all of those would be reasonable alternative names for this destination :-) The meadows are full of wildflowers right now (most of which seemed to be pink monkeyflower) and there is no snow (apart from a 50-m section of an avalanche remnant). There is still plenty of mud but to be honest, it's quite easy to find decent paths through it in almost all cases. Boots, gaiters and hiking poles are must-haves here. Finally, the bugs... they were annoying on the ascent, but pretty bad on the descent. As you'd expect, they were worst in the muddy sections, and this is where I picked up all my mosquito bites (and most of my black-fly bites). Then again, I hadn't applied any bug spray.
This hike has been on my list for years so I had high yet ill-defined expectations. I can only describe the entry in 103 Hikes as "perfunctory". A less-kind description would be pretty damn useless. The trail is pretty obvious until you get to the first lake (Kathryn Lake), but after that it's surprisingly intermittent. I had imagined a really well-trodden trail, but I guess the road does limit the number of summer visitors.
The trail to the second lake in the valley leads away from the east side of Kathryn Lake, and takes you all the way to the north shore of the second lake and a really cool 15-foot high First Nations carving. (Sadly the carving is no longer standing - looks like the snow pushed it over.) There is no need to try and find a trail along the west side of this lake as suggested by 103 Hikes (as we did, having to descend a steep boulder field in the process). Once at the north shore of this lake, we followed the creek up to the pass over large boulders. Beyond the pass, we encountered another small lake before stopping for lunch at the southern edge of the informally-named Seagram Lake.
The road is a little challenging in places and it's pretty much one vehicle wide the whole way - there are very few good passing or turn-around points. Branch 200 is in decent shape (a rough stretch soon after the start of the initial climb, and a couple more further up), but once on Branch 250 things get interesting quickly. A couple of hundred metres up this road, there is a partially-washed out section that has been "user-repaired" with rocks on the downslope side. We added a few more flat rocks to fill one of the potholes, and the CR-V we were in made it through on the second attempt. The next challenge was a km or so further, just after a switchback with a disused road leading off to the right. The road is really badly rutted and the surface is very loose. It took three attempts to get through it, picking a careful line to avoid a couple of entrenched rocks. Four-wheel drive is definitely needed here. I think this is where Pardeep lost his U-bolt. We parked at a fork about 1 km short of the trailhead (next to an Xterra). Walking this extra km up the road adds another 200 m of elevation gain.
Branch 250 also has waterbars but we had no issues, even driving straight through them, and someone has cleared all the encroaching alder (thank you!).
Allow at least 1 hour to drive to/from the trailhead from/to the beginning of Branch 200. We did the hike in exactly 7 hours: 3h30m up, 2h45m down (plus time for lunch and snacks). A fabulous day out. And a huge thank-you to Jeremy for driving.
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