Tag Archives: Haylmore-Melvin Divide

Twin Lakes, 26 Jul 2014

Backpacking, Overnighter, Scramble, ,

Tu Loan at Twin Lakes:
“Steps to an awesome backcountry trip through Wanderung:

  1. Place a callout to the most amazing place within a 4 hour drive: Twin Lakes (Haylmore-Melvin Divide in 103 Hikes Book).
  2. Be lucky enough to gather a group of great people who all pitch in to do their part to make the trip great: Elisa, meal sharer extraordinaire; Ty, beverage sharer extraordinaire; and Nima, human mule extraordinaire. TLT was photographer and meal sharer #1.
  3. Have a car that can drive 13 km on rough FSR and make rock clearing a sport amongst your passengers.
  4. Provide a doable and scenic 10 km hike through a U-shaped valley with plenty of flowers and creeks to distract from the bugs.
  5. Arrive at the first lake with plenty of time to take in the beauty of being in the alpine and the magnificent views mountains to the south and waterfalls to the north.
  6. Prepare a delicious meal for 4 with the non-chefs fighting off the now-not-so-cute-but-aggressive marmots (one ran off with Nima’s headlamp on our last day!). Beverages were well paired for the meal: white wine, après dinner port, and Bailey’s for yet hot chocolate.
  7. Be prepared for the unexpected cold evening! Ty’s bivy sack was frosted, inside and out, the next morning. Luckily, we had a structural engineer to explain the phenomenon.
  8. Spend the whole day exploring the area above the first lake, with a magical trek through a meadow of wildflowers!! Nearby peaks are scramble-able. Make sure you have Matt Gunn’s book to help with route finding.
  9. Enjoy a second evening of a delicious meal and wine pairing and great company.
  10. Pack up the last day and retrace trek back to car and head over to Birkenhead Provincial Park to find solace from heat and jump into the refreshing lake. This was also bought us time until HWY 99 southbound opens up again (Iron Man Canada).
  11. Enjoy after hike refreshments and meal in Pemberton!

    Thank you Elisa, Nima, and Ty for making my first overnighter callout so memorable with great stories, great food, and great company! Pictures as proof!”

    Twin Lakes, July 25-27

Haylmore-Melvin Divide 25/08/12

Backpacking, Overnighter, ,

Steve at Haylmore Melvin Divide:
“Never again will I leave my SLR camera at home. After much debate over my car being worthy of the access road, we made it easily to the trailhead and on to one of the most spectacular destinations I’ve hiked in BC. Carollyne, Paul and Laura and I camped at the higher of the twin lakes and the journey there was nothing short of an onslaught of scenic vistas one after the other. The negatives I had heard about were so overblown, it wasn’t funny. No biting bugs and the dreaded “ATV” track hardly looked different than a trail in Manning Park (though we did see one group of ATVers). In fact this was one of those trails where the ATV access is probably what made it so doable (besides at 1800 m their track ends and the awesomeness factor increases tenfold). Add this trip to your list – it easily makes my top 5 of BC (so far). A big thanks to Cara, Chris and John for their road advice and GPS tracks.”

Haylmore-Melvin, Aug 2012