Inspired by the Korean group we encountered at the Elfin shelter last month, we decided to put more thought into our food preparation this time. We ended up packing udon noodles, kimchi, salted pork bellies, and mushrooms for dinner. Ever since the Elfin Lakes Trip last fall, we decided pizza is one of the best choices for lunch, so as a tradition (only the 3rd time now), we made caramelized onion and prociutto pizza on Friday night.
Our goal was to sleep in Keith's Hut at Cerise Creek if possible. However, we didn't get to the trailhead until noon, and judging by the number of cars parked there, we were expecting the shelfter to be full already. When we left the car, it wasn't too cold, and it was kind of sunny.
Almost the first 1 km of hike is mostly in the woods. The sun had melted all the fresh snow on the trail, leaving the route with only ice and hard packed snow. Bear had a not super great time skinning up and down a narrow path in the woods where as I was totally satistied with the performance of my snowshoes . We then merged onto the old logging road. It was a steep uphill, however the amazing view made the uphill seem very worthwhile.
After that we were back to the woods again. The conditions were again quite icy. We met some snowboarders with their split boards on their way down. It was quite obvious why they were not boarding down. We stopped for lunch before we stepped out into the open again. At that point, Bear thought we were about 1 km away from Keith's Hut. After walking for a while, the trail looped into the trees again. Bear said this part was new, it was probably rerouted into the trees to avoid the risk of being caught in an avalanche. It's all about expectations, before we went, I read online it's about 4 km from the trailhead to the hut. But we felt we walked at least about 6 km, and with the constant thought of "are we there yet". It tired me out a lot. Even a 10 km hike from the past wasn't as bad.
As we arrived the hut, not only I was excited to put my backpack down, there was a wonderful surprise. There were only 7 spaces taken in the shelter which means there were spaces left for us. And we were also soon to find out there other two groups were very friendly.
It was my first time to see a pee-tree, I was so totally amused that I needed to take two pictures to share with all my other friends who might not have seen this either.
Bear decided to slack off, so he didn't go skiing that evening. We stayed in the hut and made our best camping meal ever. The people in the hut complemented the smell of our kimchi porkbell mushroom udon soup by saying "I am not saying our meal is bad, but look at what they are having! Are you guys having steaks or what?" That was Gary, he was a funny guy we met this trip. After dinner, we went outside the hut and took some pictures in the twilight. Bear also tried to take pictures of stars, but they didn't turn out very well, he probably needs a little more practice.
The second day, I stayed around the hut while Bear went up with a group of people we met for a morning ski. It was snowing briefly in the morning. The visibality was bad for a little bit, but it was back to okay very quickly. According to Bear, it really added a bit of nice fresh powder snow for them. He had a lot of fun.
On the way down, I realized that the terrain was totally not suitable for crazy-carpeting. So althought the hiking back is mostly down hill, it wasn't as much fun as I expected. My conclusion is "I need to learn to ski" :)
Oh and we saw a full rainbow on the way back to Vancouver, that nicely concluded a fun weekend.
2 comments:
Nice photos :)
I like pee-trees
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