Stein Valley Traverse, BC – 8 Days
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My wife and I spent 7 nights, 8 days traversing the length of the of the Stein watershed from Lytton, BC to Lilleot Lake.
Sept 6-13th, 2010.
Day 1 – Lytton Trailhead (0km) to Riverside Camp (14km)
We arrived at the trailhead at 1pm and hiked 14km (9 miles) of easy going to the 'Riverside Camp'.At the trailhead with 25 lbs of food (40 lbs total) in my ULA Ohm:
The first 60km (37 miles) follows this river to Stein Lake:
Using my BushBuddy Ultra:
MYOG Cuben Fly:
Day 2 – Riverside Camp (14km) to Cotton Wood creek (30km)
Today was easy going for the first half and then we got to an area where there was a forest fire last summer. It looks easy in the pictures but there was a ton of fallen logs to crawl over/under which really slowed us down.Forest Fire area:
Cottonwood Falls:
Day 3 – Cottonwood Creek (30km) to stealth camp @ 45km.
Today was really tough going with all the forest fire burn problems. There was huge shrub/weed growth making the trail tough to follow plus tons of trees down. Very slow going in areas especially just past LogJam camp for 3km where the trail was nearly impossible to find.Having rehydrated chili that night:
Day 4 – stealth camp (45km) to Stein Lake at 60km.
Today we finally got out of the forest fire area and the trail was much better. We made it to Stein Lake early so I caught a few trout.Cable car across the Stein:
Lookout back at where we've come from:
Stein Lake:
Small Rainbow Trout at Stein Lake.
Day 5 – Stein Lake (60km) to near Tundra Lake (67km)
Today was the start of the second alpine half of the trip. We climbed 4000 feet from Stein Lake to the alpine.Stein Lake below:
Things got a lot colder up here with some flurries:
Myself taking in the view:
Our 'mountaineering' dog Asia:
Just before our goal of Tundra Lake we got chased off the ridge by high winds and rain. We descended 500 ft to this bowl below Tundra Peak:
Day 6 – near Tundra Lake (67km) to Caltha Lake (73km)
We got rain that night with some snow higher up. Thankfully the weather cleared by morning. We didn't cover a lot of distance today, but it was really slow going as we crossed some huge boulder fields.We made it to Tundra Lake after an hour:
Looking back at Tundra Lake. It took a long time to hop all those boulders along the left shoreline:
Here was the biggest mistake of the trip. After high winds the previous night caused an worrying amount of tent deflection, I opted to camp in this low lying but sheltered area as the winds again seemed high but it didn't look like rain. I mis-estimated the amount of rain that would be need to cause problems.
Day 7 – Caltha Lake (73km) to Lizzie Cabin (81km)
I woke up in the night to "Dan the tent is collapsing" as a heavy 1" or so of slushy snow was apparently too much for the Fibraplex carbon poles. I knocked of the snow/slush and fell back asleep thinking we would be fine in this low lying area since it was snowing rather than raining.A few hours later I awoke and realized I was actually floating on water on my NeoAir. I was impressed that my tent floor hadn't leaked because we were sitting in several inches of water. The bummer was that most of our clothes and our shoes were totally soaked being in the vestibules. Lesson learned!
We had to choose between moving the tent nearby and waiting out the snow/rain storm with mostly soaked clothing/gear, or hiking 8km with large elevation changes at 6500-7500 ft in the snow storm to Lizzie cabin. We opted to make a break for it.
6000 ft. Everything of mine was soaked so all I was wearing was soaked shoes, soaked socks, rain pants, soaked underwear, 1/2 soaked montbell down inner and a rain jkt. We had to keep hiking hard to stay warm.
7500 ft. We couldn't see the trail at all at this point with the snowfall so we were relying on spotting the cairns. On a few occasions I was worried I would have to rely on navigating by altimeter and compass in near white out conditions.
After 3 hours we finally started descending down to the cabin.
Woohoo! We made it to the cabin which is open to the public. There was dry fire wood so we set about warming up and drying our gear:
Bannock & Chili for dinner:
Day 8 – Lizzie Cabin (81km) to Lilleot Lake FSR (97km)
Dry and feeling much better we set off on our last day for the exit.'Shangri-La' boulder field:
After a few kms we came out to the old trail head at km 84. The 13 km logging road up to this trailhead washed out in 4 places 8 years ago so we still had to hike down this old logging road which was now not much more than a trail with all the new plant growth. Our goal is that lake way in the distance:
Crossing one of the Lizzie Creek washouts near the exit:
Here's a few more pics:
Tara and I in the forest fire burn area:
Cottonwood Falls:
Burnt old growth cedars:
'Logjam Camp':
For dessert one night we had brie heated up over the bushbuddy coals with brown sugar. Delicious!
One day I'll get better at taking these 'glowing tent' shots. I need a tripod:
The middle of nowhere:
Another trout. Too bad I only had 45 min or so to fish. The lake seemed loaded with trout. I caught 3 and had a few more get away.
A rainbow 'all the way across the sky!':
On the first ridge above Stein Lake:
Same ridge:
Whoa!
Tundra lake is so awesome. Such a deep blue. I wish I had a few more days in the area to explore other places like Elton lake and 5000' meadows.
Our dog Asia warming up:
Drying everything in the cabin:
"Just curious why you didn't have everything sans food inside your tent with you?"
I should have had more stuff inside the tent with me. Some mistakes were definitely made here and I've been learning from and mulling over this situation to prevent it in the future. Maybe you have some suggestions?
Normally I would have had everything in the tent except for food, shoes and water/fuel bottles. I usually sleep with my pack and spare clothes under my feet.
In this case though, a lot of our stuff had gotten at least partially wet the previous evening when rain/snow chased us off that ridge to a hasty camp. That previous evening I didn't get my pack cover and rain gear on as quickly as I should have because I was helping my wife and because I was a bit too concerned with just getting the tent setup (mistake #1).
The day before this night-time flood, we had almost all of our clothes drying on a clothes line but it was pretty humid out and they were drying slowly. The only dry clothes I had was my down jkt, down pants, 1 underwear and 1 hiking shirt. When it was time to go to bed I took the wet stuff down in case of rain and put the 1/2 dry clothes in a cuben stuff sack that I thought was waterproof. I left this sack in the vestibule (mistake #2). I could have put it in the tent but I didn't think much of it.
So yeah, when I woke up the stuff sack was sitting in several inches of water and the clothes were totally saturated because they had been soaked up water, I guess through the seams. The clothes were 100% soaked. Prior to this, a lot of the stuff (ie. hiking pants, gloves, socks) would have been mostly dry.
When we set out on our hike I opted not to wear my down pants because I wanted to ensure they stayed dry in case our hike was unsuccessful and we were forced to camp in the cold, snowy conditions. I did wear my montbell inner down jkt but it got somewhat wet because the sleeves keep sneaking out past my rain jkt sleeves and because every time I bend over my rain jkt rides up and the down gets exposed. I was aware of these problems and tried to stay on top of them, but in hours of snow/slush/rain it's a battle that I was slowly losing. Besides really cold, wet hands I was fine for our hike that day. The rain pants didn't provide much insulation but a wind barrier was enough with the heat I was generating. Maybe a synthetic insulating jkt would be better gear choice than down because a jkt is a hard thing to ensure it stays dry.
My wife was in a bit better position that I was because I put her 1/2 wet clothes in a different cuben stuff sack in the vestibule and that one did not leak. She had wool gloves, MYOG silnylon rain mitts, wool cap, extra shirt and hiking pants.
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