Capturing the Art of Nature
Chilliwack Ecological Reserve
I wanted to visit the south end of Chilliwack Lake for some time, but with the road closed to protect the reserve one must hike in rather than drive. Today I decided to give it a go.
Category
Serendipitous Discoveries
2008
Click on image to view gallery
The locked gate across the road is fairly far from the actual reserve, back by Depot Creek, and this annoyed me as it was keeping me from exploring the south end of the lake. I can understand why they placed the gate at the bridge, it was about the only place secure enough to keep motorized traffic out, but I still find it irritating. If people would respect the back country we wouldn’t need these restrictions! But today I decided to give it a go and hike the 2.5km along the road to the south end of the lake and then into the reserve.
Our first task was to set up the radio repeater. This was a bit of a challenge as the road turned a fair ways in along the creek before crossing and so we were wedged in a small narrow valley. We set up the radio but were not able to work into the main Sumas Mountain repeater but after raising the mast to 30 feet we did manage to reliably contact the UBC repeater. So once that was established and I had good contact with Carolyn at home we set off on the actual hike.
The initial walk along the road was graced with a few fall colours and some interesting fungus but the highlight was a pair of river otters scampering away down the road ahead of us. Ethan commented on how huge they were, obviously well fattened for the winter! We made our way along the road past some rock slides and finally to the beach at the south end of the lake. The level was low and the lake bottom mud was exposed and we walked out to the water edge on it. We did see a couple of people fishing off their row boats.
After a short visit to the lake we set off into the reserve. I wasn’t sure what to expect out here but it has looked interesting to me for years. The trail is marked with tape and the path obvious for most of the trail, but there were short sections where we were trying to locate it and did manage to wander off the trail for short distances a number of times. The trail is starting to get over-grown in places and blocked by wind-fall. I do think it would be worth keeping the trail cleared so hikers stomp on less of the sensitive areas. The most scenic items we came across were a variety of colourful mushrooms. The view of the various peaks and the river were generally obscured by the underbrush, so I had little opportunity to get good angles on them.
We made it to the border cut and crossed over to the North Cascades Park where we stopped for lunch. The trail continues south through the park and actually seems better maintained then the section in the reserve. After resting for awhile we called home on our radio and enjoyed a few chats with Carolyn and other club members. Then it was back the way we came, sort of. I didn’t want to stay too long as the trail was hard to follow in places and would be very difficult once the sun dropped below the ridge line. So our return went fairly quickly. Ethan started feeling a bit unwell and we stopped for a rest at a small beach area along the river about half way back through the reserve. While in the reserve we got to see some original growth Cedar trees which were huge. They really are quite impressive in their size, it is a shame there are so few of them still standing. We did lose the trail at one point on the return and ended up finding a different section then we used heading out but it did join up and we were soon back at the road for a final trek to the truck. Though the hike was fairly level it was long and did involve some searching for the markers and clamoring over logs with the end result making us quite exhausted by the time we got back to the truck.
Once back we started the work of taking down the mast, but were interrupted by a couple of guys who were out fishing. They were quite interested in learning about the radio setup and we chatted for a few minutes. Then it was back up the road along the lake, we were too tired to stop for more photos even though I had planned to stop at a few spots we saw on the way in. It was a fun adventure and I do think I will be back. I would like to paddle the river a bit as it looked like it would offer some interesting sights.