Blowdown Pass
September 9 & 10, 2023
It was nearing the end of the summer season when my sister Heidi and her boyfriend Dan finally made a trip home to Vancouver! Keen to take advantage of some time with our entire immediate family, my parents had Francis and I plan a backcountry camping weekend for everyone to enjoy. The key factors were a lake, and some beautiful hiking, as well as something more remote with less people around. We chose the blowdown pass area, with easy access to the lake and then almost endless beautiful mountains with meadows above it.
On Saturday morning, we had a late start, not even leaving Pemberton until around 10am. It was fun to relax and grab a coffee from Mount Currie coffee shop while everyone did some last minute packing and repacking of backpacks. Driving up the Blowdown FSR was easy going with a couple minor sections that some high clearance would be nice for, until we reached the turnoff to the “trail” which is really an old mining road. The road was incredibly overgrown, but Francis was sure he could make it up as he’d seen other similar vehicles do it during his trip to Gott Peak back in July. The road went mostly fine, but after a couple sections where the truck leaned uncomfortably near the edge of a drop off, my family was a little too freaked out. They decided to walk the rest of the road while Francis and I bounced up in the truck. With a bit more confident driving, we made it up to a great parking spot only a few hundred meters from the lake where my family met us a few minutes later.
The walk to the lake was easy and only about 10 minutes. However when we got there, we were surprised to find more than 10 tents already at the campsite! How strange for such a remote area to see a whole party! We spent awhile walking around the lake looking for somewhere private to camp, and finally settled on a small cove around the south side. After setting up everyone’s tents and a short lunch break, we had lots of time left in the day so set out for our first hike.
Lunch break at the unofficially named “Gott Lake.” Francis and I picked an optimal spot to camp, putting our tent up on a nice big flat rock!
The lake we camped at – our tent site on the far left
It didn’t take too long to gain the col between Gott & Gotcha peaks, where we had our first beautiful views of Stein valley. It was around this spot that we ran into the other group that was also camping at the lake. It turns out they were all boys from grades 10-12 out on a “boys trip” in the mountains! That’s pretty sweet honestly, and we were happy that they wouldn’t be up until all hours of the night drinking since they had parent escorts with them.. 😛
We wound our way up some well travelled switchbacks to a sub-summit of Gott peak with expansive views all around. From here we could easily see a long ridgeline heading towards Gott, and then Moomin peak. Since Francis had already summitted Gott peak, he had his sights set on Moomin in the distance. That said, with it already being 4:30pm, we were a little unsure about getting all the way there and back with only three hours to sunset. My family was not keen on joining us for this endeavor, so we decided to give it a shot and pushed on past just the two of us.Â
Family hiking with views of Stein valley behind
Looking along the ridgeline from Gott peak at Moomin in the distance
Once on our own, we fell into our familiar rhythm, walking mostly in silence with me trailing behind occasionally to point out pretty rocks. This ridgeline walking is like classic Francis & Andrea – it seems to be one of the things we initially bonded over after our epic trip in the Chilcotins.Â
Me walkin the pretty ridge!
A funny tarn we saw near Moomin. I think it looks like it has lips. Am I crazy?
We kept a quick pace going up and down the wavy ridgeline, watching the sun fall slowly down towards the horizon. After only an hour and a half, we’d traversed the approx. 3.5km to Moomin peak, and happily celebrated with a short little summit nap. It was deathly quiet up there, and the sky was as perfect a blue as the many lakes around us. It was very serene and honestly hard to leave!Â
Me on Moomin summit!
Looking back at Gott peak from Moomin
Pretty views – a nice pano that Francis took
On our way back down, we hopped over rocks and curved around meadows, doing mostly sidehilling to avoid going up and down on the ridgeline again. We also skipped going over Gott peak from the way we came, and instead cut straight downhill through the meadow above the lake and just underneath Gott peak. The sunset had some stunning colours and we stopped for tons of photos.
Francis walking back along the ridgeline
Me heading down with the sunset starting behind me
Me hilariously photo-bombing Francis’ nice pano shot
Walking down the meadows. I can’t get over this view!
At this point, we quickened our pace quite a bit, going at about the fastest walk I can do before jogging. Much to our satisfaction, we made it back to the campsite just before needing to turn on headlamps. My family was waiting for us, having had a relaxing evening dip in the lake, and we all cozied up on Francis and I’s big camping rock to chat while we made dinner. At this point it was very dark, and we were soon able to see the glowing milky way above us. We kept talking well into the night about space, stars and random science stuff and then retreated to our tents when the temperature dropped too much to be cozy.Â
In the morning, we enjoyed a slow breakfast and camp pack up before setting off on the day’s first adventure: heading to the next valley over to check out a couple lakes Francis and I had spotted from Moomin. The pikas squealed at us as we all walked along a very faint trail through the meadow. My sister and I were especially thrilled by their little squeaks and the cute face they make when we do manage to spot them squealing. They look like fat little mice with round ears, and it’s pretty hard not to imitate their noises to see if they’ll call back.
The lakes we found were beautiful gems, a little smaller than the main lake we were camping at and a little warmer for swimming! None of us had our swim suits though so we just chilled out and admired the views for awhile.
Walking through the meadows to the other lakes
Pretty flowers in the meadow 🙂
Francis walking by the second of the lakes
First views of the pretty lakes!
After our trip to these lakes, Francis and I still wanted to go tag Gotcha peak, but only Heidi wanted to join us so we left the rest of the fam at the campsite and set off among the boulder fields. It didn’t take us long to gain the col that we’d done the previous day for Gott peak, and from there we traversed south this time upwards along a somewhat obvious trail to the summit. There were beautiful views all around: lots of little lakes dotting a jagged horizon of big peaks. “Not Gott” peak was an especially beautiful orange, a cool contrast to the blue lake we’d spent the morning at sitting below it.
The little lake we’d spent the morning at
Heidi and Francis descending from Gotcha peak
More views from Gotcha peak
When we returned to camp, everyone was already almost packed up to go. It was late afternoon and we were ready to head home for dinner. On this trip, I’d decided to finally learn how to skip rocks, and with some coaching from Francis and my dad, I was finally able to get a few skips across the lake!! Feeling satisfied, we left camp and made the easy hike back to the truck. My parents treated us all to Mac & Cheese at Mile One in Pemberton, and I think we would all agree that it was a fantastic weekend spent with family!