Growing up, my family used to do yearly canoe trips in Algonquin park, spending between 1-2 weeks in the wilderness. These days, with a lack of lakes to canoe in BC, and minimal time where we’re all free and in the same city, we try to organize a family backpacking trip into the mountains. The task of organizing this has mostly fallen to me in the last few years since I “know all the spots,” but the requirements can be challenging! 

There must be:
– at least one lake
– a hike that’s no more than 6km and around 800m elevation
– no other people
– no bushwhacking
– no more than 2-3h driving from Vancouver.

As anyone from Vancouver knows, this is an especially challenging list, but I came up with just the spot! The mountain lake hut area has all of these, as long as you’re willing to go through the hassle of getting the Furry Creek gate key and following all the rules laid out by the BCMC/Brittania mine manager. Because neither Francis nor I had been up there, we figured it was worth going through the process once (and only once) and tagging every peak there so we wouldn’t have to come back.

On Saturday morning we tried to leave early so we wouldn’t get screwed by the Gran Fondo detours, but I missed our wake up alarm. I’m not sure how we keep accidentally planning our family trips on the Gran Fondo weekend, but we will be sure not to do it again since Francis and I ended up having to park on the opposite side of the highway from Furry Creek and walk over past all the bikers. Thankfully the rest of my family had made it in time, and we were able to use Dan’s Audi with just enough clearance to get us to the trailhead.

Being able to drive to the end of the Furry creek road is definitely an advantage, making the hike fairly short and straightforward to the hut. There were beautiful views along the way, and many pristine alpine lakes once we got up to the plateau. My family was happy to relax at the hut and the huge blue mountain lake for the rest of the day, so Francis and I took off to see how many peaks we could tag. We hiked back down the trail the way we’d come, and then scaled the north face of Ben More, stopping frequently for blueberries. From the summit, we decided to see if we could connect the ridgeline towards Ben Lomond rather than backtrack. It involved a few awkward downclimbing moves through some bushy ledges, but we made it work and soon reached the col of Ben Lomond.

We’d been used to frequent streams and snow patches with our missions all summer, so it was a surprise to us when we ran out of water at the base of Ben Lomond. I spotted a snowpatch way lower down in the shade of the north face, but it didn’t make sense to lose all that elevation before climbing Ben Lomond, so we toughed it out up to the summit. It was brutally hot, but the scrambling was fun enough to make up for it, with some fun 3rd class moves and minimal exposure.

After enjoying the summit views (quickly, lol), we made a speedy descent down to the snowpatch. When I refilled my water it melted almost instantly against my back, and I gratefully took some long sips of cool water. Francis had opted to lose some extra elevation to get to a real stream, so I met him at the base of the Red Mountain ridgeline where we started our scramble together.

Red mountain was comparatively easier than Ben Lomond as far as scrambling goes, so we didn’t have to think much as we hiked up this ridgeline along rocks and through patches of trees. We agreed that the terrain here felt very “North Shore,” which made us realize that this was our first North Shore mountain hike together (assuming you don’t count Mount Underhill…). This was especially strange to think about since we’ve both hiked most of the North Shore mountains, but I guess never made it a priority to hike our home range together.

We sat on the summit of Red Mountain for awhile enjoying the warm breeze and the many remote peaks along the horizon line. It was the first real time we’d spent together in a week, being on separate weekend trips and then Francis away for a business trip, so I was happy to rest my head on his chest for a warm summit nap.

As the sun started to go down, we made our descent. The days are getting really short now, and we didn’t want to worry my family by showing up in the middle of the night. We traversed back under Ben Lomond, and then gained a col again under Ben More. From there it was all downhill, and we again made a point of stopping for blueberries and pretty lake views on our way to the hut. 

My family was enjoying the sunset when we arrived, perfectly content with their day spent relaxing by the lake with beautiful mountain vistas. We made dinner hastily, feeling exhausted and hungry from the heat and hiking all day, and then joined everyone in setting up the hut for bed.

The foam mats are cozy especially when combined with our air mats, and despite the heat during the day, the upper floor did eventually cool off enough for us all to have a good sleep.