on the last 2 full days of brad and raquel's visit we hiked up to pierce lake, just outside of chilliwack, to do some camping and maybe climb some peaks.
we didnt account for full snow coverage in the last hour of the hike to pierce lake though, so once we reached the lower lake and found an amazing campsite, plans of reaching the upper lake or mount macfarlane were kiboshed in favour of just relaxing in a beautiful alpine environment. it had taken us just over 5 hours of steep hiking to get the lake all to ourselves and we were ready to build a fire and make a hot meal.
the campsite really was ideal. someone had left a grill and pot and pan, and we left a stack of firewood (torn from the bowels of recently truncated old growth trees with brute stubborness).
we recently found some military field rations in our garage and i decided to try out the veal cutlet with mushroom sauce. just boil for 5 minutes in its sealed foil packet. let me tell you, it was not tasty and visually it closely resembled nonbilious emesis (puke). very convenient though, and i am excited to give the minestrone soup a try. the fruit was excellent, and every meal comes with boilable sides and instant coffee and 2 fig newtons and a mint!
after a slightly chilly sleep we woke, made a leisurely breakfast and hiked a bit on the snowcover around the lake before packing up and heading back down to the 4runner and indian food from our favourite restaurant in chilliwack. we had beautiful weather both days of our trip, with no rain and only moderate and occasional cloud cover. dream camping, as our friend jarrid (featured in the previous post) calls it.
here is brad and niko taking a break at pierce creek on the way back down. niko kept up his energy for the whole 2 days and amazed us by rushing up and down the trail and chasing squirrels on the way down when we could hardly stand after resisting the grade of the trail the whole way down (no running on this descent). he crashed hard when we got home though, and spent the next day sprawled out on our carpet with his head on a pillow.now we are back in chilliwack, brad and raquel are back in lethbridge, we just had a sweet party at our house, and kylie and i saw matt good at the orpheum theatre in vancouver, but that is a different story for a different time.
