Hike: Joffre Lakes

Today we finished out first overnight backpacking trip. We headed to Joffre Lakes, three alpine lakes which are quite accesible (11km RETURN!) from the highway just outside of Pemberton.

We left yesterday morning around 9:20am, and headed north. The drive was pretty, quiet and felt shorter than three hours. After a quick stop in Squamish for some last-minute groceries, we got to the (busy, full, crazy) trailhead around 12:20pm.

The first lake was visible within about 5 minutes, and the colour was incredible. It was pretty exciting to see the colour of the lake already, with the glacier in the background.

The next part was nice with some uphill parts. There was a good chunk of boulders to hike over, which would have been slightly more fun without my camera and giant bag, but.. that's life, right?

The second lake got me even more excited - we could get close to it and see it more than the first. Unfortunately there were still tons of people there..

 So beautiful! The colour is incredible.

Yay!!! :)

So. Then we started on the switch-back section. Not quite that lovely, but still nice. From this point it was only 1.5km to the third lake, our final destination (for the night).

 First glimpses..

 Can not get over the colour of these lakes.

 View from our campsite.

After we set up camp, we hiked (walked?) towards a rock bluff and some waterfalls.

 Impossible to get the colour from up there, but.. what a picturesque place!

Lovely!!

After that, we made dinner, played some cards in our tent (yep, 5 people sitting in a 2 person tent!) and went to bed. The downside of the gorgeous place is that the valley is quite narrow, and the sunset quite fast.

This morning we got up slowly (it took about 2 hours for all 5 of us to get up and out), had a leisurely breakfast (with chocolate cheesecake. Yeah.) and got a bit packed up. Then we headed for a hike towards the Tszil Glacier. We didn't really know how far it went, so we just headed up.

 The view before the sun came out this morning.

 And the view with the sun.

 That's the third lake down there.

This glacier looks much nicer in this photo than it did in person, but.. still awesome.

So.
Total length: 11km (plus glacier hike, ~5 km)
Time needed: 5 to third lake, 3 to glacier from third lake.
Difficulty: Not too bad. After the Hanes Valley hike, nothing is hard ;)

I think that's all. I'm excited to do more backpacking trips, now that I have a water filter, awesome stove, good friends, etc.