It’s been a while since I did some backcountry camping, and I still feel the need to justify the hundreds of dollars of gear I’ve accumulated over the last couple of years. This doesn’t mean I love backcountry camping any less, it just means that I really have no excuse for the pathetic lack of time I’ve set aside recently to do this great activity.
So then and there I decided to book a site for a night. I was originally aiming to book for the fun-sounding Mount Romulus Campground, a fairly flat and easy to get to spot. But as luck would have it, Romulus was booked up and I managed to reserve a site at the very popular Lillian Lake, and it is popular for good reason.
Doing backcountry camping is always a good idea to do with a partner regardless of how popular the spot is. The only person who came to mind was my brother. This would be an excellent opportunity for him to go on his first overnight trip. After lending him some of my gear, and taking him to the store to buy the rest of the essentials, we were prepared in no time and stoked to spend a night under the stars in the mountains. Who wouldn’t be?
The Galatea Trail (named for the Galatea Lakes at the end of the trail) to Lillian Lake Campground is fairly simple and straightforward to navigate. A decent amount of verticality mixed with some much-needed switchbacks and river crossings with bridges make it a somewhat easy walk, that being when you’re not carrying 50 lbs of camping and camera gear on your back. God, I wish I had a lighter tripod sometimes, as much as I love my Manfrotto’s strength and overall durability (it could double as a war club if need be).
We were anticipating having a fire when we finally arrived. There truly is no clear indication that you cannot have a fire, at least at the time of our travels. Carrying a burdensome bundle of wood to the top, we asked two separate groups of previous-night campers coming down who could only be described as, what the youth of today call, “Karens”. Is that the word for overly pompous adults who are sickened by the very thought of being questioned? Well, question them I did. If we couldn’t have a fire we sure as hell were not going to carry a bundle of useless wood to the top. And the answers we got from both groups were a mix of sickening “no’s”, looks as if we had just insulted their dead grandmothers, and the classic “how do you not know, it’s obvious you can’t do that”. I’ll state now, that no it was not obvious. Source? I work for the park. So please know your stuff before you act so high and mighty to people innocently asking a question.
In park terminology, if you see a sign that says “no campfires” that simply means that you cannot have a fire outside of a designated pit, which was not what we were trying to do. There are designated pits at Lillian Lake. A “fire restriction”, which was in place at the time simply means that you cannot have a random fire in the woods, also known as “a campfire”, which as I described earlier, you could not do at Lillian Lake anyway.
We decided to drop the wood anyway, being exhausted already and not wanting to potentially waste more energy. We stashed it in the woods for pickup on our way back. As it turns out, the fire pits at the campsite were indeed blocked from use, but to the failure of the park, it was not obvious at all and probably confused the hell out of other campers who were maybe relying on those pits to cook their food for the night (I later contacted an Info Officer for the area and advisory was promptly posted online).
I don’t want this blog to devolve into a negative rant. What pissed me off more was the knucklehead who decided to blast music on his portable speaker the next morning at 6 AM. There’s a special place in hell for people who bring portable speakers onto trails. There should at least be some sort of cruel and unusual legal punishment. Again, let’s get back to the positives.
When we arrived at the campgrounds after a beautiful but sweltering hike, we decided we would hunker down for the night and go to Galatea Lake the next morning. We secured a great lake-side allocation and then explored the rest of the amenities this place had to offer.
The freshwater spring at the corner of the lake was so ridiculously cold that it instantly numbed our hands and feet as we dipped them in… what a perfect place to chill our whiskey. We actually got the idea of using this spring as a sort of fridge after we noticed a bag of beer resting at the bottom of it, weighed down by some rocks. We questioned (hoped) if the beer was accidentally dropped in and forgotten. How nice that ice-cold brew would feel as it poured down our gullets at that moment. But our better judgment won over. How enraged would YOU be if two idiots stole your only alcohol during a camping trip?
We decided it was best to eat first. On the menu were some watered-down MREs, followed by skittles, and finally our refreshing, cheap whiskey that we were happy to have. Our camp neighbors were thankfully excellent and what I’d describe as “chill”. One was an artist and the other a philosophy professor who smoked a lot of weed. They were okay with us being a little tipsy and giggling like school girls late into the night as we yammered on. The quality of conversation can be so great while out of cell range. You should try it sometime.
The next morning we were met with some light rain that we gladly waited out in the comfort of our tents. After some even more watery MREs for breakfast and ritual clearing of the bowels in the surprisingly clean and high-tech camp toilets, we pushed on to the top of the trail.
Those bags felt even heavier than the day before, but the lakes were only about a kilometer away. After a steep walk up some scree-laden switchbacks, we finally made it and were greeted by the deep blue Galatea Lake ( the lower lake). Exhausted we decided not to visit the upper lake, but instead bask at the one we were currently at, which was plenty good enough.
There were some teenagers fruitlessly trying to spearfish on one side of us, and a group of older adults gathering the strength to jump into the frigid waters on the other. Me and my brother did neither but relax and take some photos, some of which came out nice. I also dunked my head into the lake as it simultaneously needed a wash and a cooldown. The light was fairly flat, as it was approaching midday by that point. But as I often say- it’s really hard to take a totally bad photo in the mountains.
I did not mention it earlier but I had rolled my ankle early on in the hike the previous day. The entire area around my right ankle was in pain. I was fearing some sort of Achilles tendon injury, but I was able to walk without a limp so long as I took the pain, which slightly dulled as I pushed on. The next morning the pain localized a little more and I realized I must’ve just pulled some sort of tendon directly under the ankle. By the time it was time to head back off that mountain however, my body felt it was definitely about ready for some rest.
The walk back always feels longer than the walk in. At least the walk back is a little less tiring, with the slope of the mountain going downwards in favor of your momentum. Back at the car, we sat for some water and stared back at what we had just traversed, as is usual post-hike (without beer this time). It felt like a good cap to the season, an end to the really long hikes at least, and now I have the legitimate reason of letting my ankle heal as an excuse to take a break for a little while. Let us see what the fall has in store, whenever that comes to Southern Alberta.
