The Kelowna Secondary Outdoor Education class was on this awesome Monashee backpacking trip in September. As for all the trips with this Outdoor Ed. team, the class was treated with a spectacular outdoor experience and excellent training.

How to get to Twin Lakes in the Monashee’s – awesome Alpine country…

Drive 22km east from Lumby on Highway 6 and turn left onto the North Fork Road turnoff. Drive to the end of North Fork Road and turn onto Severide Creek Road. Continue down this road until you come to the parking lot, which also has an outhouse and the Twin Lakes hiking trail sign. This is a 6km hike, which takes approximately one and a half hours. Use caution, this is Grizzly country.

See more pictures in Part 2 of Monashee Hiking to Twin Lakes

Wow, was the first trip of the year ever a success! We didn’t need to be told that we had record breaking weather, it was absolutely beautiful. The hike in was interesting, as always there were people stopping all over the place re-adjusting packs and ropes, complaining about how they had to carry the tent or bragging about how they didn’t have to…and then those really smart people who silently thought about how awesome their hammocks are. Nobody really knew how long the hike in would be, some people hiked totally blindly one foot in front of the other, as long as someone else was in front of them. Some people kept guessing, oh this must be half way, is that the lake there? Eventually we made it,and was the hike ever worth it! Twin lakes is a beautiful pair of lakes, set exactly where it should be for a perfect base camp. I even found a Geocache right near by that contained $20 and a pack of candies. By the looks of the log book the cache had been visited quite infrequently.

After a very long sleep the second day began with breakfast, as every day should, and a short little hike that must have been 3km, but took us all day due to the terrain, much of which looked like this: /, or even: l. Lunch was had on a nice ridge that looked like a knife edge from the right angle. The number of ladybugs under the rocks up there were unbelievable! When I was first told where we were going to have lunch, I didn’t actually believe you Mr. Walker! Someday I hope to have lunch there again. After lunch we did a quick walk/slide down to “Hot Spring Lake,” named for the hot spring in the lake…or so we were told. After some much needed rest at Hot Spring Lake we walked around a little more and up another little hill (haha) and passed under a really cool snow bridge which Molly the Beautiful Beast decided to go over. Walking under the snow bridge was definitely cool, especially after walking on another one earlier that day; you have to wonder how much snow you are really standing on sometimes. Once we got past the snow we had made pretty much a full circle and ended up where we more or less started, just above twin lakes. After that we were fortunate to have enough time, and willing people, to hike the hill to the NE of twin lakes. This was a cool hike because in the hour we spent on this hill Mr. Welder showed us some pretty cool hidden caves, (if that’s what you would call them) where several people could hide in; not great for those of us who are claustrophobic…but still really cool. At the top of this hill we rolled some very large rocks to their death, one of which Mr. Walker especially enjoyed watching fall…fall…explode. On the way back to camp we were shown where Sasquatch had been met on a previous year, a story I found much more believable than that of Hot Spring Lake.

The last day I barely remember because I was so tired, but I am sure I probably hiked off the mountain, as I am now here typing and not out gathering wood from some steep slope.

Jesse Kessler

Monashee Alpine Hiking to Twin Lakes

Monashee Alpine Hiking to Twin Lakes

Monashee Alpine Hiking to Twin Lakes

Monashee Alpine Hiking to Twin Lakes

Monashee Alpine Hiking to Twin Lakes

Monashee Alpine Hiking to Twin Lakes