u/SecondSeaU

Edit: sorry y'all I meant to say Ring lake, not cirque, that was for another trip.

Last week I had the pleasure of hiking in the Callaghan park. The original goal of the trip was to get to Ring Lake via the journeyman lodge/Conflict Lake, and do a bit of trail exploring.

The first 12km of the trail goes through a wooded area, the trail is marked with orange plastic strips on tree branches and a few lozanges on trunks. It's quite nice, not too steep with about 200m of elevation.

While it is grizzly territory, there are also a few black bears in the area and we in fact saw a young adult black bear in very good shape, so be bear conscious as you hike to Conflict Lake.

Once you arrive at the lake, you'll find the path to go to the Journeyman Lodge to then left, which then goes around Conflict Lake to Ring Lake. There is also a trail that goes to the right side of the lake, but it was not well marked and quite hard to find, sometimes it was just a trail of broken grass and not a full path. The lake is beautiful, just don't forget your anti-bug spray as always. There are a few wood bridges along that trail that are in different stages of disrepair.

Whichever path you take, it will merge back together after Conflict Lake, and you'll go to your right to Ring Lake via the Ring Lake trail. It will get much steeper as you hike up the side of the mountain and leave the meadow behind. We found it a bit muddy but beautiful. There is a river crossing with a yellow rope to use as a helper. It looked a bit frayed so I wouldn't put my weight on it, but just use it as a visual guide as to where to cross. Right after the river crossing there is a wooden ladder to hep you climb up to the trail, I wouldn't trust that one either, it wasn't very stable.

After that you'll have about 500m of elevation left and only a few kilometers in a dense forest up to the lake.

That is when we had to turn back due to unforseen personal circumstances but I am still publishing this trail report for those wanting to go to Ring Lake.

Originally meant to buy some online but I couldn't find any decent looking plastic free zipper pull...it's important for my current project that I stays plastic free so I just made my own.

It's relatively easy, all you have to do is cut ribbon and then fold it with the help of a bias tape maker. Fold it again and straight stitch it with 3mm stitches.

The drawstring stopper holds thanks to a very tight zigzag stitch I put 1cm from the end, and there is a second one to secure the edges. Stopper's diameter is 6mm.

Roudtrip length: 18.5km

Elevation: 570m

Difficulty: intermediate for experienced hikers (hard for beginners).

Last weekend my friend and I did an overnight camping at Poland Lake, Manning Park. Conditions were great, there is still quite a lot of snow since it's only beginning of May, but the temperatures are very forgiving, which was perfect for us as we don't have much experience in snow camping and wanted to try it out on easy mode. We are both experienced hikers, but only in summer weather.

We parked at the road barrier on Gibson road, and found the trail starting from the right side of the road. This is the first section of the hike: a 4km path in the forest going up to the ski resort area. It is easy to hike and wide enough but since the park isn't officially open for summer season there is quite a lot of fallen trees on the way, otherwise it's a very agreable trail to follow.

Once you are through it you'll be able to cross the ski resort area up to its highest chair, and from there pick up the official Poland Lake Trail, which ads another 4km to the lake.

You will also switch from dirt to the snowpack, which is currently about 50cm to 1m thick. Since it's quite hot during the day, the snow is very mushy and snowshoes are a must! It's not cold enough during the night for any real freeze so don't expect easier conditions in the morning.

When at the top of the ski resort, the beginning of the Poland Lake Trail is indicated with signage, however we did end up losing the trail at a pivot point 15min into it. We ended up compairing out position to our maps and found we had derived to the right of the trail, mainly due to a lack of signs, and a few old traces from previous hikers that caused us to doubt.

In any case we made it to the lake before sundown. Here the trail indicate that you should walk around the right side of the lake to arrive at the campground, but we found it too hazardous and steep with the snow. We ended up walking on the left side, and eventually settling down halfway through so we could get an early sun exposure.

Temperatures during the night reached around -4 degrees celsius. We didn't pack a pair of snow boots and it was dearly missed as our shoes were soaked, but nothing a hot water bottle cannot fix. We had steak for dinner and respected the triangle method in case there was any curious black bear in the area.

As for the rest of the animal kingdom, we met a few deer and squirrels, but once you cross the snowline you'll find silence still reigns. Most animals are down on the valley floor at that time of the year.

On the way back we walked back to the resort and chose to skip the original trail as to come down through a green slope. Once at the base of the resort we just followed Gibson road back to our car.

It cut our trip short and was a pleasant slope to hike down, but it would be strenous to hike it up in the sun so I do not recommend doing so when going to the lake.

Overall I would rate this trip a 7/10, we could have been more prepared and anticipated the wet boots issues but that's how you learn and make memories!