Paul Lake Park Camping & Mt. Price Birthday Hike!

Hi everyone. Well I'm just at the van doing some chores, one of which is I'm going to winterize for the season. Now if you watched our last two videos you know we really had a great time on our fall trip to the Okanagan. So nice in fact that we decided to carry on and go to an area called Paul Lake Provincial Park which is near Kamloops. So we thought we'd share that video with you as well as for those of you who have watched the channel you know that when it's my birthday I often go out for usually an arduous hike. This year was no exception so we thought we'd share the trip I did up to a mountain called Mount Price which is in Garibaldi Provincial Park. Hope you enjoy. We actually just came back from Ellison Provincial Park which we loved and it's just too nice a day to want to go home right away and it's a reasonably long drive so we decided to go through Kamloops. Nice scenic drive to get there and then it's only about 20-24 kilometers more and we came up to Paul Lake and I think it's either five or six years ago since we were here and we're in the same spot but it's just it's not the best spot I don't think but it suited us just because it was open and had some sun so we could warm the van up. It's about 20 degrees right now. Nice temperature. And right now the campground here is off because I think the reservations ended on the 15th and I think they're open till the end of September. And for those people who are age 65 or older the camp fee which I guess is $18 right now is half price so there you go. So we're just walking down the trail to the beach. I go up to Gibraltar Rock. We've done that my shoulder was good and I paddled in the pack raft. We're gonna head up there to Gibraltar Rock and by the way if you're someone who wants flush toilets in your campground I think you're out of luck in the campground. It's just pit toilets but if you come down here to the lake they do have flush toilets and geese. Okay off to Gibraltar Rock that is. Trail up to the rock. The first part of the trail from the lake is actually pretty steep. Not hand over hand steep but certainly a good little cardio workout. And if our memories are correct the end is actually quite a steep little bit. This part almost flat. From the lake to just behind us is one kilometer and now the trail gets pretty steep and you can kind of see where we have to go. Up the top there and around the other side a bit. We're at the summit. I'll take a look to the east. Quite a bit of elevation from the lake. I'll check on my GPS app and see how much. You can see there directly ahead is some Holmes Park boundary I guess ends there and I believe it goes at least part way up the mountainside to the south. Beautiful. All right let's take a look at the other way. Oh there's Mickey. I've been here for an hour. That last section if you're coming up from the lake and then you do the maybe an extra half K a little bit less the steep section it's a good workout. Big bang for your buck. Quick hike, amazing views. Again you can see a bunch of housing down there and I believe there's Mickey said there's a resort along here somewhere. It almost looks like if you look up top, green fields, beautiful came this way to the bluff and now we're going back that way to the campground. Yeah nice circuit. You can obviously continue on by the lake and of course when we came down we came down the steeper trail and this two kilometer section is a pretty moderate grade. This dotted line is a pretty steep, hikable but steep. When you get up top your inhalation I don't know 980 meters something like that so fairly high up. Mm-hmm well I certainly felt it. It's a very nicely laid out trail. We're just trying to talk loud because there's apparently some bears around. On the sign it said three honey bears. Three honey bears or folks that haven't shaved in weeks. It says keep your eyes up and talk loud or sing. I don't think we'll be singing. We'll sing Gordon's Mr. Bear song or Mrs. Bear song. One day. Yeah. Back to the campground. We're back. We're back. Nice evening. See where Finch is. Hi Finch. Oh he was sleeping. He was sleeping. Oh Finch is very lovey-dovey. He's very happy. It's cuddle time. You're so cute. You're so cute. Show everyone his belly. There's the belly. You won't let us touch it? No. He doesn't like to. His belly touched. But he shows it to us all the time. I'm talking about Finch not me. I like my belly touched even. area. I've done this hike a lot. I won't film too much. More just near the lake and then where I hope to get to. Hope you enjoy. If you follow our channel you know I often try and get out for a nice adventure on my birthday. This time I'm heading up Garibaldi Lakeway and if all goes well I'm gonna go up to a peak called, up to a mountain called Mount Price. I haven't been there probably 20 corner across the bridge and see Garibaldi it's amazing. Water level is quite high today. See all the glaciers sadly in retreat. Over there is Panorama Ridge. Two years ago I was up there on my birthday. That bump up there is my objective for the day. Mount Price. Beautiful these little islands looking over. You can look over and see the Sphinx Glacier and again that's Mount Price ahead of me the tall one. I'm gonna go up Clinker which is directly on the right of it. Across Clinker and up to Mount Price hopefully. So beautiful. Lots of volcanic rock in here. It goes up and then off to my left. So I'm a little off trail but I can see I'm working my way through these rocks and going up there. If I was recording more on the trip you'd hear me yelling yo bear every so often. There's still lots of mountain blueberries here so there'd be bears feeding but not that many I don't think. I haven't seen any signs. You can see the little islands down by the end of the lake. Black Tusk up ahead and back over there some of the glaciers. My time getting to the lake was good. It was about two hours and ten minutes probably about 10k but it's taken me just to get from over there to here which is probably 3 or 4k an hour and a half. The trail is really tough. Much tougher than I remembered. I see the glacier. I have to go up here and then across a little call and then up over there. I'll see if I make it. I've got a time to turn around so close but I might not make it. I just want to make sure I'm up before dark. Right now I'm at the top of Clinker. I've got to go over here and down a little and up that ridge. I've got enough time. About a half hour before my here. Clouds blowing in. Very windy I suspect on the microphone. A little bit shorter route. I don't have to gain so much elevation. You can see if you stay lower there's kind of a trail through this rocky field. Not quite so well marked but I can walk myself around and eventually get onto the same trail. There's the odd cairn. Saves having to gain a fair amount of elevation on the way back. You can see there's a bit of a worn trail. Got a long way to go around before I go down. I took the route straight up because that's just my style but I came down more on the right and I think that would be the better route up and down. It was much easier coming down because it's not nearly as scree like. You don't have to go over the summit. There's trails going over the summit but you can probably find a trail around the other way as well. Just easier. Saves you a little bit of elevation but I wanted to get on top of clinker two. Two mountains in one. All right yeah this part of the trail is mostly meadow but you know there's still lots of up and down and I probably have another up and down in the end probably like 500 feet more of elevation gain because I've lost a bunch and then gained it up and some ridges farther down. Anyway, on the way. It only took me about 25 minutes to get down from the summit. That's how good that other trail is. Dozens of these things everywhere. Different types of fungi. But most of them are huge too. This trail is so rarely used. Nothing gets disturbed. So we hope you enjoyed this video. If you did, please give us a thumbs up and if you haven't already done so please consider subscribing. And Mickey, Finch and I will see you next time. Oh and by the way it's Canadian Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!