43.6km, 1804m elevation gain.
Saturday morning I made my way up to the Circlet Lake area in Strathcona Park. Circlet is close enough that you can drag a case of beer there with you so I opted to camp closer to the trail at the Duck Pond to avoid being surrounded by other people.
After I was set up I had the afternoon free so I wandered around the area looking for a few lakes and lost trails. I made my way through an older trail to Amphitheatre Lake. It was pretty nice out here, Circlet was busy but Amphitheatre was empty. This would be a great spot to swim if the weather was a little bit better.
I made my way back and headed to McPhee Lake. This would be another great spot to swim, if you were into that sort of thing. The East end of the lake had a couple shallow shelfs you could stand on before taking a deep plunge. The trail stopped at McPhee Lake but it used to go further. This was likely the original route to Circlet Lake (Circlet Lake Trail). It was a nice stroll back to the main trail through an area that doesn't see much, if any, traffic.
The next day we had a late start before making our way up to the ridge of Mount Albert Edward where we would drop off and make our way up to Mount Regan. The path was rugged. We made our way down some steep banks, holding on to vegetation and whatever else we could grab to safely make our way down while sending large rocks sliding down the hill as we went. There were large scree fields where you had to watch every step as even some of the largest rocks could tip or slide with your weight stepping on them.
After we got to the bowl there was a bit of route finding to make our way around but this area was not as bad as it seemed from a distance, once you got off of the the loose scree fields. We crossed in front of the Albert Edward Glacier, got a great view of Gem Lake but time was not on our side.
We got to about 120m distance from the top and I made the call to turn around. We were moving too slow, not even halfway through the day yet, still had a 6-7ft climb up a little gully and didn't know what was past that point. If we went up, we would need to spend time to safely come down and I already knew we'd be hiking out in the dark. I wasn't keen on making the night hike any longer than it needed to be so the decision was made. Regan will still be there next time.
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