Going on a trip tomorrow early morning, so posting this early tonight. Since we wrote about Cheakamus Lake Trail last week, I thought it's appropriate to write about our hike to Panorama Ridge via the Helm Creek Trail. I wrote about Panorama Ridge before #340024, but that was via the Rubble Creek Trailhead. This time, we take the Helm Creek Trail. As I mentioned last week, trailhead and beginning sections of the Helm Creek Trail is shared with the Cheakamus Lake Trail, but at about 1.7km into the hike, you take a fork south to get on the Helm Creek Trail. Shortly after the fork, there is a pedestrian bridge for hikers to cross the fast moving waters of Cheakamus River. The trail continues south within the forest, over numerous switchbacks and a gradual but steady increase in elevation. After about 6km hike past the pedestrian bridge, Helm Creek Campground comes into sight right next to the trail. The campground is located on a patch of grassland and the campsites are elevated by wooden platforms. This is a back country campground that cannot be reached by cars and campers must bring all their gears in and out on foot.

Cheakamus Lake / Helm Creek Trailhead.

We took the fork and headed south on Helm Creek Trail. Cheakamus River and the pedestrian bridge crossing are both in sight.

Going over the bridge.

Lots of water flowing through the Cheakamus River.

Switchbacks along the trail, steadily gaining elevation.

Trail weaves through the forest, crossing small creeks.

Helm Creek Campground. Some campers are using the campground.

Beyond Helm Creek Campground, the landscape turned more interesting, as we were out of the forest with trees being more sparse. We could also see more grasslands and rocky areas. We also passed by a lake, as well as a small creek flowing on rocky land. There was a short metal bridge that brought us across the small creek. Past the metal bridge, there was a section filled with black colored rocks, which I believe to be volcanic rocks.

Grasslands and less trees.

Rocky areas.

Some small lake that I do not know the name to.

Small creek flowing through rocky area.

Short metal bridge crossing the small creek.

We saw a lot of these black rocks with lots of holes in them at the next section. I believe they were volcanic rocks, although I might be wrong.

Black rocks section.

Another lake next to the black rocks section.

Looking back at the lake and the black rocks section. More grasslands ahead.

As we continued on trail, we eventually reached another fork on the trail, where taking the left for brings the hiker to Panorama Ridge, our destination. We began our final ascent, which turned out to be a rapid ascent, as the trail was steep and climbs quickly in this final section. We saw Mimulus Lake and Black Tusk Lake at the beginning of this final ascent. Oh, I forgot to mention, but you probably could tell from the photos, that it was cloudy and foggy during the day of our hike. We picked to go on this hike on August 26, in the middle of summer, but was lucky enough to run into this horrible weather. I guess the silver lining was that it did not rain on our way towards the summit. Anyways, as we got higher and closer to the summit, we ran into more clouds and fog. It was apparent that we were not going to get any views at the top. Disappointed that we came all this way for a view of the fog, we made our way back the way we came. It was a long hike, actually the longest hike that I had been on, with 33km and 1462m elevation gain. To top it off, it started to rain about halfway into our return hike, and we were soaked by the time we got back to our car.

The final fork. The trail ascends rather quickly and steeply past this point.

Looking at Black Tusk Lake from just past the final fork.

Looking back further up on the trail. The closer lake is Black Tusk Lake and the further away lake is Mimulus Lake.

I took this shot 3 years later when I went to Panorama Ridge again. See the similarities and differences?

Further up the trail, gaining more elevation.

Even higher now, entering the cloud and fog. Some snow patches still not melted in the middle of summer due to the high elevation.

Someone stacked a stone column.

Large patches of snow still not melted.

This is the view we got. Disappointing.

This is the view we were supposed to get (minus the snow) on a sunny day. I also took this photo from the 3 years later hike. This is really truly taken from the same spot as the previous picture. Trust me bro.

Stats of our hike. We went slow because my friend's legs and knees were hurting on the way back. He got injured from this hike and had to rest for a while after this hike.

Check out my previous hikes: