Eagle Valley Hike

    Eagle Valley is at the far end of one of the Dore River drainages, just west of McBride, BC.  Back in the early 1991, I helped build a cabin for hikers up in the newly named Eagle Valley.  I have hiked up there a couple of times after the cabin was built, but it was probably been about 20 years since I was last saw it.  On Sunday the Ozalenka Alpine Club organized a hike up to Eagle Valley, and I thought it would be interesting to do the hike again.

    On those early hikes, you could drive up a logging road which climbed a slope on the side of a mountain then start the 6 km (3.7) hike to the cabin, however that road is now de-commissioned and blocked because of rock slides, so now you have to hike up the grown-in old road, before you even get to where the trail head is.  Having this extra climb added to the hike made me wonder if my old legs could handle it.

    There were about 17 people and 2 dogs that gathered to begin climbing the slope.  The group soon began to spread out as hikers chose their own speed.  Only 11 made it to the cabin.

    It was an eventful hike.  In a wooded section along the trail, there was a wasp nest on the ground.  Several people got stung as they walked past it.  (I found it interesting that it seemed the very same people got stung again on the way out, while the ones that escaped the stings while hiking in, also escaped them going out)  Luckily I was one that escaped the stings.

    One of the dogs had a run-in with a porcupine and ended up with a muzzle that looked like a pin cushion.  Fortunately for the dog, there was a doctor among the hikers who removed the quills from the dog.

    The trail was nothing like I remembered it.  I thought once we gained all the elevation on the logging road, we gently climbed to Eagle Valley, but discovered that once we got to the trail head we had to hike all the way down to the rushing river, losing a lot of elevation, then had to slowly regain it all and more to get to Eagle Valley. 

    I also thought that most of the trail was through wooded areas, but discovered that it followed the river, though some treed areas, but we also had to traverse a boulder field, and very thickly grown up avalanche chutes.

    I found the hike fairly treacherous, but I will speak to that on another blog.  

    The photo above is not the Eagle Valley, but is a side valley that could be seen on our hike up the old logging road.  There were a lot of waterfalls and white water to be seen along the trail, here are some photos.

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