Sometimes, the best things happen to you if you just take a map and point at places that sound awesome. VALHALLA. How good does that sound? Of course, I had seen the Ski Movie. I had also heard about the famous Valhalla Powder Cats and the Heliskiing Operations.
So when I recognized the place on the map, it seemed like a good idea to check it out while it was still warm-ish… Because, where there´s good skiing, there´s usually good hiking.
Let me skip ahead: It did not disappoint! Our campsite-bible, mentioned in the previous blogpost, gave away another AMAZING campsite.
It was drizzling a bit when we arrived, but soon the clouds cleared and made room for the last sunshine of the day, which we didn´t have to share with anyone else since there wasn´t a single soul at the campsite.
We had a campfire and prayed for sun for the next day, because we had made plans to hike to the Gimli Ridge.
But the Gods up in Valhalla didn´t hear our prayers, and we woke up the next morning to the sound of rain on our car.
We decided to head out even though the weather was not too good, and soon we found ourselves on the sketchiest “gravel” road to the trailhead /Note to myself: Go for a Four-Wheel-Drive the next time you head to BC.
Somehow we made it to the trailhead and, surprise, we were the only ones in the parking lot. I still hadn´t lost hope that the sun might come out in the afternoon, because the forecast had predicted that, but that hope was gone when it started snowing heavily as soon as we reached the treeline.
So we decided to turn around. STOP! There was some sun. Let´s wait. We hiked back up, because the clouds were moving fast and the sun peeked out every now and then. After another hour, we reached Gimli Ridge, and, even though it didn´t look as on the pictures, we were happy that we made it to the top and actually saw this stunning ridge!
On the way down the road, we met some climbers who told us that the weather was supposed to get better the next day. So we decided to head back to our little paradise, where we were still completely alone.

The next morning looked promising, as the sky cleared around 9am, and we were excited to get closer to those amazing peaks!

As usual in BC, the road to the trailhead was not driveable with our family van, but we were really lucky that a nice canadian couple happened to pass us in their pickup just when we had decided not to go any further on the terrible road and reversed.

We also made some international friends on the hike (the only other hikers up there), but more about that in the second part about Nelson…

The hike to the Gwillim Lakes was just incredible and hard to describe. So enjoy the pictures!