Heiko Trail to Three Sisters Summit

Thur 6th Oct: I am liking this weather at Fernie, a chilly -0.5°C start but a beautiful sunny day again. Lucky for us a couple arrived as we were getting ready this morning, so we learnt the correct way to go to find the Heiko Trailhead - no signs and the directions on goggle were not the clearest. So we headed up the 4wd track and got to the trailhead. It was a lovely walk through old growth forest, and soon came to the first attraction - Jumping Waters, a lovely mossy waterfall. After that, the trail climbed, and had quite a few wooden ladders (I like ladders - you gain elevation without to much effort). About 1 hr in we came to Heiko's cave - this was quite impressive and we took a bit of time exploring. At the back there was a little waterfall, it was quite dark so just blindly taking photos - in one of the photos there is a bat hanging from the ceiling - apart from a woodpecker the only animal we saw. After that the track continue to climb but at a nice gradient, and we went through Heiko's canyon, which had a series of waterfalls dropping into little pools. Went through a couple of Meadows, and then came to the intersection, where Heiko's trail continues another 10 or so kms and comes out at Island Lake Lodge, SW of Fernie town or take the track to the summit of Mt Trinity - the middle of the Three Sisters peaks. We stopped for lunch just after here, to give us energy for the steep push to the Summit. It was actually not to bad, it mainly skirted around the side, and most of the time it was larger shale so easier to walk up than the loose scree. The views from the top of the surrounding mountains was pretty good, but again Fernie town was lost in the haze. When at the top, Doug realized he had left his "tooth" down at the lunch spot, so we headed down to search for that. Trying to find a tooth in a clear mouthpiece on rock that has bits of white in, and even trying to work out exactly where we were sitting was not an easy task - normally we sit on a log or large rock but today there was nothing like that so it was straight on the rocky ground. We probably was looking for about 10 minutes, when the young german couple , who had put us in the right direction this morning came down and joined in. With the use of a photo I had taken at lunchtime we started a systematic search and probably less than 30 secs the German guy had found it much to Doug's relief. It was then just the long hike back to the van. Hike stats: 23.8 km, active 6 hrs 26, elevation gain 1525 m, highest altitude 2743 m. Overall it was a very enjoyable hike and totally agree with the excellent reviews it has. We both found it much easier than the Mt Proctor loop, probably because it wasn't straight up and down, and had some great attractions along the way. Staying at the clearing again tonight and will tackle the road out in the morning. Steps D 37858 / V 40538.Читать далее