Basics
Itinerary
Trip Overview
Joffre Lakes Provincial Park is a relatively small provincial park that really only has 1 maintained trail: the Joffre Lakes Trail. The trail is only 5.3 miles (8.5 km) round trip and takes you to 3 beautiful glacial lakes. Because the trail is doable as a day trip from the Vancouver metropolitan area, it is a very popular day hike on weekends.
There is a campground at Upper Joffre Lake that is open during the summer season. Doing this trail as a backpacking trip (make sure to make a campground reservation online) allows you to enjoy the lakes in solitude once the day-hiking crowds leave.
Note: Day-use passes are required during the summer due to the popularity of the park.
Day 1
We drove from Vancouver to the Joffre Lakes trailhead on a beautiful fall Saturday. Joffre Lakes is one of the farther weekend backpacking destinations at around 3 hours of driving (considered far only because BC is spoiled with its easy access to nature). But the drive on the Sea to Sky Highway is always a delight. The road winds along the coast and then through the mountains, which at this time of year were dotted with yellow peeking through the sea of evergreens.
When we got to the trailhead, we were already hungry. So we stood in the parking lot and ate the banh mis we brought for lunch. The parking lot was packed at 2 pm on a Saturday. Joffre Lakes is a very popular day hike since it’s just under 3 miles to the upper lake. But since there are campsites at the upper lake, it’s also possible to backpack it. I like being able to do popular day hikes as a backpacking trip because you get to enjoy the solitude after all the day hikers leave, and this trip was no exception. On our hike up, we passed SO many hikers heading down on the trail.
This trail flew by since it was so short and there are 2 lakes to see before the final lake. The first lake, Lower Joffre Lake, is just minutes from the trailhead. This lake is nice, but getting to the real highlights of the trail takes a bit more effort.
The hike continues on the pleasant, forested path and picks up in steepness before Middle Joffre Lake. We saw many whiskey jacks fluttering around. They were more curious than cautious, probably an unfortunate result of people feeding them. But I was able to get many cute photos of them!
The color of Middle Joffre Lake is impossibly vivid, but the hue varies a lot depending on the lighting. On a sunny day, it is a bright, milky teal. On a dimmer, overcast day, it is a deep, cool blue. Middle Joffre Lake is also the lake that has become quite Instagram-famous. You know, the log photos. We took the obligatory photos from the obligatory angles, and then continued on.
Very soon after Middle Joffre Lake, we arrived at Upper Joffre Lake. Upper Joffre Lake was my favorite for sure. It sits in a cirque rimmed by the mountains that we saw earlier from Lower and Middle Joffre Lake. Glaciers crown the wall of rock and feed waterfalls that flow directly into the lake. The campsites, outhouse, and food storage lockers sit at the base of the mountains at the opposite end of the lake, so we made our way there while appreciating the lake from all of its angles.
The trail there was trickier and harder to find than I expected because there is a short boulder field to get through. The outhouse is also a bit before you get to the campground proper, so getting to and from it in the dark before bed was not fun.
There are many campsites to choose from at Upper Joffre Lake campground. The glaciers at Joffre Lake have receded a lot, leaving behind a giant moraine at the base of the mountains. There are many cleared spots for tent amongst these rocks. We also saw sites amongst the trees right at the shore of the lake, but we decided to go with the ones in the rocks because they are higher up and have a better view.
We set up camp and then did a little hike from our tent up towards the mountains for a higher view of the lake. There is a clear use trail on the ridge of the moraine that gets fainter the higher you go. I’ve seen photos online from people who hiked right up to the toe of the glacier, but I would imagine that the trail becomes scrambly after some point. We only went around a few hundred vertical feet and then turned back once the view was satisfactory and we got our fill of photos.
Since it was only an overnight trip, I made my gourmet version of Annie’s mac, aka with the addition of some fresh broccoli I chopped at home. While we were waiting for the mac to cook, we also enjoyed some not aesthetic backpacking charcuterie: green grapes in a Ziploc bag, Havarti cheese, crackers, and a pack of shelf-stable marinated artichockes. Unfortunately, some mice kept trying to crash our dinner. We were on high alert with our headlamps in order to spot and fend off the darting mice before they got to our food.
Our campsite had a great view, but it was not very sheltered. The wind battered our tent that night. Of course, the tent wasn’t going anywhere with us in it, but it was pretty hard to fall asleep when the flapping walls looked like they were going to cave in on us. Fortunately, it wasn’t cold temperature-wise.
Day 2
The next morning, we woke up a bit before sunrise to repeat the hike up the mountain we did for sunset the day before. We were treated to a gorgeous sunrise.
We could have hung out at the lake longer, but it was cold, and we wanted to make it back to Vancouver to get to a certain Hong Kong cafe before it closed. It’s good we had our priorities straight because we beat the rain (it poured on our drive back) and we made it back in time for pineapple buns and Hong Kong milk tea!
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