Home»All Photographs»2020 Hikes»Devon Lakes 08-01-20

David and I embarked on a fantastic 3 day adventure to the remote Devon Lake environs.
On day 1, we hiked up Mosquito Creek (the mosquitos were actually much worse at Fish Lakes) to North Molar Pass. At the pass, we ditched our heavy overnight packs on the rocky slope, and went ultralight to the summit of Molarstone Peak. The weather smiled upon us and we both enjoyed the scenery from the top. Soon, we descended back to our packs of burden and took a lower gear down to Fish Lakes backcountry campground for the night. The bugs (a mixture of some orange-colored shit flies, horseflies and moquitos plagued us) by the tent site were bad, and the eating area was not much better. The scenery was wonderful, howerver. We just needed to escape the bugs. So we hiked around to the far end of the lake and ventured onto some rocky terrain - it worked. There we sat, virtually free of pesky bugs as the evening hours waned.
On day 2, we woke to fine weather, following some tumultuous thunder and lightning overnight. We rolled up our soaking gear and hiked onward, warmed by the rising sun. We traversed slopes past Moose Lake, across wild streams and on to the arrow-straight ridge leading to Pipestone Pass. We gathered some meltwater from a snowpatch and boiled up some Ichiban here.
After leaving Pipestone Pass, we hiked into the Siffleur River Valley before turning east over Clearwater Pass. It was here where we were starting to feel just how remote our location was. Four valleys back from the vehicle, we saw very few others.
Upon reaching Devon Lakes, we saw two mountaineers at a distance coming off Mt. Willingdon before packing up their tent and leaving. We were out here on our own now. We took a quick dunk in Upper Devon Lake to rinse off the sunscreen and bugspray. Then we explored the valley and walked over to Lower Devon Lakes. This was the scenic climax of the trip, with two turquoise lakes perched in a sublime alpine environment. We pitched our tents by a rushing creek and cooked a fine supper of something freeze-dried. Our evening entertainment was an oddly curious doe deer that hung out in very close proximity to us for about an hour and a half.
The sunrise on day 3 was spectacular. The low-angled light at 7 a.m. illuminated the mountains in our direction of egress. We reached Fish Lakes before noon, and so decided to push on to Mosquito Creek for the night. We lunched (Ichiban again) in a verdant meadow where the breeze kept most of the horseflies at bay.
We hiked on to North Molar Pass, hearing the occasional roll of thunder. The skies darkened as we made our way up to the pass. Cresting the pass was a bit of a shock, as poor weather was bearing down in minutes. We donned some Gore-Tex quickly and took the brunt of a rainstorm head-on. It soon cleared, however, and we set up at Mosquito Creek backcountry campground for the night.
Day 4 was an easy egress of 6 km, which gave us most of the day to lounge around at Two Jack Lake, drink cider and wallow in the success of our Devon Lakes trip.