Hi everyone,
I hiked the Owl/Tenquille traverse yesterday and wanted to share some photos with you. This is my first trip report.
I started hiking at the trailhead at the top of the Owl Creek FSR at 7am. The FSR was graded this year and is in excellent condition.
Made my way up through the fog to Fowl Lake. It has lovely sandy shores and would be perfect for camping.
The rock/ boulder scrambling started just before Uppper Fowl Lake. Upper fowl is beautiful and blue but does not offer much in the way of campsites.The rocks on this trail are mostly sharp and jagged - be sure to bring booties for your dog if they are not accustomed to rock scrambling for long distances.
Made our way up the wall on the far side of Upper Fowl.
Looking down to Upper Fowl from the top of the wall.
Much needed relief from rock hopping.
Looking down towards Tenas Creek Drainage.
Mount Ronayne.
Seven O'Clock Mountain.
The greenest tarn just before Ogre Lake.
Made it to Ogre Lake around 1:30pm.
The hike out of Ogre is a beautiful mild climb through some meadows. I imagine these fields would be totally covered in wildflowers in mid-July. I'm glad there were still some Indian Paintbrush flowers out.
The route was much more well-marked than I was anticipating. Lots of large cairns to follow.
These tarns at the base of Barbour offer the most scenic campsites on this route in my opinion.
The coolest rocks at the top of this Barbour col.
Looking down towards Tenquille.
We reached the lake at 5pm. It was super busy given that it was Saturday. We were originally planning to spend the night on trail, but since the miles came faster than anticipated, we opted to hike out to the branch 12 trailhead. We reached the trailhead at 7pm and proceeded to hike back down to the Hurley, where my awesome parents picked me up. The sun started to shine down through the clouds as I was hiking out. Branch 12 has about a dozen decenet-sized waterbars, but they seemed navigable for all 4x4 vehicles.
Overall, this was a beautiful hike that I can't recommend enough, especially for those living in Pemberton and Whistler. Pretty amaing that this is in our backyard! I did the trail in runners but would recommend wearing hiking boots if you have them becasue all the rock-hopping poses a decent ankle-rolling risk. There are tons of water sources along the route, so you should be fine with a 1-litre water carrying capacity. I highy recommend camping at Fowl Lake and the Barbour tarns if you are overnighting as they are the most scenic. If you want to tackle this as a dayhike, I would recommend starting early (6am would be ideal). Thanks for reading!