(Last updated on August of 2024)
I've had the Augerpoint Traverse on my never ending list for awhile and this past weekend on the August long weekend of 2024, it was a solid plan after I got my ducks in a row to join my two friends to tackle this one. I will say this is no walk in the park. It involves strenuous hiking, it "claims" route finding however, I didn't really feel you had to do much route finding. You just have to be on the lookout for obvious cairns, paths and know how to read a map, which you probably should know how to do if you're going in the back country anyways.
The Augerpoint Traverse is a 30KM+ hike in the Strathcona Park, that requires some serious effort for the views, depending on what way you start you could be either gaining or losing 2150-3000M. I had read many blogs about this trip prior and will share my own personal experience from it. The way others were describing it, it was better said to start at the eastern side from Paradise Meadows and head down Jack's Trail to Buttle Lake access point. So that is exactly what we planned for.
DAY 1: RAVENS LODGE (PARADISE MEADOWS) TO CIRCLET LAKE CAMP
DURATION: 2 1/2 HOURS
ELEVATION GAIN: 450 M
DISTANCE: 10KMS+
My friend Natasha was already in Campbell River for the night visiting friends. Kati was a new member to my life and I had not met her before this trip. She was already out camping near the Strathcona Lodge. This put them in a prime position to head out early and follow each-other for the car drop off at Augerpoint trailhead. Then Natasha proceeding to drive to Paradise Meadows parking lot where I would meet up with them from Nanaimo. I've also seen two groups doing this traverse from opposite ends and swapping car keys. That would also be a neat way to do it. I left Nanaimo way too early around 8:30AM and got there around 10AM. Natasha and Kati arrived at 10:45AM, this was after all our "easy" day with more driving and a more chill approach than the Augerpoint Trailhead side.
We started hiking around 1130AM- I want to say by the time we got geared up and our packs on. We were aiming for 10K a day, there was not to much elevation gained here. Definitely enough to make us sweat and because we started later we got the day heat. My backpack was adjusted to the wrong height for most of this day and I couldn't figure out why I was so uncomfortable. Glad I figured it out. The way to Circlet Lake is stunning, you get beautiful boardwalks, an established easy trail to follow, meadows, various lakes to see along the way. Lots of roots exposed and once you get past Kwai Lake you start to see all of the surrounding mountains. I had only ever been on this trail back when I did Moat Lake the year prior, so I was happy to finally get my redemption on Albert Edward.
We got to Circlet at a nice hour around 2PM, we didn't take much breaks other than to stop for shade breaks. The heat was intense. We set up camp near the duck pond and jumped in Circlet Lake to cool down. There is ample water throughout this entire traverse, I kept saying that. SO many tarns and lakes to filter water. We made our dinner, got to know each-other all better and looked at our objective in the distance for tomorrow. Tomorrow is going to be a BIG day. I cozied up into my tent, read my book and we all went to sleep around 9-10PM. Setting our alarms for 6:30AM.
DAY 2: CIRCLET LAKE TO RUTH MASTERS CAMP
DURATION: 7 HOURS
ELEVATION GAIN: 1300M+
DISTANCE: 11KMS+
Geared up and ready to go after packing up camp and obviously some coffee to start of our morning, we set out around 8AM. I have to say - I love an organized group and a group that is effecient with their time. I felt we were all very much coordinated, I never felt like I had to wait around or vice versa. Not that there's anything wrong with that but sometimes I'm like LETS GO! lol so the vibe was right - on this trip for me.
This was the bigger day out of the three and when I say you are gaining elevation and losing it. Believe me - this day had alot of ups and downs. It reminded me somewhat of the Golden Hinde Traverse in that way, just not as aggressive but certainly comparable in some ways. If you want to ever do the Hinde Traverse try this one out first and see how you do lol.
From Circlet Lake you are gaining elevation almost instantly - nothing like getting that heart rate up at 8:30AM. The girls and I were trucking along, trying to beat that afternoon sun. We were at a good pace, nothing to fast but not too slow. I was FINALLY going to summit Albert Edward, Kati had hiked it years prior and got no view - so her and I were pretty stoked to get that redemption summit in during this trip. As I've read Albert Edward never ends. It's the summit that keeps on giving and we all kept saying it's a tease because of the fact you can see the summit for hours lol. This mountain is very cool and again ample water, lots of tarns to fill up your water along the way. So many rocks, ridges and plateaus. Mt. Albert Edward is the sixth tallest mountain on the island and stands at 2,093M. I will say camping at Circlet to now summiting AE, you won't be alone out here. This is a very busy place but still very cool. It's not like we were hiking side by side. The mountain is spacious enough.
We got up the summit around 11:30AM, so around 3 1/2 hours of hiking to reach this point and need I remind you - we were packing our OVERNIGHT bags to the summit. This can be avoided by dropping your packs and access the route to the left hand side of the mountain before the summit of AE. (map below) However we chose to pack it all up and go with the AllTrails route I had, which had us decesnding from the backside of AE. I got out my chair and we lounged here for some time, admiring the beautiful views in the Strathcona. I was pointing out the Golden Hinde, Mariner Glacier, Tom Taylor, Victoria Peak & Warden and several others mountains I can identify off the fly. We set out around 12:30PM off the summit of AE to our next objective Ruth Masters Lake.
Dropping down the backside of AE was to be said there would be route finding and honestly I feel because this traverse has gotten a-lot more well known and busy, it was not route finding or tricky at all (for us anyways.) There was several rock cairns and well worn paths in my opinion so perhaps all of these other posts were from long ago. Dropping down from here was easy, there was some steeper sections but it was all there. I led my wolf pack and I love to be the sherpa. Natasha was good at pointing out the cairns as well. Kati said she was just here to follow along. (LOL love it.) Everyone had their own something they brought to the table. We all hiked really well together and that is important when your out there. I do always find myself getting a bit ahead of people, I am glad Natasha and Kati didn't seem to mind at times. We all had our own paces every now and then and we would all often wait until we were all together again.
I felt this part of the hike was the best, you see so many things and so many mountains. We loved seeing Charity, Faith and another lake on the left hand side desending from AE. We joked and said we wanted to fly into that blue water as it was 25+ degees where we were. We had originally thought looking into the distance that Ralph Lake was Ruth Masters, boy did we get that wrong. We didn't really realize we were ascending a-lot this day up to Augerpoint. Like I said earlier lots of up and downs. You will eventually connect to the Augerpoint side which felt wrong honestly as our judgement was on the Ralph Lake direction. I kept checking the track to make sure we weren't summitting Augerpoint Mountain LOL. We were on track making our way down and up. Some scrambling was invovled and because you have the heavy packs on, it can make you question your footing at times. There was some points - we were on all fours climbing up. Some exposed little sections and you absolutely must watch where you are going or you'll get seriously injured. There is no wonder people have called SAR out here. You will also have several tarns that you will pass during this time to fill up. It was August and there was SO much water.
We had read in Phillips Stones book that some camp at the waterfall just before Ruth Masters Lake. I can absolutely see the reason why some might camp here. It's beautiful and again a good place to fill up water or like us get our faces and hair wet to cool off. Finally climbing up a little bit more we were at Ruth Masters Lake at 4PM. We were exhausted and our legs were tired. We instantly put our bathing suits on and jumped in. Man I will tell you that was the BEST feeling ever. Ruth Masters, I had heard it was stunning but until your actually there, only then do you know what they all are talking about.
We set up camp somehow lol and made our dinner. Bathing in our success from this big day. The ladies crushed it. There were times I think we all were a bit like WTF? but we all pushed through and were a great team. We took our tent flys off and quickly made our way into the tents as the bugs were rentlentless here. Bring your mosquito net - I felt bad I only had one lol. Kati and Natasha you need to buy one haha! However they just became one with them. We sat in our tents and admired the beautiful sunset and talked about life.
These will always be the moments I will cherish. It's crazy that you can come out here and get to know people more in 3 days than ever in a lifetime with others. That is because there are no phones to distract us or outside world. It is just us, enjoying the outdoors and surviving out there. Overnight hiking brings you close to people really fast, we shit out there (LOL), you get to see that person on a 12-13 hour period enduring some of their tougher moments and to me it's the best kind of company to have. It's real and its raw. I love being in-front while hiking and also sometimes in the back. The reason for this is, I get to stop and wait up for my friends or take photos of them. I'm usually admiring and listening to the sounds of their voices. I'm studying them in a way that not many people do - I'm admiring their strength to keep going and sometimes I have to pinch myself when I'm out there. It's a very accomplishing feeling for me to feel this sense of rush that we are out there pushing our limits and carrying such heavy weight into the middle of nowhere. We are seeing things that not everyone will see in their lifetime. To me it's priceless.
We set our alarms again for 6:30AM and I slowly doze off looking at the black sky filled with stars and I am reminded that no matter how big my problems are, they are small out here. I feel good and I feel strong and I'm ready to take on this next day. (after I pop a couple of Advil's cause that 11K - WOOHOO kicked our asses.)
DAY 3: RUTH MASTERS CAMP TO JACK'S TRAIL BUTTLE LAKE
DURATION: 7 HOURS+
DISTANCE: 10KMS
There was no dew at this camp, due to the higher elevation this lake was sitting at. Circlet was definetly wet when we got up. Wet tents are never fun to store away. This was a nice change this AM. We were greeted with the warm sun not to shortly after we had risen. I had packed everything away and got the water boiling, that was a fail because I had accidentally boiled a plastic plate in Natasha's pot LOL. We had all enjoyed coffee looking at the mountains with our oats and got out of there pretty quickly as the mosqutios were pretty awful. We started ascending right away at 8:30AM, started making our way up to the cirque to the saddle between Augerpoint Mountain's massif called 1750? to the connecting ridge and tarns below Jack's Fell. I was feeling good, lots of views once we got on the ridge, I even went a bit further up to get a look at Buttle Lake from here and it was stunning, a little more up but worth it. We did read that you could cut out some elevation near one of the bumps along the ridge by skirting around the scree, it would just be exposed. However we opted to just stay on the established path instead.
We found shade near a tarn and had a little break before heading towards Jack's Trail where people camp once they get up from the Buttle side. This was easy to find the trail, plenty of cairns again and lots of water. We had nice view of Jack Shark Lake in the distance below and surrounding mountains in the Strathcona to keep us inspired. It's neat how you skirt around Jack's Fell, you don't summit this mountain and we were happy to be in some shade during this point. It was honestly kind of strange to be surronded by trees again for not being in them for a day. Lastly we filled up our water right near the camp by Jack's Trail and started our descent down to Buttle Lake.
To say I had no idea what I was in for, for this desecent would have been an understatement okay? There was everything from scree, loose dirt and it never fucking ended LOL. I can kind of see why some would just get this over with and start it from this side, however we all said we wouldn't have been as stoked to start it off like that. Good for you if you've ever started it from this end, because god damn what a grind. We spent nearly 3 1/2 hours descending, I can't imagine how long that takes to go up that first day. No thank you.
There was one time, I made an error and led us down some worn sort of trail that literally went straight down with loose dirt and I was like "WTF is this shit" and realized I had gone off the trail a little. It wasn't super long of a detour and probably saved us a whole 6 minutes. Anyways let's keep on keeping on! Back on trail and my legs are JELLO, I think we were all kind of just in the zone here and focusing on our footing trying to not eat SHIT. There is a small lake at the half way point going down of Jack's Trail, we didn't need any water but it's nice there's an option. I seen this "lake" it was more of a large pond with lillipads. We finally got to Highway 28 at 4PM. From here Kati had to park her car a KM away, yes that's right a KM away. I wasn't going to sit and make them walk, god damnit we were finshing this together. So we walked an extra 1KM to grab the car, set our packs down near some cars that were parked at the actual trailhead lol and went back and got them.
I was so impressed with these girls, they really pushed through and I know I'm kind of a billygoat and to them, I don't think they thought I was having a hard time at all LOL! However I am dealing with much more of a mental game and releasing that everyday stress of life to push me further. It's like a high for me when I'm out there, I think of all of my problems and let it out in the mountains and it kicks my ass in the best way possible. So if you think I'm not struggling, I most certainly am - just in a different way.
It was time to head out - get some burgers and beer and holy shit that was the best god damn meal I have had in awhile. Backpacking really does make you appreciate the smaller things in life. I really want to give a shout-out to Natasha's family Dale and Maddy. Thank you for driving us back to Paradise Meadows to retrieve our cars.
Lastly before you go and if you've read this far, I want to say thank you. I hope this inspires you to get out there and see the world. I know this isn't backpacking Europe or going to some exotic place but to me this is my paradise and playground. I couldn't stop smiling on my drive home that I did the damn thing like always. We came, we saw and we fucking conquered. I will remember this hike for the rest of my life, it was definitely one I will always look back on.
Thank you Kati and Natasha for letting me tag along last minute, I'm still on a high from this trip. You were both the perfect company. Can't wait for the next one. I hope we can get out there again.
See you out on the trails, until then. Happy trails!
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