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Stein to Logjam:

Until the upper cable crossing it was smooth walking but the entire stretch after the upper cable crossing (moving towards Lytton) was fireweed overhead (I am 6'0 so it's probably 6'6 or over 7'0 for sure) and tangled red-osier dogwood, along with slide alder and devil's club near the wet/disturbed areas. Getting through with a backpack is difficult to manoeuvre because many areas are very narrow and steep or you had to push down trees to crawl through. 

Certain sections around High View camp and the other small camps in that area have narrow pathways that are eroding away, possibly because the vegetation is forcing hikers to go around?

We avoiding camping anywhere between Stein and Logjam due to previous reports on packrat activity and the activity that we did find evidence of on the way.

Some of the boards/logs over small streams are fallen and either in the stream channels or the channels have widened so the boards don't fit and are sitting beside the trail now. 

Without markers it's difficult to find your way; we had a GPS but that didn't work very well in the heavily treed areas and the topographic maps did not help as much on the hillsides where it is steep and slippery. It seemed that we could see markers every 100m at the best, but many were on very small trees, either burnt or shaded by the overgrowth, and so we found we would be walking on many markers if we pushed away the vegetation at our feet and looked at the ground.

The part that I found the most troublesome (and potentially dangerous) are the fallen trees overhead and beside the trail. The stuff overhead has a lot of sharp branch stubs that are at head height for someone over 5'5 or 6'0 and the trees beside the trail that were cut in the past are sharp (not flat cuts, usually angled into the trail) and they stick out into your legs. You can't see these until you hit them usually, so we were very slowed down by pushing away the vegetation to find them when the fireweed was at its worst. I think they were the most pressing thing to deal with, as they could cause lots of injuries (I got a good bruise and all 4 of us had very cut up legs from these, including a healthy gash on one of my legs and hips.)

Dealing with the fireweed and other plants, I imagine that is not an easy job considering how fast they grow, and I am not sure what the best solution would be, but certainly having someone go through and hang new markers, high up in trees and frequently, would help a lot as it would just mean that you would have to push through the vegetation but not deviate from the trail much. We did find we were off the trail often which I'm sure will lead to degradation of the slopes and trail in that area. 

There are lots of paths through the fireweed in the flat sections where people have gone the wrong way and getting lost following these is incredibly easy. 

About 2km before Logjam was where we encountered our first bear in the bushes off the trail but it ran away from us towards the river.

The second bear was between Ponderosa and Teepee somewhere, but I can't remember exactly (somewhere just at the beginning of an old cedar forest for sure....) Same thing though, it ran through the trees to get away.

Lizzie FSR to Stein:

As for the Lizzie FSR to Stein lake portion, it was relatively easy. The Lizzie Lake FSR is in fine shape in my opinion; finding the bypass around the washout is easy but the bypass trail is a eroding and might need a couple sections to be shored up with wood to stop that from worsening. There are pink ribbons hanging to the right as you come out of the bypass, and it seems that you have to go that way, but it takes you to the washout. Not sure why they are hung there, but they should be removed and hung the other way (up the road to the left.)

As you approach the higher parts of the FSR the trees get much more dense. You can still push through no problem and the path is worn enough on the ground that it's easy to follow. I would say there are no problems from the start of the road to the lake, and the lake/campsite/toilets are fine. A bear cache might be good there one day as it seems a lot of people go there and there was lots of bear scat everywhere in the sites and around the first toilet.

From Lizzie Lk to the Gates of Shangri-La is pretty good; there is some fairly recent windthrow that is a challenge to climb over or under but it is not bad to get through at all.

From the Gates of Shangri-La to the cabin in easy and clear, lots of cougar and bear tracks along the path. 

The trail after the cabin was impossible for us to find, we just made our way straight along the north bank of the stream from the cabin until we got to a beaten path below Arrowhead lake, but we were not on trail until that point as we could not find it. I did not double back to try to find where it crossed the stream after leaving the cabin but we did eventually get to a well-beaten section that led up to Arrowhead.

From Arrowhead to Tundra was good trail and easy to follow/find via GPS. No problems here at all. 

The snowfields above Tundra near the park boundary were steep and treacherous, we had to go north to the rocks in order to take the snow down; Further south (if you walk straight past the park boundary sign basically) it drops off suddenly and overhangs so you can't tell there is a drop-off. 

The boulder fields were fine above Tundra but are slow going. There is a place to camp before the Tundra camp, on top of the first ascent through the boulder field. If someone is hiking later in the day they could stop here, about 30-45 minutes before you would reach the main camp. 

Finding your way from Tundra to the ridge top was a long process, but it seemed best to go to the small lake above Tundra and then climb up the shale and then cross over to a draw of boulders while gradually gaining elevation. Any ridge ascents further down the ridge are much more treacherous than the one we found. It is where the ridge meets the nearest peak and there is a distinct dip in elevation at this point, probably around 2200m elevation or so. 

The ridge was fine; the early sections were a bit more difficult to find the proper trail but after 1 KM or so it was easy. 

The trail down to Puppet Lake was relatively easy to find but most markers (they were all ribbons) have fallen away.

From Puppet to Stein was fine; easy to find the trail and easy to follow with no real problems (some windthrow but not a problem to get around) and you get to the cable crossing in no time. 

Stein campsite was in good shape with no problems. 

The only other note is that the pack rats at the Ponderosa shelter and camp made off with a sock and a hat and chewed through two pairs of hiking boots. That was the only camp we had any problems at, so I would recommend that people go to the shelter and hang all of their stuff on the nails in the shelter (not sure how you can communicate that, but maybe in a trail report?) before going to sleep in the camp. 

Teepee camp has a damaged bear cache where the hinges were repaired but mice have gotten in to the cache. There was a bunch of stuff in that cache (tent, sleeping pad, clothes, etc) and they made their nest in a bucket with clothes in it. We pulled all of that out and hammered the cache hinges in with a hatchet we had but it didn't seem to help too much as there is still a space big enough for mice to fit through. There are bullet holes and damage on the cache as well. 

The rest of the valley is in fine shape and well marked and made for a very easy walk-out. 

From Logjam to the end there are lots of alternative camp sites that are not marked on the map. Some of these are beautiful and would be awesome to camp in, but you'd have to hang your food. There is one with a food loft that is really nice; sandy, right on the river and have big tables to sit at. If we had known we would have stayed a night there for sure. It's before Teepee camp but I don't remember exactly where. It is mentioned in the guidebook by Gordon White though. 

That should cover the basic details. I have detailed notes I could scan and send you if you want, or I can type them up, though that'll take me a few days. I also have a GPS .GPX file I attached to this email. It can be viewed in Google Earth and directly saved and loaded onto any GPS. I modified a file that was uploaded by a guy who did the hike in 2006 and added my own information and track. Our track is more accurate due to the quality of our GPS versus one that was 6 years old, but he put a lot of reference points in along the most difficult sections of trail to follow. 

I tried to mark most camping spots that were well-established, but there are lots of places to camp in addition to this. 

A great hike that I highly recommend!

All the information about the Trail, GPS way-points and Campgrounds has been provided by Ashton Thebault

If you need any more information don't hesitate to leave comments or email the Pemberton Fish Finder

Click on the link below to download the .GPX file for your GPS, note this file works incredible with Google Earth.

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