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The Journey to Marble Meadows
Strathcona Provincial Park
Tuesday, July 28
After an early eggs-and-bacon breakfast in Campbell River, we drove west, along a nicely-paved and curvy highway that cut west across the island toward the community of Gold River. Partway along, the highway enters Strathcona Provincial Park, a huge tract of mountainous land comprising a very big chunk of central Vancouver Island.

Ultimately, we were destined for a specific area within the park - an area of sub-alpine plateau known as Marble Meadows. We had four days allocated to backback up to and explore the plateau and a few nearby highpoints (originally we had planned to do a backpack up Vancouver Island's highest peak - the Golden Hinde - but switched our plan to Marble Meadows after we realized that four days was a bit rushed for that objective).
Strathcona Park Lodge
Just shy of reaching the park proper, we stopped at the Strathcona Park Lodge - a large and rustic-looking multi-building complex with rooms, cabins, and recreational facilities. Situated on the shore of Upper Campbell Lake - one of the park's largest bodies of water - the lodge offered watercraft rentals, including the type of watercraft we wanted - a big, long sturdy canoe with the ability to take the four of us and our fully loaded packs across nearby Buttle Lake.

We brought our Subaru Outback rental car down a winding gravel road to the lakeshore building that handled watercraft rentals. There we filled out the necessary paperwork and set about preparing the roof of the car with our Canadian Tire foam canoe block mount kit. We discovered that the Outback had a built-in fold-away roof rack that made the process much easier. Kudos to Subaru.
courtesy AHyndman
courtesy JInnes
Prepping for canoe
Four plus gear
Hup, hup
Our 20-foot "freighter" canoe was quite a heavy beast, and we decided to use four of us to position it in place on top of the car. Once securely battened down, we carefully drove back up to the highway and began our journey south to the put-in point.
courtesy JInnes
Hup, hup
Ensuring Security
Ensuring Security
The huge canoe felt long and ponderous atop our car, and we kept speeds and g-forces low to ensure that everything stayed in place. We soon turned off onto Buttle Lake road - a long, long secondary paved road that ran the entire length of the lake. Buttle Lake is very long - 23 kilometres (14 mi) long, to be precise. It is lined on both sides by mountains - mountains that rise quite high (many more than 5000 feet) above the level of the lake. There were many beautiful viewpoints along the way, including several over to the area that we were about to climb up to in the Marble Meadow area - Mount McBride and Marble Peak being the two most prominent.
Down Buttle Lake Road
Mount McBride
Marble Peak
After driving about halfway down the lake, we turned off at a small picnic/day-stop area called Auger Point. This is also one of the put-in points for boaters on Buttle Lake. We chose it because it is almost directly across from the Marble Meadows trailhead.
Put-in point
Welcome!
Amazingly Low
We un-tethered the canoe from the car and ferried it down to the lakeshore. One thing that immediately struck us was the lake level. It was clearly much, much, much lower than normal. We had to walk a very long way from the normal water line down to the current line, and it was a steep downhill walk, too. I'd estimate that the water level was 30-40 feet below normal. I knew that the northwest was experiencing an overly warm and dry winter, spring and summer, but.... whoa.

We could easily look across the lake and see our destination on the other side. As I mentioned earlier, Buttle lake is very long - but it isn't very wide. At its widest, it is only about 1.5 kilometres across. Here, it was only about 1 kilometre - and maybe even a bit less than that today. So, nothing overly difficult - although I had read reports about how the lake can sport large waves when it is windy. Fortunately, the morning was calm, and the water surface virtually glass-still.
courtesy BConnell
Freighter on Buttle Lake
Prepped and Ready
Beginning the crossing
After ferrying all of our heavy packs down into the canoe and donning our life jackets, we pushed off, gliding over the very still waters of Buttle Lake. The clarity was excellent, and we could see the bottom for a bit, before it dropped away to beyond-visible depths. With 4-paddle power at our disposal, we soon were loafing along at a pretty decent clip. The views straight up and down the long glacial lake were sublime.
courtesy JInnes
Buttle Lake
Enjoying Buttle Lake
Amazingly Clear Water
The opposite side looked like a few paddle strokes away, but distances were deceiving here, and it took us quite a few strokes more than that. Soon enough, however, we were approaching the western shore.

We had a general idea of the proper landing point - a point a little way up the mouth of a stream known as Phillips Creek - but the specifics were not obvious. We couldn't clearly see the mouth of any stream. A huge field of stumps lined the very extended shoreline - a reminder of the old-growth forest that stood here and which was cut down before the damming of the Buttle lake-Upper Campbell lake system.
courtesy JInnes
courtesy BConnell
Before the Dam
More Stumps
Landfall
After watching the wanderings of an older couple in a smaller canoe ahead of us, we located the current mouth of Phillips Creek. It now extended out through the land of stumps and turned south before entering into the lake itself. We curved around into it and docked on a convenient strip of riverbank.

Given the low lake level, we were quite far away from the normal landing point, and we decided that we needed to actually portage the canoe. First, we ferried our packs towards the treeline, discovering once again that distances weren't quite what they first seemed. It ended up being 200-300 metres of hot walking in the open before we reached the sign for the Phillips Creek Marine Campsite - the destination for our canoe.
courtesy BConnell
Hot Portage
Phillips Creek
Official Landing Point
We then returned to bring up the canoe the rest of the way. Not feeling like carrying the big and heavy beast, we decided to put it back into the shallow water of Phillips Creek itself and attempt to paddle it upstream against the current. Arn and I did this alone to reduce the draft of the canoe, and in the end, we managed to paddle/pole/scrape our way upstream to the normal landing point.
Marine Campsite
The landing point / start point for the Marble Meadows hike is a small backcountry campground known as the Phillips Creek Marine Campground. Located on the northern banks of Phillips creek near where it [normally] empties into Buttle Lake, the campground has three or four fine little separate sites nestled among a thick stand of small birch-like trees. The sites have levelled spots for tents, picnic tables, and there is a pit toilet. Very nice.

We stashed the canoe in the bushes near the campground sign, with Arn getting stung by wasps after disturbing a nest. After toiling in the hot sun, moving packs and canoes around, we took a nice shady break at one of the tentsites' picnic tables (there was no one in any of the campsites, strangely). It was now time to prepare for the hardest part of the backpack - the 4000+ foot ascent up the Marble Meadows trail to the edge of Marble Meadows itself.
courtesy JInnes
 Prep for the climb
After a cool-down and an energy-replenishing snack, we were ready to move on. We weren't precisely sure of the location of the Marble Meadows trail, but this was quickly resolved when we discovered a prominent interpretive kiosk/sign at the far end of the farthest campsite. A simple map and a few information notices provided some basic parameters (no fires, look out for White-tailed Ptarmigan). The faint path of the trail itself immediately started left of the info panels.
Marble Meadows Trailhead
Decades-old signs
Light footpath
Immediately, the trail started climbing. No wasting time here, for there was a lot of elevation to gain. The plateau of Marble Meadows sits at roughly 5000 feet. Its eastern end drops off, without any intervening features, right down to Buttle Lake. Buttle Lake sits at about 750 feet of elevation. That's a big drop by most assessments, especially by the standards of the eastern North America, our normal mountain-hiking stomping grounds.

The trail led up steeply, not really switchbacking, but sinuously curved back and forth up through a forest of fairly large trees. The undergrowth was rather brushy, and in many places, was overgrowing the trail. It was also rougher than I expected, with frequent sections of roots and loose stones. I guess I'd been spoiled by the beautiful trail on the previous weekend's Glacier Peak approach. By "eastern" standards, it wasn't so bad, I suppose.
Only the hair
We were happy for the clear, warm sunny day. But, at the same time, it was just that: a warm, sunny day - and that meant we soon got hot and sweaty and tired. We instituted one of our favorite effort management tools - the "Quarter-K" break system. Under this system, we stopped every 250 feet / 100 m of elevation gain (a quarter of a thousand feet, hence the Quarter-K name), and on the thousand-foot boundaries, we did a full pack-off sit down have-a-snack break. Really helps mentally break the climb into little manageable chunks. It's always only a few minutes until your next stop, and that's all you need to look towards at any one moment.
Sunlit Vale
After about 750 feet of elevation gain, the brushy and overgrown bits of trail ended, and the forest floor became more open, and covered with extensive mats of dry moss. There was a little pause in the climbing at about 1400 feet, where the trail went through a small notch in the slope behind a bump. Not long after, the trailed climbed over a few bits of slabby bedrock and then, happily began a stretch that was very pleasant: a smooth tread, well-engineered switchbacks, and pleasant, open forest with tall mature trees. Aha - this was the kind of thing I was looking for.

The footpath itself was still quite narrow - only two or three bootwidths wide - but just the same, very nice. Perhaps this long ascent wasn't going to be as much of a chore as I had first thought.
Small notch
First Viewpoint
The Trail Improves
Up we went, faithfully performing our short Quarter-K stops and longer "K" stops. Our elevation rose, slowly but surely, and by 1:30pm, we had arrived nearly at 3000 feet. The trail took another break from its ascent, crossing over a small depression in the overall slope leading up to Marble Meadows. According to the topo map, there was a small pond in this depression, but all we noticed today was an ugly-looking patch of mud that looked good for breeding mosquitos.
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