Exploring The Beauty, Peace and Majesty of the Cathedral Lakes

This is some of photography from a place that is very near and dear to my heart

For anyone that would prefer a sound track of some mellow instrumental guitar, piano and downtempo beats to enjoy this album to, scroll to the bottom of this post before beginning.

---

The Cathedral Lakes Provincial Park area in BC is one of my all time favorite places to experience the alpine. The park is located in a secluded corner of the Cascade Mountains within the traditional homeland of the Nlaka'pamux and Syilx, now colonially known as the Okanagan.

The following pictures and video are my gift to you. May these glimpses of moments that were so powerful and nourishing in my life serve as a reminder from the Living Earth that even now, in the time of widespread human hubris, destruction of forests and technological addictions, some pockets of sacred vitality still contain the same essence of truth that your ancestors sought out and made into the lifeblood of their cultures.

I have been going up there since I was little and travelled back as an adult dozens of times, discovering truly humbling and soul nourishing hidden spots.

As you walk through the forest below the ridge you cannot help but smile, stop and breathe deeply, filling your lungs with the nourishing medicinal conifer aerosols in the larch/balsam fir forests, admiring the endless lupins, blueberry and currant bushes along the paths. The wolf lichen and old man’s beard covered elder tree branches whisper to you of the memory of seasons of plenty and times of hardship. The rushing creeks and babbling brooks speak to you about the ancient agreements between the elemental kingdoms and the sacred duty we have to honor and protect these sources of life.

In the woods you will find chipmunks, pikas, Douglas squirrels, hoary marmots, Columbia ground squirrels, mountain goats, mule deer, moose, whisky jacks, Clark’s nutcrackers, raven, mountain chickadees, nuthatches, hermit thrushes, varied thrushes, Swainson’s thrushes, rufous hummingbird, bald eagle, olive-sided flycatcher, winter wren, ptarmigan, spotted sandpiper, unidentified swifts, ducks, and a Cassin’s vireo.

pika

ptarmigans

Humans have not been allowed to hunt up there for quite some time so the deer and mountain goats will sometimes hang out nearby (I have climbed out of my tent on multiple occasions and found deer or goats snuggled up sleeping against the side of the fly of my tent!).

image credit to Johrey

If you venture up the mountain side above the gorgeous emerald green and deep turquoise lakes you will find the homes of elemental beings tucked into ancient lichen covered rock ledges, with the waterfalls cascading over mossy cliffs nearby. There are sacred living springs tucked into the larch forests and alpine meadows brimming with medicine plants that contain the best water I have ever tasted on Earth.

If you venture yet further above the sparkling waterfalls to where the spruce, larch and fir transition to fields of Indian Paint Brush flowers, if you are very lucky, you may find of the secret gushing crystal clear alpine springs pouring out of granite outcrops up there that are surrounded in medicine plants like Rhodiola rosea, Yarrow, Arnica, Labrador tea and Sitka valerian. The water that flows directly from the depths of the mountains (filtered through hundreds of feet of mineral rich stone) and pushes out of those springs is the most nourishing water I have ever had the opportunity to taste on this Earth.

In these alpine meadows filled with the sweet scent of nectar and fir trees, with the soft sound of flowing water nearby, I find myself magnetized to spend hours exploring the tiny world of the hundreds of different types of flowers and lichens that dwell there.

Indian Paint Brush and lots of Yarrow

This video above offers you a glimpse of the alpine fields around the lakes up there, and the gorgeous cascading waterfalls that flow from the mountains around them

best water you`ll ever taste

Above the sacred living springs of the medicine meadows perched above the lakes is the Rim. On the rim of the top of this mountain range you will meet many ancient stone beings and have a view that lets you see hundreds of kilometers into the “United States” and almost to the coast on the westside (with Mt Baker being visible on clear days). The top of this range protruded above the continental glaciers, and so the sculpted granite spires that remain are truly spectacular works of art, and deserving of the title “Cathedrals”.

when the glaciers covered this land, this monolithic granite being would have been a Nunatak (protruding out from the glacier like a watch tower). The trail takes you around the back side on the ridge and you get right on top of that.

image credit to Johrey

Being up above where the trees cannot grow on that ridge, you will meet many ancient rock beings that tell stories of the one hundred thousand storms they have witnessed. Hanging out up there on top of the world with the rugged mountain goats and courageous ptarmigans, sitting on the weathered granite with heather, mountain sorrel, alpine buckwheat, alpine catsfoot, moss campion, anemones, phlox, rhodiola rosea and Yarrow you feel held in the embrace of the sky spirits, able to receive visions only the thin clear air can evoke and humbled by how tiny your earthly self is on the face of this beautiful Earth.

And then when you follow the babbling brooks, disappearing streams and mountain goat trails back down to your campsite and get a fire going, have your well earned dinner, you walk down to the lake and are gifted a crystal clear mirror of the universe, bathed in starlight not only from the vivid sky above, but twice enveloped in the cosmic light reflected back to you from the lake’s surface.

There is powerful magic in such moments, the sort of magic you carry with you for a lifetime.

(not my photo)

I hope that the following images and video clips can offer you some whispers of that magic and may the sounds and images inspire you to get out there and explore the beautiful wild world where you live to create magical moments of your own.

(video clip above has the sound of the babbling brook near where it emerges as a spring, flowing towards the lake below)

This clip above shows behind the first lake in the part looking up the mountain side near where a creek comes gushing out of the boulders and feeds the lake

the trail that goes to the upper lakes

a mythical lichen creature

All the many dead trees you see in this park are Spruce trees and that is the work of Dendroctonus rufipennis (the spruce bark beetle).

spruce beetle artwork

Though you guys might appreciate these pics and moments :)

Amanda Galeotti

CopperVortex

Inverted Reality

Jane Apostolos

Lee Muller

Catherine’s Substack

Francesca

Helen Roberts

image credit to Johrey

(above clip has a close up of one of the million magical creeks flowing from sacred springs up there)

Valeriana sitchensis, aka Sitka Valerian. I’ll never forget how wonderful the water from this creek tasted!

larch trees at the tree line approaching Pyramid mountain

I stood there barefoot to ground into the living Earth, said a prayer, gave an offering to the mountain and the lake and then continued to the ridge line

turn up the volume for the video above to hear some birds and experience that place as I did that day :)

can you find waldo the chipmunk? ;)

larch buds at 7500 feet above sea level (only beginning to open up in late june!)

super close up of new larch foliage emerging

my path that day goes up onto that ridge line

fellow hikers

so many magical larch trails up there, I could spend weeks just sitting there watching all the different ways the sunlight makes that place come alive

I made a friend while appreciating the Indian Paint Brush flowers, we both reveled in their beauty together

the video above is a little shaky (I was tryna learn to use a new macro lens on the fly) but if you put on the volume you can hear the rushing spring water that was flowing underneath the gorgeous, ancient lichen covered rocks I was hiking up to get to the ridge line

(thought you might appreciate this

Marika Clymer

)

I have never seen a wasp or bee quite like this guy above

Again, footage above is shaky, sorry, but it shows the ridge line I was heading towards and also you get to listen to another one of those glacial springs that was gushing out of the mountain side right under me. :)

Right at the tree line, these spruce were just barely hanging on, waking up in late june, but avoiding the beetle devastation down in the valley so it was great to see them up there.

spruce tip at 7800 feet above sea level, waking up in late June

Above I am just above on the ridge line, and below I made it over the ridge and am looking out on the other side of the mountain range towards the pacific coastal mountains.

Penstemon davidsonii aka Alpine or Purple Penstemon

This image shows the lake I had just hiked up to the ridge from, and way in the back ground in the lower valley, the lodge and campsite where my hike for the day started.

The images below are of “Stone City” up on the rim, really interesting stone beings up there, ancient granite shaped by countless seasons of weather.

I thought you might appreciate these

Barbara Sinclair

I made lots of friends up there on the rim trail, none of them human, but they were great companions for sure! :) The elder goats were trusting with me and the little one was curious. The mysterious little song birds followed me around and sung their hauntingly beautiful melodies into the echoing distance and some marmots popped out to say hi every now and then.

This video above is again pretty shaky, but if you crank the volume you can hear some interesting bird song I was gifted with up at 7500 feet above sea level (with some footage of the distant mountains to the west, with Mt Baker, and then some unfortunate clear cut logging operations down at the foothills of the Cathedral Lakes range near the end).

Super close up of the decomposing granite gravel that is everywhere up there, so filled with micro quartz crystals that you feel them vibrating and emanating ancient memories as you take each step.

Below are some views that look over into the next valley past the US /Canada border.

As I was appreciating this amazing lichen covered quartz crystal infused granite a storm snuck up on me from the west and started pelting me with hail.

The video below is poor quality footage but what I was trying to do was record the most interesting sound which was being created by the hail hitting the shale rocks on the steep path down from the rim. You would have to really crank your volume to hear a bit of it and it does not do it justice compared to how it really sounded but check it out. It was like the sky was playing a 1/4 mile long xylophone (that I was walking on).

Looking up at the ridge I was just on top of from below, admiring the gorgeous cliff face.

as above so below

I found this guy meditating to the sound of the nearby mountain spring.

I tried to quietly join him, but he opened his eyes and gave me a dirty look.

Another video clip below, this time super close up lichen and sound of a spring flowing underneath the ancient stones.

It was raining with thunder by the time I got down to the highest lake (Lady slipper lake) and I could see lots of happy trout swimming on the shoreline as I accelerated my pace trying get back to camp before the lightning started.

After some rain the trees and flowers seemed to be glowing and saying “thank you!”

This is an unedited capture of the Indian Paint Brush flowers beside Ladyslipper lake, they were radiating pure joy after that rain.

As I crested the last ridge to begin my descent to base camp a serious looking cloud approached.

This storm system began unleashing super heated plasma on the ridge lines as I was heading toward the pass I needed to get to in order to get from high ground down to the lake valley.

In this image you can see where I was coming from as the lightning began to hit the ridge.

This image shows me pointing towards the descent point I needed to get to in order to get down into the lake camp safely and that was also exactly where lightning struck as I was jogging towards it. Playing chicken with a lightning storm was humbling to say the least.

At least I made it off the ridge and was not turned into a crispy critter (thank God).

The trunk of an elder larch at the lake where my camp was.

Baby larch growing on a boulder.

While hiking through the gorgeous alpine flower fields, larch filled lake shores and balsam fir covered mountain sides of the Cathedral Lakes in BC I foraged for some mountain medicine (practicing the tenets of The Honorable Harvest and spreading the seeds of each plant I harvested from) and collected this for making tea so that I and the mountain forest could become one.

Larch (Larix spp.) foliage, Balsam fir tips and alpine Yarrow

For more info on the many medicinal benefits of Yarrow, Larch and Fir, check out these posts below:

---

Thanks for walking along side me on that journey to explore a place that is near and dear to my heart, everyone. For anyone that wants to head up to the particular place I showcased in these pics, please be aware that the park has been closed since 2023 (since a big fire took out the bridge on the road that heads up there and the trees all along the road and some near the lakes).

Cathedral Lakes Provincial Park remains closed due to damage caused by the 2023 Crater Creek forest fire; there is currently no confirmed date for when it will reopen.

Here is a link to a petition that states it has the intent to “Prioritize the Restoration of Cathedral Provincial Park in BC” :

https://www.change.org/p/prioritize-the-restoration-of-cathedral-provincial-park-in-bc

---

---

Some tunes that offer me glimpses of the peace, serenity, hope, nourishment and inspiration that the Cathedral Lakes areas does. Echoes of the same nourishment that each of us can receive when we enter the wild with reverence, with an open heart and ready to receive the secrets and wisdom our ancestors did.