Burrito West Blog

In an effort to get out and experience more of the spectacularly beautiful province we live in, Peter and I have been trying to go hiking this summer. If you scroll back a few posts, you'll remember my post about the Buntzen Lake hike which resulted in a terrible migraine that knocked me out for a day. That sucked. I mean, the hike was nice, the aftermath not so much.

This time around, we were doing a much bigger hike: Elfin Lakes. 22km round trip. We joined a group of people (Peter's co-workers and their friends, all lovely people) and headed out early Sunday morning. It was hot and sunny. The scenery was spectacular right from the get-go (see photo at left). Unfortunately as the day progressed, the flies started to get kind of bad. For someone with a bug phobia (that would be me), this means you don't want to stop moving ever because when you stop, the flies swarm you. And the feeling of flies touching your skin makes you want to scream and run away, but you can't because you're trying hard to appear normal in front of the new people. So you just quietly go insane on the inside.

We got to Elfin Lakes (I was expecting bigger lakes, to be honest, but it was very pretty and refreshing). Would have been a beautiful place to rest and swim and eat and recoup.... except for the FLIES. Seriously, even the people without bug phobias were anxious to get moving after hanging out for about an hour. On the way back the flies kept up and the last hour was pretty terrible. We nearly ran for the car in the parking lot, even though it was 193 degrees from sitting in the sun for 6 hours. It was bug free.... a 193 degree heaven.

And yes. I got a headache. And vomited on the way home. So I'm still not a huge fan of hiking.

But, man, I got some great photos.