Our Gorgeous Joffre Lakes Hike to the Glacier!

The three Joffre Lakes are some of the most stunning lakes I’ve ever seen! The Lower, Middle and Upper Joffre Lakes get progressively more beautiful and brighter shades or turquoise blue from one to the next. By the third lake the intense blue is absolutely breathtaking! Their brilliant and opaque colour is the result of glacial silt suspended in the water. When the sun reflects off the particles the water becomes vivid blue and green.

The huge Matier Glacier sits above and beyond the third lake (Upper Joffre Lake) making the view incredibly awesome –and that’s putting it mildly 😉 DeeOGee loved the snow and we think he had the most fun out of all of us!

It’s past Whistler and 35 km east of Pemberton, B.C. and from downtown Vancouver it took us about 2 and half hours to get there.

The hike from the Joffre Lakes Provincial Park parking lot to Upper Joffre Lake takes between two and three hours.

It starts as a gentle stroll along Lower Joffre Lake but then quickly turns into a steep slope. It was particularly challenging on this time of year (early June) because there was still quite a bit of snow and ice and several very steep sections that were totally covered and very slippery –we spent a lot of time sliding on our bootys on the way down! :O

After about 30 to 45 minutes of steady climbing and slipping around,  you come to a large field of glacial boulders (known as moraine) that has to be crossed.

The moraine take about 15 minutes to cross and then it’s back into the woods.
After another 45 minutes of solid climbing, gets you to a cute bridge crossing the creek of Middle Joffre Lake.

And finally, we reach the third and final lake the Upper Joffre Lake! AND WOW! It is SO absolutely breathtaking –a big glacial lake (that was still covered in snow & ice) with an absolutely stunning cross-valley view. This is where we stopped and had lunch and shared with the very friendly wild birds 🙂

An AWESOME day! I can’t wait to go do this hike again soon!  😀