Alpine Larches are a rare and beautiful sight, especially this far west. They thrive in conditions where other coniferous trees wither and die once the first frost sets in, and are particularly abundant on the slopes of the Rocky Mountains. But in a few special places in British Columbia you’ll be lucky enough to see them.
In late September, when most of our spruce trees and western red cedars are already starting to drop their needles, the larches turn gold. The mountainside appears to be dusted with bright yellow pollen when you’re looking up from the forest floor. I’ve never seen them before, but my boyfriend spent the entire month of September talking about going back to Banff—specifically to larch valley where we hiked in July—to see the see the valley flush with gold.
For most of September the weather wasn’t exactly on our side, and as sturdy as alpine larches are (they thrive in cold, dry climates), their pine needles don’t stay gold forever. Give it a week or two and they’ll start shedding. We put our luck to the test at the beginning of October and headed inland. You’ll have better luck finding these beautiful gold meadows in the Purcell Mountains further east, between the Kootenays and the Rockies. But if you’re departing from Vancouver, you’ll see them as far west as the Northern Cascades, and the optimal spot is Frosty Mountain in Manning Park.
Frosty Mountain Summit
Difficulty: I honestly don’t remember encountering any difficulty until I was descending in the dark with a burned out headlamp
Distance: 21 km round-trip, 1200 m elevation gain
The Frosty Mountain day hike is a stunning late-autumn trek and a 22 km roundtrip journey. It looks daunting when you’re craning your neck up at it from Lightning Lake below, but it’s actually a pretty moderate climb. The slope is gradual, and you’re in the shade for a good deal of it (something we now know I prefer to scrambling over loose shale, although you will encounter that toward the end of the hike). About 8 km up, you’ll emerge into a meadow. Believe me, it’s a popular spot. A group of down climbers warned us on the way up that there were about 300 people in the meadow, and they weren’t wrong.
Weather can also turn on a dime at that elevation. Even though it’s early October, in the sun the temperature can be as high as 20, but in the shade the ground will be frozen and when the wind comes whistling through the trees, the temperature can quickly drop to freezing. If you’re going to climb that high to reach the larches, you might as well summit Frosty for a sweeping view across the park. It’s a scree slope with a number of switchbacks, but it’s totally do-able. And the ridge is quite wide, so you can enjoy the vista without having to worry terribly much about losing your footing.
