The leader for the Survey Lake discovery challenge was joined by six willing hikers. The warning of "wet conditions are possible" became reality as we made our way from the Jimchrist trailhead. The dashed line marking our topo maps was our intended trail to the far side of the Jimchrist loop and presented plenty of downfall and some significant wetness along the way! The dashed line was shown as going straight across the Jimchrist trail and on to Survey Lake, which it did... just not along the line marked on the map! As we seemed to veer off the dashed line, cooler heads prevailed, panic was averted, and, in 50 meters or less, we stepped out onto the Jimchrist trail and the truth was evident - the map was wrong! Our dashed line trail was, in fact, continuing directly opposite us but about 100 m or so west of where the map was showing it. That explains why it could not be found where expected last fall! The group continued on and persevered even when the trail seemed to disappear. Bushwacking our way to the lake, we did find the original trail a little further along the shore and even the sun came out to celebrate our victory. I should have known what was to come when the sun faded away soon after! Setting out on the return trip, we soon lost sight of any clearly marked path. Teamwork and Gaia got us back on the trail, though, and all was good. The decision to take the Jimchrist trail back to the log cabin, on the other hand, presented even wetter conditions most of the way back (sorry, Wendy) and even more significant downfall. Despite the challenges, everyone enjoyed the adventure and the uphill climb to the cars finished with everyone pretty proud of themselves.
