The Red Heather Trail meanders through the alpine meadows below the Three Brothers Mountains in E.C. Manning Provincial Park to picturesque Nicomen Lake. This trail is famous for its spectacular wildflowers that appear for a few weeks in early-to-mid August. Many people do this hike as an out-and-back hike, turning around at Nicomen Lake and retracing their steps back to Blackwall Peak parking lot, but it is possible to turn it into a thru-hike by continuing past Nicomen Lake on the Grainger Creek Trail.
Two friends and I completed this hike in October 2020. We had stellar weather and although we missed the wildflower window, the fall colours more than made up for it.
Here is some beta for you to use when planning your hike on the Red Heather Trail.
Trail Stats
Distance: 21km on the Red Heather Trail, and 11.5km on the Grainger Creek trail, for a total of 36.5km one-way
Elevation: 898m
Route Type: Thru-hike
Difficulty: Easy to moderate
Hiking Season: June to October
Planning Resources
- The BC Parks website has lots of useful information and topographic maps to help you plan your trip
- JR and Gemma at Off Track Travel (one of my favourite blogs) have a post about the trail with some good information
Preparing for the Trip
Itinerary
We chose to do this hike at a leisurely pace over three days, heading northwest from the Blackwall Peak trailhead, camping at Kicking Horse Campsite (km 13) and Nicomen Lake Campsite (km 21), and ending at the Cayuse Flat trailhead.
If you are motivated to bag some summits, there is the opportunity to take a side trip to First Brother Mountain on your first day. The trail starts 10km from the Blackwall Peak trailhead, and is a 2km round trip from this point.
The second day was intentionally very short so that we could spend a sunny fall afternoon swimming and relaxing at Nicomen Lake. I would definitely recommend allowing some time during the day to enjoy the scenery here.
From Nicomen Lake, the Grainger Creek trail climbs steeply downwards, before it hits the Skaist River and joins up with the Hope Pass trail. It would definitely be a grind headed in the other direction, so I think starting at Blackwall Peak and ending at Cayuse Flats was a more pleasant itinerary.
Transportation to Trailhead
We drove two cars from Vancouver so that we could shuttle between the trailheads.
We left one car at Cayuse Flats, which is a gravel parking lot directly on the highway. Then we piled into the second car and drove up to Blackwall Peak. The turnoff to the Blackwall Peak trail is right across from the Manning Park Resort. This road winds up the mountain for 15-20 minutes, eliminating a lot of the elevation you would otherwise have to walk.
If you choose to leave a vehicle at Cayuse Flats, ensure you have anything valuable with you. Spoiler alert, but the car we left here was broken into while we were on the trail. Thankfully nothing valuable was stolen, but driving back to the city on the highway with garbage bags taped over the smashed windows was an experience I would not wish on anyone!
Sleeping Options
There are four campsites on this route: Buckhorn (km 5), Kicking Horse (km 13), Nicomen Lake (km 21), and Grainger Creek (km 30). All four sites are first-come-first-serve, but a Backcountry Camping Fee of $5/person per night is required and needs to be purchased ahead of time on the Discover Camping website.
All the campsites have good water sources and basic pit toilets.
On the Trail
Day 1: Blackwall Parking Lot to Kicking Horse Campsite
After an early start from Vancouver, and some time spent dropping off one car at Cayuse Flats, we arrived at Blackwall Peak trailhead around 11 am on a beautifully sunny and clear day. Once we had strapped on our backpacks and boots, we hit the trail.
The trail undulates at a low grade through subalpine meadows along Lone Man Ridge, until it reaches Buckhorn Campsite (km 5). During the summer, this area is flush with wildflowers. Even in the fall, these meadows were incredibly colourful – red, orange, and yellow brush completely surrounded us.
From Buckhorn, the trail begins to climb into the alpine. It eventually flattens out as you begin to traverse below the summits of the First, Second, and Third Brothers.
We eventually ended up at Kicking Horse campsite, which has several well-defined tent pads, a pit toilet, a bear cache, and a good water source. After setting up our tents, we lounged around in the shade, talking and joking until sunset.
Due to the situation with COVID at the time, we opted to do this as a socially distanced hiking trip. We carpooled with masks on, each brought our own tents, and each brought our own cooking gear so we wouldn’t share food. Once the sun set, we each cooked our individual dinners, and retreated to our individual tents where we slept quite soundly.
Day 2: Kicking Horse Campsite to Nicomen Lake Campsite
It was a very warm night – warm enough that I kicked my sleeping bag that was rated for -9°C off very quickly. Given that it was October in the sub-alpine, this was a miracle.
The hike to Nicomen Lake would only take a few hours, so we were in no rush to get up. We savored our coffee and breakfast before packing our bags up and hitting the trail again.
The section of the trail past Kicking Horse Campsite climbs for the first while, which was a good warm up for the rest of the day. It continued to traverse through subalpine meadows, providing views of the North Cascades down south.
After a couple of hours, we reached a ridge from where we could see Nicomen Lake in the valley below. The trail descended steeply across a rocky ridge and through some scree switchbacks, then back into a meadow upstream of the lake.
We arrived at Nicomen Lake campsite around noon. There were no other campers in sight, so we claimed two tent pads on the edge of the lake. There were a few other tent pads on the circumference of the lake, as well as several well-defined camping spots back in the woods.
For the rest of the afternoon, we swam in the icy lake and basked in the autumn sun. A few mountain bikers passed through the campsite, and another pair of campers joined us later in the afternoon, but those were the only other people we saw on the trail all day.
As soon as the sun went down, we all bundled up again and cooked our separate dinners before going to bed. I didn’t bother setting up my tent fly and fell asleep watching the Milky Way materialize through the mesh of my tent.
Day 3: Nicomen Lake Campsite to Cayuse Flats Parking Lot
Our phone alarms went off before sunrise, as we needed to hike out, sort out the car shuttle situation, and then drive all the way back to Vancouver. We groggily packed up our tents, ate a quick breakfast, and began the trek out.
From Nicomen Lake, we took the Grainger Creek trail, which starts at the north end of the lake. It climbs downwards through wet meadows for quite some time. All of us wiped out at various intervals on this section due to the slippery surface. The trail eventually ducks into the forest where it descends through what feels like a thousand switchbacks to the Hope Pass trail junction.
We stopped for a snack here, and ran into a fellow hiker headed up to Nicomen Lake from the Cayuse Flats parking lot. He asked us what kind of car we had parked at the trailhead, and when we told him, he informed us that there was a car matching that description in the parking area with several smashed windows.
From the junction at Hope Pass, the trail is quite wide and very slowly graded, so we made good time back to the car. Unfortunately, it was our car which had been broken into. We spent a good hour cleaning glass out of the car before we could drive back to Blackwall Peak and pick up our other vehicle.
After picking up the second car, we paid a quick visit to Manning Park Resort, where we asked for some garbage bags and tape to cover the broken windows. Once those were dealt with, we started the long drive back to Vancouver.
Despite the unfortunate ending to this trip, the trail itself was great, and spending an autumn afternoon like the one we had at Nicomen Lake was an absolute blessing.
Summary
The Red Heather Trail was a good long weekend trip that can be done any time between June and October. The trail is quite mellow if you go from south to north. I would definitely recommend this trail either as a thru-hike or as an out-and-back hike to Nicomen Lake, and would love to try this during wildflower season some time in the future.
Have you done the Red Heather trail before?
