Happy Birthday at Lillian Lake

This past weekend was the second annual birthday hike. To be honest, I didn’t even know there was going to be an annual birthday hike! Last year, I coordinated a Nihahi Ridge hike to celebrate a few birthdays- mine, Robin’s, Shari’s and Laura’s. Thanks to Robin this year for his last minute planning and for rounding up the troops! It ended up being quite a success.

The hike of choice was Lillian and Galatea Lakes Trail, about 30 km south on Highway 40. As with all hikes in the Rockies, it was beautiful. There are many bridges that cross Galatea creek along the way before reaching Lillian Lake. Due to time, we opted not to proceed to Galatea Lake, and instead stopped at Lillian Lake to feast. You see, we eat like royalty on these birthday hikes! Thanks to everyone’s contributions, we had bread, cheese, back bacon and turkey, malbec wine, grapes and cherries, pepperoni sticks, veggies and dip, and of course, birthday cake. There was definitely enough food to go around! We ran into a snag when we forgot a wine opener, but thankfully we were able to use a knife to push the cork into the bottle, and then thanks to Robbie, we used a celery stick as a spout to keep the wine flowing. Genius!

Robin also decided to bring an inflatable raft for the lake. Why had I never thought of this before for any of my other hikes?! It’s quite tranquil to sit on a raft in the middle of a glacial lake. Such a great idea :)

All in all, the hike was about 5.5 km each way and took about 6 hours (10 am – 4 pm). It didn’t involve anything too strenuous or a scramble at the top, but it was a very enjoyable afternoon with good friends, great conversation, awesome food, and lots of merriment. Happy Birthday everyone, and cheers to another great year!