Tag Archives: buntzen lake

Old Signs

April 22, 2014Buntzen Lake Blogbuntzen lake, hike, nature, signsadmin

During your visit to Buntzen Lake, you’ll notice several old signs around the area. The signs are wood, with yellow lettering (Except for the first example below, which has more colours). Below is the sign at the entrance to the park…

By the way, follow this link to see what the entrance sign looked like in 1995.

Some of the signs are in low traffic areas and many people never seen them, such as these two signs near the Swan Falls trailhead…

Here are two signs, you’ll see by the parking lot…

At south beach, you’ll see this sign…

Even the Warden’s office has a little sign…

There are a few ‘Viewpoint’ signs around on the trails. Here is one that is located on the east side of the Buntzen Lake trail…

Here are two old Lakeview Trail signs…

The next two photos are on the west side of the Buntzen Lake Trail. I’m not sure what help these signs are. There are no really alternate ways to go !!

Here is a tiny equestrian sign on pumphouse road…

And below is a sign that has seen better days !!

Be Bear Aware

April 15, 2014Buntzen Lake Blogbear, buntzen lake, Diez Vistas, hike, nature, scenicadmin

I took this photo of a Salmonberry Flower at Buntzen Lake. Salmonberries are seen throughout the Buntzen Lake area, more so in sunny locations where the sun can reach the ground surface. In May, these flowers will turn into fruit and bears will be looking for a nice meal ! Bears will also get great meals from blackberries, blueberries and huckleberries to name a few.

I’ve hiked the Buntzen Lake area for a number of years, completing hundreds of hikes and have seen a bear only once, which was on the Old Buntzen Lake Trail right HERE in July 2013. The bear was not concerned with me and was content with the salmonberries or blackberries.

The thing with bears, is that you don’t want to startle them – usually if they know you’re coming, they’ll stay away. Usually they can hear the sound of your walking, but not always. If I’m alone and in a low traffic area, I will make noise by banging two rocks together or anything that I can find.

I also met two different bears on a walk on the Deboville Slough in Northeast Coquitlam in the Summer of 2013. They were so happy with the blueberries and the blackberries, they could care less about me. They also didn’t have cubs !

Here’s are photos of the bears at Deboville Slough in August 2013…

Here is a great resource if you want more info on bears… www.bearsmart.com

Swan Falls

April 13, 2014Buntzen Lake HikesApril 2014, buntzen lake, hike, scenic, snow, Swan Fallsadmin

Today, I ventured up on Eagle Mountain for the first time. Specifically, I went up the Swan Falls trail. I knew the possibility of snow at high elevations was likely, so the plan was to go up as far as I can and turn around when the snow makes trekking difficult. Unfortunately, the cell phone could not get a GPS signal, so I couldn’t determine the elevation at the turn-around point, but I’d guess it to be 800 or 900 m. Below is my route for today…

Today was an amazing April day. It was sunny with a high close to 20C. However, on the ascent, it was cool (still shaded) and there was breeze, but it was all good. I would say the highlight was the view from the Falls, which are at about 300-350m elevation. Below is a view from the falls looking west, towards Buntzen Lake…

Just before reaching the falls, there is a 45 degree incline, where there is a rope to assist you; see below…

Here is a view on the falls…

And here is another scenic view…

Below is a random trail picture…

Next is our traverse through the Lower Gully…

And here is our traverse through the Upper Gully 30 mins after the Lower Gully…

Next is a photo near where we turned around. The snow was getting quite deep…

At the trailhead, on the service road, you can see the falls and the creek, which drains into McCombe Lake…

Below is a view of Swan Falls from across McCombe Lake and the next one is when the falls were frozen in early February 2014…

Here is the sign at the trailhead, with a warning…

Interesting Nature

April 11, 2014Buntzen Lake Blogbuntzen lake, Diez Vistas, hike, nature, scenicadmin

Over the years, while hiking the trails around Buntzen Lake, I have seen some interesting things out there. For example, in the photo below, this tree is seriously leaking ! The sap is leaking from high up and it is about an inch thick on the ground and spreads downhill for about 2 m. This tree is on the west side of the Buntzen Lake Trail.

The next photo is on the east side of Buntzen Lake; it is a burned out tree with a spiral shape. Pretty cool huh ?

As I wrote in another post, there are numerous old tree stumps around Buntzen Lake – remnants of logging in the early 1900s. The large stumps below are on the south beach of Buntzen Lake. Obviously new trees grew on the old stumps. The new trees were later cut down and the roots can be seen around the original stump ! I wonder how many people have climbed up these stumps on stumps !

One time during a walk on the Lakeview Trail, I noticed damage about 10 feet up on a tree – it looked like someone took a hacksaw to it ! On my next visit, I was surprised to see a woodpecker doing a number on the tree. Since the first time, the woodpecker had started on second section.

One day, I hiked the Buntzen Lake Trail after a heavy rainfall, and I found this neat little ‘droplet waterfall on a mossy rock’. Check out the video and turn up the volume…

Here’s a branch on a tree that decided to do a loopy loop…

The next photo below shows a tree with an interesting formation – possibly the result of some kind of trauma as a young tree ?? This tree is on the Diez Vistas Trail…

Below is a stubborn tree that decided it will grow in this place regardless of the big rock !!

On the shortcut from the Diez Vistas Trail to the Lakeview Trail, I noticed this interesting pattern on tree roots…

Buntzen Lake Tunnel

April 1, 2014Buntzen Lake Blogbuntzen lake, construction, hike, scenic, tunneladmin

Apart from the nature, this is one of the most interesting things to see at Buntzen Lake. Can you imagine, boring a 3.6 km tunnel through a mountain! The tunnel starts at Coquitlam Lake, goes to under Eagle Mountain to a maximum depth of 1.2 km and terminates into the north end of Buntzen Lake. Construction started in January 1903 and was completed in April 1905. The error in alignment was only 7/8 inch and 1.75 inches in grade. The tunnel project also involved raising the level of the dam on Coquitlam Lake.

UPDATE: 8 JULY 2015:

As the region’s reservoir’s are depleting fast, Metro Vancouver has asked BC Hydro to set aside 68.2 billion litres of water and has budgeted $862,000. This means no or very low flow through the tunnel into Buntzen Lake in the summer of 2015.

The photo below shows a heavy flow through the tunnel…

The contractor, Rannie & Campbell, employed over 175 men and sometimes up to 300 ! They worked 8-hour shifts, days nights and holidays. Interesting note: the tunnel was subsequently doubled in size. The photo below shows the tunnel at the base of Eagle Mountain to show perspective…

Many workers were killed during the construction of the tunnel and BC Hydro has set up a memorial by the tunnel…

The maximum flow rate through the tunnel is 40 m³/s. Sometimes the flow is very slow in the tunnel, such as in the photo below…

The current can be strong and unpredictable – this is why there are many warning signs as seen below…

Water from Buntzen Lake (via the tunnel) flows through penstocks down the steep mountain slope to two power plants located on Indian Arm. During construction of the tunnel, there was a tunnel camp set up on the site of the present north beach. The tunnel camp had dwellings and a blacksmith shop. See the tunnel camp below…

See a short video below of a torrent of water flowing out of the tunnel…

Here’s a photo taken from the trail just above the tunnel…

Here’s a view inside the tunnel from an explorer.
WARNING: Do not try this. It is illegal and very dangerous as a torrent of water can be released at any time!