SCT Day 9: Golden Stanley to Fairview Bay

Hiked September 5, 2025

Quick Overview

Our alarm was set for an early wakeup at 5:45AM in preparation for the long day ahead; we hit the trail by 7:30 after a big breakfast. The trail struck upwards away from Lois Lake, climbing alongside Stanley Creek as we wound our way up the hillside. The fast-moving creek had created a really cool gorge in the rock higher up.

As we climbed, the trail joined with a network of downhill moutain biking tracks, many of which included some pretty gnarly looking jumps and built-up features. The SCT followed the up-tracks of the mountain bike trails, but we had to get a closer look at some of the wooden terrain features. Some of the jumps looked like they had been used recently.

Higher up we eventually cleared the mountain bike area and started following a long abandoned road upwards towards Elephant Lake. For a long period the road maintained a smooth steady grade, which made for easy hiking! But like all good things the road had to end, and we soon found ourselves on steep switchbacks again, toiling up the mountain.

We expected to see some views, but a huge amount of smoke had blown in from local (ish) fires. Sadly we weren't able to take advantage of any westward lookouts towards Walt Hill where we had been recently. The smoke also made the sun super orange all day, which gave everything a very "golden hour-y" light and was really weird.

Eventually we broke out onto a more active road, right before the parking area for Elephant Lake. Nobody was there, and we continued down the trail into the area as that road ended.

According to the SCT Official Map there is a camping area by Elephant Lake, but we didn't see it nor any signs. The only flat spot suitable for tenting that we spotted was a mudflat right next to the lake, which would be prone to flooding, and we never saw an outhouse or picnic table. The lake didn't look great for swimming either, with a soft muddy bottom and what looked to us like possibly blue-green algae blooms, so we stopped for a quick snack by the shore and carried on.

Just past the lake, we reached a junction with the old and new SCT trails. The old trail is no longer maintained, and looked like it had been pretty reclaimed by the forest. Both sections still exist on the official SCT maps, but signage makes it very clear that they want hikers on the southern section of trail, ascending the southwest side of Mount Troubridge. We later found the other end of this abandoned trail section, and it looked really unused and overgrown as well.

We descended a bit away from Elephant Lake, and then began switchbacking hard up the mountain on the southwest side. Our efforts were soon rewarded – after just over an hour we arrived at the hut junction. We opted to take the short detour to visit the hut and have lunch there.

The hut was quite nicee – a fully winterized log cabin – and the picnic table outside was a great spot for a break with most of the day's climbing now completed. While at the hut, we visited the local water source (Jocelyn Pond) which was really serene on this calm day. There is a dock to help hikers draw cleaner water and swimmers stay out of the shoreline muck. We were the first group to sign the hut's brand new logbook (not including the signatures of the QPAWS volunteers who signed it when they dropped it off the day before).

After lunch we carried on for the summit, now only a short hike away. There were a few viewpoints as we climbed, but it had gotten crazy smoky today so we couldn't really see anything.

We took a couple of photos at the summit and then continued on to the Emergency Shelter, less than 100m from the summit itself. A group of volunteers (the ones who'd dropped off and signed the new Troubridge logbook) were there renovating the shelter. Improvements to the Troubridge Emergency Shelter included building a sleeping area below the main part of the hut. The crew had literally finished their work maybe 20 minutes before we arrived, so we were the first hikers to get a look!

We took a pause to chat with the trail volunteers, and they offered us water and fresh local plums. They were able to answer some of our questions about the trail, and clarify the new versus old trail signs with distance estimates – the newer signs all feature an orange reflective marker with N or S, and have much more accurate distances. They confirmed our suspicions that some kilometers on the trail truly are longer than others! Due to detours and the ever-changing nature of the trail, it would just take too much work to re-start the distance markers from one end of the trail... so, yes, some kilometers are longer. We also shared with them approximate locations of some blown-down logs, and the over-grown condition of the Outside Route section after Elk Lake.

It's easy to forget while hiking just how much work goes into maintaining a long trail like the SCT, and volunteers really do make the magic happen. They are the only reason that a trail like this can be offered to users at zero cost for trail fees. Thank you QPAWS!!!

From that point, we started our trip down. With over 1200m of elevation to lose in less than 10km, our knees really felt the descent. Similar to other sections, the trail descended sharply, often foregoing switchbacks for runs straight down the slope. Luckily our packs were light, but this was one of our least favorite sections of the trail... We got just as sweaty on the descent as we had on the climb, thankful for some support from our hiking poles, but having to work hard nonetheless.

After what felt like forever, we finally found a lovely respite at Rainy Day Lake! Agreeing on a quick stop to resupply water and have a swim, we took the quick detour down to the lake. The hut was really pretty, perched up on a bluff above the lake. It was also BUSY, with a group of three staying overnight and another group of three packing up to head to Fairview Bay.

After taking a quick peek at the hut we continued down to the lakeshore, purified water, and took a swim. It was really refreshing and we definitely understood why the spot was so popular! Putting our sweaty hiking clothes back on sucked, but we still felt way better than before as we hit the trail again loaded with water for the evening.

The trail to Fairview Bay continued the downward slog. We crashed quickly all the way down to sea level, and then followed a relatively flat old road for the final kilometers to the cabin. We arrived around 5PM. Taking off our boots was just about the best feeling in the world!

We saw that we would be sharing the hut with three other hikers who had gotten down from Rainy Day Lake just ahead of us, and thought that more might show up on a Friday night, so we promptly claimed some space in the sleeping loft before getting dinner rolling. While we sat cooking, we chatted with the group of ladies and learned that they hadn't brought water from Rainy Day Lake... It took them well over an hour to find a running stream with enough water to fill their bags.

After dinner it was salty dip time!! It was really nice to swim twice in one day. The ocean was cold but super refreshing, and it was really nice to put on somewhat clean clothes afterwards this time.

We spent the evening chatting with the other hikers, making tea, and playing a game of crib. The evening passed swiftly, and we were soon getting ready to head to bed until one of the hikers down by the beach called "I heard a whale!" We all went down, and squinted out through the failing light for the cetaceans. I thought I saw them at one point, but wasn't quite sure. We could certainly hear them though; it sounded like a pod of breaths every few minutes.

As the light faded we retreated from the beach and settled in for our final night on the SCT. It's been quite the journey, and with less than 10km to go it almost feels over already. But we're both excited for the final (and only) day of actual coastal hiking tomorrow as we make our way along the shoreline to Saltery Bay and the southern trail terminus!