ICEBERG LAKE
15 km | 1,000 m OR 22 km | 1,375 m
This has been on our bucket list for a long time, but with all the bear activity in this area, we’ve been a bit hesitant in venturing up there. So glad we did because the rewards were definitely worth the tired legs at the end of the day.
The lake is located just under the Rainbow Mountain Glacier. In early summer it is know for its bright blue colour and floating icebergs and mid summer the alpine meadow around the lake is filled with wildflowers. Sadly we missed both as we hiked it in late August, so a redo is in order next summer.
The hike begins in Alpine Meadows and the path up follows the 19 Mile Creek. Our plan was to hike it as an out and back to make it quick, but once we got up there we decided to keep going and do the full loop. So glad we did because the climb from the Lake up Rainbow Mountain was our favourite part of the trail.
Screaming Cat Lake isn’t anything exciting, so next time we go we will head up on “Lower 19 Mile Creek”, which is the main trail that leads up to Iceberg Lake. Instead of continuing on “Upper 19 Mile Creek” we will take “Kevin’s Home Run” up to the right, which is a shortcut that connects to the Screaming Cat trail (found on Trailforks but not Alltrails). By doing the loop backwards we will have the views of the Glacier in front of us instead of behind us before descending onto the Lake below.
