Hike to Alouette Lake viewpoint trail
So this was considered a moderately hard hike, but just 2.6 miles. The elevation gain was 787 feet. It was supposed to take about 2 hours there and back. So we managed to find the parking area for it, no problem. Then we have all kinds of warning signs – that we are in bear country, that you should be carrying all kinds of safety items with you (all of the stuff we had (water, hats, decent shoes, cell phones and extra chargers, raincoats, food, satellite phone access,) plus a whole lot of things we didn’t have: bear spray, first aid kit, flashlights, whistles and reflective thingies, lighters, swiss army knife, compass, tents, insulated emergency blankets.) We felt quite unprepared! 
They also have lots of signs that you should tell someone where you are heading… I took a photo of the map board, because often you can’t track your hikes online since you are out of cell service area. The trail on the map is all zigzaggy, so you know you are climbing steep slopes!
As soon as we turned off the main trail, it looked lie we were just following a deer path through the woods!
I walked through spider webs 4 times! So not exactly a busy trail. But we did meet a surprised hiker on our way down, so yes people are still using this route. We went up and up and up, crossed a little stream once or twice, had the trail turn into a stream in one area, actually were making use of the trail markers to make sure we stayed on the path! This one was definitely not for anyone afraid of heights – much of the upper trail was just a drop off on one side, and a slope upwards on the other side.
The trail was very rough, more exposed tree routes and rocks than anything else. So a good portion of the time you were walking with your head down to watch every step. Then we would stop to look around and take photos. By the time we made it maybe 80% of the way up, we had reached the area where we had to cross the big creek, and it was maybe 8 feet below the trail, and then you would be trying to make it from rock to rock or tree trunk and then climb back up the other side.
NOPE. That was it for me – time to turn around. Going down was much easier than coming up. And we took a little driving detour over to the Alouette Lake campgrounds and saw the lake from there. Kind of. Our elevation at the edge of the campground was waaayyyyy higher than the lake – you can just see bits of the lake between all the gigantic trees! I hope the campers along these sites didn't have to pay a big upcharge for being "lakefront."
