Started at Buckley Lake July 4 2019. Our initial plan was to spend 8 days on the plateau, eventually reaching Coffee Crater (possibly as a day hike from the last camp) and return to Buckley Lake (we wanted an easy trip, and were aware of Mowdade's reputation for mud, beaver ponds, bushwhacking and mosquitoes, all of which proved true). However, a couple days before our scheduled departure the air was smoky, and a BC forest fires website listed a new fire that had broken out just 7km north of Buckley Lake (a holdover from the big Telegraph Creek fire from 2018). We discussed the situation with an Alpine Lakes Air pilot, and decided that flying into Buckley on July 4 was definitely safe (as the fire was barely visible and still far), but that hiking the standard traverse to Mowdade rather than returning to Buckley would be less risky. We also learned that the standard recommendation to be ready to wait up to 3 days for pickup if the weather is bad applies much more to Buckley than Mowdade Lake, as Mowdade is much closer to the floatplane base with smaller mountains in-between, and so the pilots are better able to do pickups from Mowdade than Buckley in bad weather. The pilot also advised us that we would see more if we complete the traverse, and it was true – our day 6 (crossing into Chakima Creek valley) had the best scenery, and we would not have reached that place had we returned to Buckley. Thus, we changed the plan, and departed with the intention to arrive at Mowdade Lake 7 days later, on July 10. General notes Creeks are *much* easier to cross in early morning; plan camp spots accordingly. We followed the suggestions from blogs that hikers carry sneakers for creek crossing, neoprene socks, bug nets, and binoculars. All proved essential. A compass and good maps are essential. We used two kinds of maps: old (SURVEYS AND MAPPING BRANCH, BRITISH COLUMBIA, 1951, 1:50,000) and new ( Hesperus Arts, http://hesperus- wild.org/GIS_carto/edziza.html ). The older maps enabled us to easily compare our location to those of distant landscape features for routefinding, while the stack of smaller Hesperus Arts maps showed finer elevation detail and used UTM coordinates which our GPS unit also supported; most importantly, these maps had the route approximately marked (though we were disappointed that it was indeed only approximate). We did not find much correlation between the width of creeks as shown on the map and the widths or depths encountered. Water: the major creeks are full of silt which passes easily through coffee filters we tried to use for pre-filtering, and clogged up our filter cartridges (we used Katadyn Hiker Pro). We were mostly able to find small creeks to pump water from, but we were glad that we carried 2 filters, as the first one did get clogged beyond help by day 6. Mosquitos: We used our bug nets rarely during most of the hike, mostly when pumping water through our filters. We used them continuously once we reached the horse camp on Day 6. Mosquito concentrations vary throughout the season and are hard to predict, so others' experiences will probably be different. The section from Koosick Bluff to the start of Chakima Creek is much more interesting and scenic than the first 3 days, but also much slower-going. We wished we had done the beginning more efficiently to have more time/energy to spend on this second part of the hike and maybe do some side trips. If planning to return to Buckley Lake, one needs to think of how to schedule the hike to be able to do all the major creek crossings early in the day. Day 1 The trail starts at Buckley Lake camp and goes through pleasant forest, ascending gradually. Important: the last water for a long while is below treeline at the hunter's camp (UTM 0401996, 6416867). Next water we found was a tiny pool between Sidas and Eve cones (UTM 0402768, 6411230); we camped close to that spot, and would have camped earlier had we carried more water. There was also a tiny creek about 10 minutes later. Both may already be dried up. The next water is a big creek well after Eve Cone, very likely too far for camp 1 for many hikers. Day 2 Trail disappears at Eve Cone (a faint trail goes to the right towards Eve Cone but it is not the main route). We headed for the dip in the horizon between Edziza and Tsekone Ridge. This was efficient: we were able to avoid climbing into and out of side creek beds. The crossing of the big creek was easy. We saw no cairns and no trail, and one of the challenges was to minimize our impact on the vegetation (it looked like the snow had melted just a couple weeks earlier in that area, and there were many tiny plants just beginning to grow). We finally encountered a cairn in a dip between Tsekone Ridge and the flank of Edziza, just where the natural path would go and also where it would be the most invisible. We camped just before Elwyn Creek because it was too high to cross easily. The skies were still smoky (as we learned later, from the fires in Alaska). Day 3 There was a spectacular thunderstorm at night but it still did not clear out all of the smoke. No trail but infrequent cairns marking a basically straight path across the plateau. Pretty easy level hiking, the only difficulty is hopping from clump to clump to avoid trampling the most delicate vegetation. We camped just before Kadeya Creek. Short day. Day 4 The smoke was even worse than before, even Edziza just to our left was not visible clearly. A this point we could smell it slightly, but the sky right above our heads still appeared blue and breathing was still easy. We started hiking early. We encountered a beautiful, clear creek (UTM 0396704, 6399427) shortly after Kadeya Creek. Stopped hiking at 1:30pm, just before Sezill Creek because it was way too high to cross. We later found a possible-to-cross spot about an hour upstream, but we had set up camp already, so didn't cross there, either. Even further up, we enjoyed a nice view of the glacier and the confluence of the two creeks that comprise Sezill Creek. Note: for efficient hikers, our days 3 and 4 could have been easily combined into one day with a little bit of better planning and an early start on day 3. We were intentionally taking it easy at the time as we needed to catch up on sleep. Day 5 An early start enabled easy crossing of Sezill Creek near our campsite, where it had been impossible the afternoon before. Climbed up Koosick Bluff (steep; look for a cairn on horizon). Plenty of clear water along the way. We occasionally saw faint trail leading to cairns, but our navigation relied on geographic features, maps, and rare cairns. The trail on the bluff was very faint; the route turns left – stay close to the mountain. Suddenly we were hiking on sand, uphill, with visible trail. Cocoa Crater became visible. The trail descended to a creek bed, then we hiked up the creek (following the route on our map), though there were no cairns marking this route. We exited the creek bed and went up to a pass on our right with Cocoa Crater on our right. While resting at the pass, we saw a cairn to our left at a slightly lower altitude. We also saw (with binoculars), two more-distant cairns - one in the wash below and one on a slope beyond the first one. Descending from the pass, we saw and followed a trail on the slope to our left, but it was very soft with steep ups and downs crossing the creases made by snowfields (this was a surprise, from the pass it looked like a smooth slope). Then we saw a trail on the other side of the wash below us and descended to that trail. Following this wash, we reached Taweh creek crossing which was barely manageable at 1pm. From the creek, the trail path was visible ascending on the pumice slope. The trail to the second cairn crossed an ice bridge which we chose to avoid by ascending steep, soft pumice to the right. This was difficult. The next pass revealed a new view towards Coffee Crater. From there, the trail was visible. We camped just before passing Coffee Crater, by a creek, near some overhanging rocks. Day 6 The trail passes with Coffee Crater on the right and descends to a lake of pumice, then ascends on a clear path, emerging to lava beds. It was easier to see the faint path than the cairns that were nearly indistinguishable from lava heaps. One does not have to climb over any piles of lava to stay on trail. The trail turns left just before a large cone that appears to be almost as high as the 2000 m high cone on the left, but marked as only ~1900 m on the Hesperus Arts map. The trail crosses close to the cone on the right, then through red lava, then reaches a wash with abundant obsidian. Our map showed a parting of two routes here. We turned left and headed up the gentle scree slope. We saw a cairn across the wash which we decided represented the other route.