Mule deer browse the lower elevations. Mountain goats pick their way across scree slopes with impossible confidence. Bighorn sheep have been spotted on the ridgelines, and marmots whistle warnings from their boulder perches. What you won't find, surprisingly for British Columbia, are many bears. The upper reaches of the park simply don't produce enough food to support them - too rocky, too exposed, too far above the berry bushes and salmon streams that sustain ursine populations elsewhere. This isn't to say bears are absent; they roam the lower forests and the Ashnola corridor. But in the alpine core where most hikers spend their time, the wildlife wears hooves rather than claws. The short growing season limits vegetation to what can bloom between July and August, carpeting meadows briefly before winter reasserts its claim.

Everything in Cathedral Park's core revolves around Quiniscoe Lake. The main campground clusters near its shores. The Cathedral Lakes Lodge - the only commercial accommodation in the park - sits above the water with views across to the Rim. Every trail radiates from here: the scramble to the Cathedral Rim viewpoint, the gentler walk to Ladyslipper Lake (considered the best for fishing), the various loops through alpine meadows that make this terrain so prized. Distances are manageable for day hikes, but the elevation and exposure can deceive. Weather changes rapidly at these altitudes - snow is possible any month of the year - and the nearest medical help is an hour away by four-wheel drive, then another hour to whatever town has an emergency room.

The Cathedral Lakes Lodge operates the only shuttle service into the park's core, a monopoly that generates both gratitude and resentment. Gratitude because the alternative is a demanding hike that filters out many visitors; resentment because the pricing creates a two-tier system where those with deeper pockets can reserve their energy for the trails rather than spending it on approach. The shuttle runs from the Lodge's base camp, twenty-two kilometers down the Ashnola Forest Service Road, and requires advance booking. Space is limited, particularly on summer weekends. The hike-in option remains free, of course, and some visitors prefer it on principle - arriving at Quiniscoe Lake under your own power carries a satisfaction that no shuttle can replicate.

Cathedral Park sits in a web of wilderness. Manning Provincial Park lies an hour west along Highway 3, offering similar alpine terrain with considerably more infrastructure. The Okanagan Valley stretches northeast, its vineyards and beaches a world away from Cathedral's austere peaks. The Similkameen region surrounds the park with its own network of trails and forest roads, though none quite match Cathedral's concentrated alpine splendor. For through-hikers, the park connects to longer routes traversing the southern BC backcountry. For most visitors, though, Cathedral is destination enough - a place to spend three days or four, walking the trails between lakes, watching weather roll across the Rim, fishing for trout in waters cold enough to numb your fingers through the line.