Heaven is a little place on earth called Princess Louisa Inlet and Chatterbox Falls. After years of dreaming of cruising to Princess Louisa Inlet and hearing stories from other boaters of how beautiful this unique anchorage is, it is really hard to describe a place that just takes your breath away!

Arriving to the entrance of Malibu Rapids at the ebb slack so that we could safely transit between the small islands and rocky shore we could start to see the immense mountains that extend up to 3000 feet high! Once through the rapids we cruised about 4 miles to Chatterbox Falls. All the way in we were in complete awe of this beautiful place.

Cascading waterfalls and granite walls so steep and so high it is barely believable. Looking up to the very top of the mountains reminds one of how tiny we really are in this big beautiful world. Since depths in the bay can range between 500-1000 ft. deep, we had to stern anchor to shore. Luckily a very nice couple in a dinghy helped us stern anchor and our buddy boat rafted off our starboard side. We later learned that the good samaritans were friends of our friends from the Tacoma Power Squadron.

We spent 4 glorious days exploring the area, hiking and swimming. Daily we would take our dinghy’s and cruise alongside the granite walls getting up close to the smaller waterfalls and perusing the interesting rock formations. We would hike McDonald Island, (named after the man that built trappers cabin) and Ming’s trail with the dogs. Ming, as it turns out, is the park ranger that has worked at Princess Louisa for over 20 years. She cleared and created the trail and currently maintains it so that boaters visiting the island can enjoy an easy 1 kilometer walk.

Feeling more ambitious one day we decided to hike to the Trappers Cabin. We met Ming as we started out and her exact words were “if the hike is not for you, its okay, just turn around and come back”. We didn’t really understand the levity of that statement until the first hour of hiking had passed.

This rugged trail over rocks and tree roots was about 2.5 miles with an elevation gain of about 1900 ft. It was well marked and had ropes to help climb steeper areas. We were glad to have left the three dogs on the boat for this one as we would not have been able to get them up some of the steeper areas. On the way up we met a group of hikers fueling up on bagels. They were on a weekend hike up to the very top of the mountain where the snowcap was. They were outfitted with poles and large gear packs. I was glad I was only carrying my iPhone!

When we finally made it to the trappers cabin all that was left were a couple of metal mattress frames and outline of the foundation. It was hard to believe a person would drag mattresses up so high. Just a stones throw from the cabin was a beautiful waterfall and view of the inlet. Although a very tough climb, it was completely worth the effort.

On our way back down, we met up with the group of hikers again. Several were in an anaerobic state, breathing so hard they could barely talk. While some seemed to be gung ho and excited, others half jokingly asked if they could go back to our boat with us. Again, I just couldn’t imagine hiking and carrying packs and all that gear up the side of a very steep mountain. Going down, while not as hard as going up was still challenging and towards the very end we got ourselves a little lost and ended up doing circles before figuring out the trail. All in all we ended up hiking 3.5 miles over 4.5 hours.

In summary, Princess Louisa Inlet exceeded our expectations in every way. We will definitely return to this awe inspiring, beautiful little piece of heaven. I’m not sure we will hike to the trapper’s cabin again but one never knows!