What an awesome hike. We hit the trail with Sue M. leading the way. She set a fast pace as she was remembering last years sun beating down on them. Fortunately we had a lovely breeze the entire hike with Mary very accurately predicting our arrival times.
The bear grass was spectacular and we felt like we were walking down a decorated aisle not a hiking trail! God is an awesome gardener!
Susan W. had decided to join us instead of going to Iceberg Lake and she just laughed with joy all the way up and back. This was Chrissie's first attempt and the other 3 kept reminding her of how miserable they had been in the heat last year. Susan was so glad she decided to try this hike again.
On the back side of the tunnel we were afforded a spectacular view of Elizabeth Lake and Old Sun Glacier, not to mention the layers of curved and severed rock formations in the mountain we had just come through!
You would think that would be enough to take in for a hike but as we came down we bumped into a teenage male moose (his mini-rack kind of gave us an idea). He just ignored us as the vittles were much more interesting! We could literally hear his teeth crunching we were so close! Just beyond the pit toilet we bumped into the rest of our crew that had gone to Iceberg Lake. We were excited to be going out together...but our excitement was interrupted by a bear sighting! Some 50 feet above the trail a 'tawny brown colored' bear was sitting on his haunches enjoying the view and 'posing' for our cameras. After a few minutes he sauntered off into the bushes. The ranger said he was a tawny black bear, but there was discussion that it could have been a grizzly. It did have a hump, just saying!
We hadn't been 5 minutes further down the trail when someone said, "there's a moose". This guy was big and had a rack to brag about. Fortunately, he was quite a ways down the mountain side and also more interested in eating. He did look our way a few times as if to say, "What are you guys looking at?" I could see him clearly in the binoculars but my wimpy telephoto lens did allow me to get a few pictures. Despite the animal distracting delays we made it back by 5!
We finished our day with a great meal at Swift Current Inn.
RSS Feed