A few weeks ago I was back on the trail to Floe Lake in Kootenay NP. Two months before I had done the same hike with friends, everything was still green and we must have seen several different types of wild berries. With all the berries, we were surprised there were no bear signs. But at least one bear had visited the trail after that summer hike. I saw along the trail old bear scat, it was a good size. With our fast moving seasons, the experience is always different when hiking the same trail more than once. Even more so when two months separated the hikes. In October lot more fall colours and I could see the rock wall covered with snow. A Few hours later I was going up the fun switchbacks, I was happy I had brought my ice cleats, they were needed on the way down.
Got to the lake, I had it all to myself. I explored looking for a place to take pictures from. The wind had picked up and I was not liking the ripples in the water. So with everything above the lake covered with snow, I thought this was a great opportunity to get a picture from higher up with the snow on the ground and the fall colours coming from the larches. With an ankle deep snow and even more in the gullies, it took some effort to get above the tree line. I was tired, but it was a great hike through the larches, seeing fresh snowshoe hare tracks and even fresher track belonging to a lynx. I got some good pics once above the tree line, but then I thought let’s see what it looks like on Numa Pass. It was beautiful there as I was trying to figure out if the day before six goats had gone over the pass, their tracks were still visible in the wind blown snow. In the end the best picture of the adventure was returning from Numa Pass, just above the tree line with blue sky and our favorite star shining middle of the day.
