After hiking up 1,584 feet in just over 3 miles we arrived at the Bald Hills fire lookout - a great place to take a rest and enjoy the astonishing views of surrounding mountains and valleys. There is no actual building here, but it was the site of a lookout in former days. Here we are looking across the valley to the Opal Hills - the broad slash of snow with perpendicular parallel lines.
From the lookout, a tiny piece of Maligne Lake and...
a continuation of the picture above, more of the lake and surrounding mountains.
After climbing another 500 feet in 1.5 miles we reached the highest viewpoint where we stopped for lunch.
Our lunch view over meadows where a caribou herd is sometimes seen and on to Maligne Lake.
A good view of the glacier on Maligne Mountain.
In the opposite direction, to the west, the Maligne Range looms.
Looking south over some rocks on top of our lunch viewpoint.
Looking north to the Queen Elizabeth Range. You can also see the trail we used to cross the upper meadow to climb to our lunch viewpoint.
Climbing down the other end of the ridge, we looked back to see the route we took along the top of the ridge and our lunch spot viewpoint in the upper right.
Down in the meadow looking back at the viewpoint.
The meadow is where we found these lovely White Pasqueflowers.
We didn't see any caribou in the meadow but we did get another good view of Maligne Glacier.
More petit alpine wildflowers - Western Moss Heather. The hiking pole is there for scale.
Red-tipped sepals add a touch of color to each minute, bell-shaped, snow-white flower.
Today's hike:
Length - 9.28 miles
Duration - 4 hours, 31 minutes (including lunch)
Elevation gain - 2,360 feet (239 floors on the Fitbit)
No comments:
Post a Comment