Home»All Photographs»2014 Hikes»Loomis Lake 10-18-14

Today was more of a mountain bike ride than a hike - 16 km of biking and 9 km of hiking.
The day started off with a ford of the Highwood River, followed by some bushwacking to find the Loomis Lake Trail...the area has been "re-designed" by the 2013 floods.
Once on the trail, there are 6 more unbridged stream crossings (fords), for a total of 14 all day! This would be annoying/time consuming to de-boot if hiking, but with bike shoes, you just plow through and keep riding (and hope your feet warm up).
Once we reached a field that is the site of an old sawmill, we ditched our bikes (see Claytons fancy bike rack) and changed into boots for the steep hike to Loomis Lake.
A dusting of snow greeted us as we gained elevation, and before long we were on the windy shores of Loomis Lake. From there, we traversed a talus slope to a col overlooking Little Loomis Lake. From the col, we route-found our way down through forest to the trail and back to our bikes.
I parted ways with Clayton here for an extra speedy descent as I had plans back in Calgary for the evening. Although I had to cross the seven streams again, the ride out was exhilarating - an hour of rooty, muddy technical trail mixed with fast, grassy doubletrack sections. Going fast, focused on the trail and my handling, it reminded me of my old mountain bike racing days in Newfoundland. What a rush!