Hawk Creek/Ball Pass & Kootenay Park Lodge

After our Stanley Glacier hike we checked in at the Kootenay Park Lodge. It's in a perfect central location for the long, narrow Kootenay Park; to drive to hikes in the middle of the park from either the north end (Castle Junction) or south (Radium Hot Springs) would be tedious and time-consuming. The complex has an information center/general store, a restaurant, and individual cabins that, although they are kept up, predate WWII. (I could not stand entirely upright in the shower, being 6' 3".) The owner is in the process of obtaining permits for and building modern cabins, but the bureaucracy of Parks Canada can be slow, and financing is difficult. At the information center you can read about the 2003 forest fires that came within 100 yards of the lodge.

The next day we tackled the 12½ mile round-trip to Ball Pass via Hawk Creek. Our guidebook warned that the trail might be less than interesting because of the 2003 fires, but we found it intriguing. New pines were already up as tall as 6' or 7', and with the abundance of sunshine, wildflowers were everywhere. At dinner that night we hauled out the flower book and counted at least 72 varieties of wildflowers, including orchids, that we saw on the trail.

 

We stopped a lot for botanical inspection.

Roughly halfway up the evidence of the 2003 fire petered out. There were a few steep stretches in the second half, but our anticipation (having read the description) was worse than the reality. We were accustomed to finding a pass to be short; that is, as soon as you stop going up you take two steps and then you're going down. Ball Pass has a lovely meadow with peaks on either side. Here's the meadow looking back:

Here's a zoom-in on a glacier hanging on one peak. We saw two small avalanches off this glacier while we ate lunch. 

Here is the vista from our lunch spot, looking east towards Shadow Lake and beyond.