CR2012: Elbow Lake and Rae Lake

Today, our next-to-last day in the Canadian Rockies for 2012, we hiked to Rae Lake. When driving south from the Delta Lodge, the parking area for this hike, on Highway 40, is just  a couple of miles short of  Highwood Pass. Here is another photo of a Gem Trek map showing the total extent of our journey today.

Elbow Lake is soon encountered after a steep hike up to the lip of the valley. Many people don't bother to go any further. With an extensive campground, Elbow Lake is also a popular family destination. As you reach the lake, the trail splits.

All the campground stuff is to the right; as through hikers, we'll stay left.

Elbow Lake is in a fabulous setting, wooded with mountains high on either side.

At this point the trail is wide, as it is wherever the route is marked in red on the map at top.

After it has passed Elbow Lake, the Big Elbow trail becomes a road.

You also change jurisdictions, from the Peter Lougheed Provincial Park to Alberta Wildland Park.

To someone from thousands of miles away such as me, the meaning of this isn't clear until you look at the signs as you come the other way, re-entering the Provincial Park.

So, in the Wildland Park, motorized vehicles and loaded and uncased firearms are OK. There is a much lower level of wilderness protection in this new jurisdiction.

For a while the road stays in the woods, shaded in the morning by Mount Rae.

Then it breaks into the open, giving us a spectacular view of Tombstone Mountain and, to the left of it, the beginnings of the Piper Creek valley.

We turn another corner, and receive a partial eclipse of the sun by Mount Rae; or, if you prefer, the emergence of the sun from Mount Rae.

Further on I must stop and compose this panorama with Elpoca Mountain on the left, the Piper Creek valley center, and Tombstone Mountain on the right.

Eventually the Big Elbow trail (dashed red line in the map at top) crosses an unnamed, black-dash trail. At this point we leave the road, taking the black-dash trail to the right. This is a trail, not a road.

The trail winds its way up,

until you come to the fork. The guidebook had us studying the terrain to make certain we didn't miss the fork, but it was easy to see. This split is visible in the map at top. We take the right fork to climb to Rae Lake, but we'll traverse the left fork on our return.

A few minutes later we passed this skeleton of dead brush, which looked almost like it had been a topiary of a sea turtle.

The trail wound uphill through open stretches and wooded stretches. A couple of gullies needed to be crossed by gingerly climbing down and clambering back up (not far). Interestingly, I spotted horseshoe tracks, even on this very narrow trail with tree limbs brushing both my sides; I doubt the horse enjoyed it. Finally we reached the high rocky platform beyond which the trail is, according to the guidebook, easier to follow. (We're almost to Rae Lake, but it is still hidden.)

We defied the expectations of the guidebook by losing the trail at this point. We knew we were headed in the right direction, but it wasn't until we reached further around the promontory that we could see the trail below us. The lesson is to go against instinct and drift downhill after the platform. In the next photo we're drawing near to Rae Lake itself.

Rae Lake is nestled between two arms of the high ridgeline; you don't see it until you are close, and much of the wind is cut off. Today the lack of a breeze was a problem, because this was the first year in ten years of our visiting the Canadian Rockies that insects were plentiful enough to be an issue. We admired Rae Lake from the shoreline, but could not find a space to eat lunch without also being lunch.

Near the shoreline is a trampled ground where visitors have tethered horses and built fire rings, one side effect I suspect of being in a Wildland Park.

A creek exits from Rae Lake at the left-hand shore of the above photo. The trail continues on the left bank of the creek, starting a few feet above it and then higher and higher as the creek, descending more rapidly, cuts a deeper and deeper gorge.

It was along this trail that the past horse traffic was most obvious and most distressing. The trail is being torn up in various ways, including deep gouges between tree roots, and in steep sections the trail is gradually falling into the creek. This trail wasn't built for horse traffic, but in the anything-goes Alberta Wildland Parks, that doesn't matter.

After about a mile the trail rejoins the valley road.

Joan took a photo of your blogger here.

Fortunately there is another black-dash trail that leaves the road after ¾ of a mile. This cuts off a loop of rock road tramping.

In fact, this trail is the left fork not taken on our ascent to the lake.

Upon rejoining the road we found the wind unopposed and blustery, almost howling, but it didn't rain. We stopped at one point to split a chocolate bar, very welcome. As we drew closer to Elbow Lake the wind returned to normal.

Here is a vista of Elbow Lake taken during the return. Overlapping multiple photos cleanly is nigh impossible when there are waves on the water and cloud shadows drifting across the land, but you get the idea.

Towards the end of the lake, just before we started down to the parking area, I took this picture to show the campground area in full sunlight on the far side of the lake (click to enlarge). No wonder it is so popular!

We greatly enjoyed our hike to Rae Lake; it was a tonic after the discouraging slog yesterday. Joan and I feel it would be fun to revisit Rae Lake in some future year without the bugs, and spend more time there. We'll have our fingers crossed hoping that horses haven't destroyed the trail.