Back to Canada: Big Larches and Odaray Highline

July 16. Joan and I spotted a pair of mergansers on our way to breakfast at Lake O'Hara. (Click on the image to enlarge).

The contrast between the illuminated mountains and shadowed lake was intense.

When we first set out on today's hike our goal was Lake McArthur, starting with the Big Larches trail, a good one for spotting marmots or pikas.

A very short detour allowed us to admire Mary Lake on our way.

The Big Larches trail begins with a stair-step climb adjacent to a large scree field, where we'd often seen pikas before. In this photo, we've come high enough to see both Mary Lake and Lake O'Hara.

The rocks are bigger than they look.

Joan spotted one pika's little rear end as it disappeared into the rocks, but otherwise this section was quiet. After the climb, the trail was more lateral with occasional remnant snow patches.

We passed by the trail to All Souls Prospect and arrived at Schaffer Lake.

From here, we had a choice of paths. Joan and I took the right-hand option, through the "meadow" to the sign-in kiosk for the Odaray Highline trail. Nearing the kiosk, we saw a family of marmots foraging, including a youngster perched atop a huge rock, a boulder, that always seemed marmot-ed.

Although we were headed for McArthur, we were curious how many groups had signed in for Odaray, which has a (voluntary) limit on how many groups per day use the trail -- four at this time of year -- for it is a known grizzly bear route. There was only one group signed in! This called for a change of plans, to take advantage of this opportunity.
 

There were pikas galore on this trail.

How cute can you get?

From a brief stretch of trail the distant Goodsir mountain range was visible to the west.

A cluster of western anemone, with visitors.

We reached the point where the Highline ends,

and the Grandview trail begins its steep, narrow uphill slog to a spectacular viewpoint. Given conflicting reports of how much snow cover lay on that challenging trail, we chose this as our turnaround point.

Joan and I found a good sit-spot for lunch, a few yards up the Grandview trail, with a view of lakes O'Hara and Schaffer, with the All Souls Prospect between them.

Let's zoom in on O'Hara ...

and Schaffer.

Lunch finished, it was time to mosey back. A view along the trail.

I took a photo of this host boulder back in the gap between Odaray and McArthur.

For the sake of variety, we decided to take the other trail down from the gap to Schaffer Lake.

There's a better view that way.

A group hiking up this trail alerted us to mountain goats on the slopes of Mt. Schaffer! This is a critter we don't often spot.

They are in the middle of shedding their winter coats, and look rather ragged. There's a youngster amongst them. Here's another photo of the goats, after they'd moved. Don't forget to click on the image to enlarge.

Pikas, marmots, goats, and views -- what a hike!

 

To add even more to the day, it being a Saturday, after dinner the O'Hara staff put on a show. The cast:

Snapshots of a few of the acts. We had music, dancing, and humor.

A clogger.

The skit of the Three Wise Men. An audience member shouts out a question, and the three wise men must answer by each adding a few words, with suppressed giggles in-between, back and forth until they end up having constructed a rambling, humorous, or nonsensical response.

The show wrapped up a marvelous day.