Boom Lake - Oct. 9, 2020

Hart, our son, joined us on a hike to Boom Lake today. Apparently, there's natural log jam that forms on the lake's outlet. The hike is a relatively easy 10.8 kilometres in and out with a 578 metre elevation gain. The trail is wide with few rocks or roots so walking at full stride presents no problem at all. As a result, we were able to do the hike in a little under three hours including a break at the lake. 

This is our second hike this year in Banff National Park. The other one was up Parker Ridge. It's kind of like the United Nations. Maybe half of the people we passed spoke English as their first language and about a third would be Chinese. 

Like a good highway, the hike itself was kind of boring. We mainly passed through spruce forests with large chunks of old man' beard moss hanging in large chunks from the branches of the trees. Nicola said that David Thompson wrote about the native people grinding the moss into a type of flour and then making pancakes that were very bitter to the taste. The trees provided protection from the elements however they did not allow us us a view down the mountain valley. 

A view from the beginning to the trail

Mountains surround Boom Lake on two sides with Boom Mountain rising up right in front of us. We sat down to drink some water and watch Finian try to get in and out of the water over the large chunks of rock  that originated from a landslide. People were attempting to make their way over the rocks but I don't know why. 



A large group that we'd passed on the way up arrived just as we were leaving. It mainly consisted of people our age. (Not Hart's) One of the women commented on Finian getting in and out of the water. She said that September was the warmest time of the year to get into the lake. (I didn't remind her that it was October.) She said that she'd looked into doing her open water test for scuba diving in the area but decided against it. Instead she took it in Hawaii. Life's rough. 


Overall, a pleasant way to spend three hours on our way to Banff where we were picking up an inflatable canoe that Nicola had purchased on Facebook Marketplace. We'll use that for the Fairmont float next year. 



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