A damp start to the day didn’t dampen any spirits on this very pleasant 17km stroll, led by Glen, in a counter clockwise direction starting on the Hyannis Trail and then Ridge Runner to Lizard Lake. Bottletop Trail took us to the Seymour River suspension Bridge, the relatively new 2018 replacement for the bridge that was washed away, then along Fisherman’s Trail to Rice Lake and a very civilised lunch on picnic tables, made a change from finding handy rocks and logs to perch upon. After lunch we headed south along Lynn Creek, over that suspension bridge and back to the start.

The walk was enlivened by several little diversions to optimal viewpoints and items of industrial archaeological interest from the logging days. Glen managed to conjure some terrific imagery around the scale of operations using chutes to take wood down to the water. Although we only saw a small sample of restored chute it was enough to convey the idea. 

The walk’s highest points were just about at the snowline but the route was snow free in the main, however it was not free of steps, lots of them, up, down and steep. It seemed that most of the steps came at the end in a cruel final flourish, we didn’t see anybody jogging up them. The creeks were a dramatic sight with all the recent rain combined with high temperatures melting snow to add to the water flow. 

There were dog walkers, mountain bikers and trail runners but large parts of the walk it was just us, we didn’t see any other hiking groups, just us eleven.

We had glimpses of snow covered trees through gaps in the trees and basked in sunshine by a lake, OK it was a short bask but we did our best. Thanks to Adrienne, Louise and Iain for the photos.

See Iain’s Garmin track here and Adrienne’s Strava track in the photo gallery(17.25kms, 550m elevation gain and 4h43m on the move). Same walk, different stats.