Dec 17, 2016
Road to Golden Ears Park is closed due to icy conditions. However you can still drive up to the horse corral and park to access the trails to Mike Lake and Alouette Lake. Check the BC parks website for road conditions - hopefully with warmer weather next week the road will fully reopen. I went on the Alouette Lake trail (also called the Alouette Valley trail) 2 days ago. Easy trail through the forest. Mostly packed snow but some ice in places. Wore microspikes all the way which did the trick. About 1/2 hr in you will come to a nice waterfall, best seen by going down a little side trail to a lookout area. Back up on the trail you'll soon arrive at the hydro powerlines. Hydro cut a wide swath through the forest, removing large mature trees along one of the nutrient-bearing creeks that runs in to the South Alouette River. This environmental impact was not missed by ARMS (Alouette River Management Society) and through their efforts Hydro has contributed $5000 for replanting. ARMS volunteers have been doing just that. You can see the river as a dark ribbon near the bottom of the photo. It is one of 20 heritage rivers in BC. Also saw a logger high up on one of the trees along the swath, chainsaw in hand. He was just a speck until I zoomed in for a photo.
You can take this trail all the way to Alouette Lake, about 7.5kms one way. I only went in about 4kms. Trail was very quiet, only 2 others seen. Spied the work of our biggest woodpecker (piliated), on an old stump. Tell tail sign is the oval holes. Note the big ones at the bottom. They are amazing birds, seldom seen, the silent gliders of the forest.
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