Enid on trail to Flower Springs Lake
We awoke to a beautiful morning. There was no further rain during the night, but everything was very heavily covered with dew. At approximately 9:00 am we were off on a hike to Flower Springs Lake. The trail leaves the campground across a bridge over the small stream leaving the lake, and goes for about 200 m to the east where the trail intersects a 4 x 4 track up the valley towards the microwave tower. This was wide open and an easy walk. Unlike many roads, the views are very good, because at this latitude and elevation the trees are quite small.
About 2 km up, the road is joined by the ridge trail from the campground. However this trail looks to be little used, and would not be nearly as easy, or as nice a view as from the road. There is a wilderness camping area complete with picnic table, marked with a trail kiosk a few hundred metres farther along the road. Here the trail to Flower Springs Lake branches off to the left from the microwave tower road. 500 m farther along is a braided stream flowing into a small lake, where we surprised five ducks. The stream interrupts the trail, and there isn’t any distinct path across the water. On the way up to the lake we went too far to the right. Although we could clearly see the trail on the other side, there was no clear way to get to it. There were a couple of trail markers that were flagged with fluorescent tape, but they had fallen over. On the way back we took the correct path and set up one of the posts in a small pile of rocks. On another we tied back the tape which had fallen off.
The lake itself is small, and surrounded by high cliffs of bare rock. There were many flowers along the way: lupines, short bluebells, forget-me-nots, anemone, avens and many other tiny alpine flowers, grasses and plants. There were many small butterflies, orange, sulphur and tiny ones that were smoky-blue. Yellow crowned sparrows sat on the small shrubs and chirped a warning as we walked by.
It took us about two hours to get to the lake, since I took a lot of pictures. Enid went for a dip in the lake, and reported that it was ice cold. I declined to join her. After eating lunch at the lake, we headed back to our campsite. We set up the shower tent, and had a good wash using the shower bag which we’d filled with water this morning before we left.