We decided on a local hike for today’s hike. Ministik Lake Loop out in the Ministik Lake Bird Sanctuary southeast of Edmonton Alberta. And, of course, spring in Alberta was up to its tricks. It snowed the night before we went. A lot. We were pushing 5 or 6 cm of fresh, wet, spring snow. But, of course, we had a great time anyway.
The trailhead was locked up and we had to climb over the gate to get in and fish poor Isse under the fence. We were later told that the trail was closed to keep off highway vehicles from entering the trail. It was a bit of a hassle for us to get into the trail but we made it happen.
The trail, in the beginning, is very wide almost a road. Snow covered branched bent over the trail dripping all the meltwater on us as we passed by. The only tracks were from the local coyotes. We were the only people out there. The only wild life we saw was a lone Osprey circling above us.
As we went on the trail took us along several marshy areas. Of course we could not see that it was marshy due to the fresh snow so we walked right through the water and soaking our feet. But, that’s part of the fun! Overall though it was a nice trail to hike. I think if we hadn’t had the fresh snow to contend with, we would have had a much better time of it. But not all hikes are going to be sunshine and rainbows.
Even with wet feet we still enjoyed the hike. It took us much longer than it should have due to the heavy snow. 17.2 km felt like 27.2km in all that wet snow! We were very glad to get back to the truck and warm ourselves up.