Moss Lake Trail – Elk Island National Park

Moss Lake Trail in Elk Island National Park is, so far, hands down the best trail we’ve hiked outside of the mountains. Lots of hills to work the muscles and lots to see along the way. The trail is not as wide as some of the others in the park giving it more of a backpacking feel to me. Still wider than most of the mountain trails but not a roadway.

This old tree trunk was burned out in the center. Probably hit by lightning at some point. It really made for a nice view through the trunk and out the other end.

This was one of the better hills to climb. It was a wider trail but gave way to the nice valley view in the following photo. I can just imagine how it would have turned out if there had been some of the park’s bison in the clearing. I may need to come back to this trail at a different time of day and maybe alone to try to capture some bison in this area.

The photo below is my favorite kind of trail. Not too wide, not too narrow. It gives that feeling of being closed in but not squashed.

There are lots of ponds and beaver dams to view along the trail. Birds and frogs everywhere.

At one point the trail was flooded with water. We thought we would have to cross along a beaver dam but then we noticed a different trail leading around the flooded area. Good thing too. The path across the dam did not look the safest!

In all the years I’ve been going out to Elk Island National Park this is the first time I’ve actually seen a bison up close and personal. This guy was just grazing grass along the side of the road. He was there when we drove in the park and 5 hours later he was still in the same spot posing for photos. I’m very happy to have gotten photos of him. I’m hoping to see some on the trail or in the bush on our next hike in the park.

And of course we put together a video of the day for our Gen X-ventures YouTube channel. I think it’s my best video to date on the channel. Have a watch. Head over to our channel and like the video and subscribe to our channel so you can see all the things we are getting up to.

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