Sun, Sep 23 2018 - Panorama Ridge from Taylor Lake (View Event Details) Event Coordinator(s): (To see who coordinated the hike, log in to the Member Area) Participants: (To see who hiked, log in to the Member Area)

Write Up:
Our small group of five piled up into Bert’s BMW, making a very efficient use of the car's interior and baggage area. It wasn’t a hiking weather when we left Calgary: fog, drizzle, and cold. Things improved in the mountains and we could see some of the peaks through the clouds. We started the hike in light rain, which soon stopped. For the rest of the hike we had cloudy skies with occasional sunny break, and temperature hovering a few degrees above freezing. The trail to Taylor Lake was very muddy and snow appeared on the trail as we approached the lake. It took us two hours to get there. After a short rest we took the steep trail, packed in the snow, to Panorama Meadow. The near section of the Meadow was very wet, with slushy snow and puddles of water obstructing progress. We met a large group of hikers from the Slow and Steady meet-up group who had turned around and were on the way down. We could not see or find the trail from the valley to Panorama Ridge as everything was covered with snow about 20 cm deep. We scaled down our ambition and reduced our destination to the second Panorama Lake. All the tracks ended before the first lake, which was dry. We carefully picked our way through the snow and had a lunch on top of a large flat boulder on the shores of the second Panorama Lake under the black cliffs of Panorama Ridge. The larches did not completely turned color yet and we admired one giant larch which must have been 600 years old. Upon return to Taylor Lake we enjoyed the warm rays of the sun, peeking briefly over the north face of Mount Bell. The trail was busy in both directions to Taylor Lake, with a few people venturing to Panorama Meadow, but no one hiked as far as we did. We spent about seven hours on the trail and covered 16 km. Peter Minarik