Bush Lake North Snowshoe – Kamloops Trails
The Bush Lake Trails were developed for the 1979 BC Winter Games and were used as cross country trails for a few years, bu the construction of the Coquihalla Highway cut off the western end of the trails and the Stake Lake Trails were built to replace the lost trails. Since about 1984, the trails around Bush Lake have been an informal trail use area. The parking area is still there and the area across the other side of the road is also used for snowshoeing. On a mid-December day there was lots of snow and many of the user-made tracks were well-stomped-in.
The North Loop was once part of the cross country ski trails, but logging and new growth has turned much of the route into a winding single track.
Some of us have remarked the route with diamond markers or flagging tape, but the established trail was broken by cutblocks and access skid tracks. There is now flagging tape and stomped in tracks to guide the way for a 4.5 km loop.
Most of this route is through the douglas fir forest, but it is a quiet and interesting route, one that we return to frequently. All photos taken by the author. Click an image for a lightbox view.
We could snowshoe different tracks on the Bush Lake Trails all winter, but we will go there a few times, but also do routes in the Dogwood Marshes, on Hull Hill, at Lodgepole Lake, at Stake Lake, and at Lac le Jeune. There are enough routes in the high country to do a different one each day and some of these will be featured on Kamloops Trails.
Doug Smith
Doug writes for Kamloops Trails, a not-for-profit (and ad free) website, offering information on trails, waterways, routes, featured spots, viewpoints, and explorations in the outdoors in the Kamloops area (and beyond).
Doug started exploring this area in 1976 and continues to follow tracks and routes wherever they lead, with the aid of map, compass, GPSr and camera. After many dead-ends, but also many discoveries, he chose to share this information.
The Kamloops Trails website has a massive number of interesting posts and would be of interest to anyone in Kamloops who enjoys the outdoors. Visit the Kamloops Trails website at: http://www.kamloopstrails.ca/
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