Tucked right into a slender valley north of the Bowman Lake drainage lies the quiet Akokala Lake. From the foot of this quiet lake, you’ll be able to gaze as much as Kintla Peak, considered one of Glacier Nationwide Park’s 10,000 foot peaks and the opposite beautiful peaks surrounding it. The hike to it’s a forested affair with little to no views, however this quiet nook makes the hike up and over Numa Ridge price it.
Smoke hung within the air making a mystical backdrop that mirrored within the nonetheless waters of Bowman Lake. After a short go to to the shoreline, we headed over to the Bowman Lake Campground and walked to the far, northwestern edge, the place the standard Akokala Lake trailhead sat and we stepped into the forest.
Wildflowers popped up all alongside the path together with lupine, pipsissewa, and pink pyrola. Being towards the top of July, the noisy forest of fowl music that the start of the month held was merely a whimper because the occasional chirp or chit was heard. The grade up Numa Ridge is a gradual one and good points virtually 1,000 ft (together with somewhat drop between ridges). It stays completely in a stunning forest, so it’s brief on views.
We ultimately reached the primary excessive level which leveled out and nonetheless was muddy from current rains. After navigating the mud and mosquitos, we entered a drier forest on the west-facing slope and cruised to at least one extra little rise earlier than steeply dropping down into the Akokala Creek drainage.
Our first actual views of mountains for the reason that shores of Bowman Lake got here as we popped out alongside the exhausting edge between tall forests and shrubbery that lined the creek largely as a result of a fireplace a while in the past. The vegetation of willows, thimbleberries, and so forth have been thick as we navigated to the creeks edge and crossed over on a footbridge. Not lengthy after, we intersected with the Akokala Creek Path and headed up the drainage to Akokala Lake.
This stretch of path was by means of a youthful lodgepole forest interrupted by taller stands of timber that escaped the fires wrath. The grade was simple and we made gentle work of the two.2 miles to the lake. On the lake, the entry to the shore is close to the outlet and is form of sideways to the view. You may see up the stunning drainage to the pinnacle, however you are feeling such as you’re being blocked by the timber.
Fortunately there’s a little bit of a social path that helps navigate to get views of the remainder of the lake. We have been there to do a Frequent Loon survey as a part of the citizen science program of the park and wished to view the entire lake (and see it for ourselves). So we set off stumbling by means of the forest, climbing over logs, dancing over some soggy stretches and ultimately making it to a pleasant overlook.
From right here, we received a pleasant, unobstructed view trying up the pinnacle of the drainage. Two Trumpeter Swans foraged and a few Mallards quacked and flew right into a marshy space on the opposite facet of some grasses that weren’t seen to us. We scoped the lake, scanned the mountains, and ate lunch earlier than ending up our survey.
From there, we rotated, scrambled again to the path and turned out ft again up and over the ridge to our automobile.
