This lake was too big and too crowded for our preferred kayak trip. But it's interesting to think about what this place will look like in a few months. A billboard at the beach describes the winter view when Lake Windermere freezes. Then the lake is known as the "Whiteway" and becomes the world's longest skating trail.
The woman at the Invermere visitor center thought that Lillian Lake might be the perfect place for us to go kayaking.
It's west of town, and on a paved road so it's easy to get to the lake. Maybe a little too easy, as it was pretty busy even during the week. But once we got away from the swimming beach, we found some of our favorite birds showing off for us in the water.
For some reason loons let us get closer than most water birds. We could even see the water droplets on the head of this bird that just came up out of the water very close to our kayak.
Even though it was perfectly clear, the waters of Lake Lillian were pea green in color.
Because it was perfectly clear, we could see our friendly loon under the water when he dove again. Normally when a bird dives, it's a mystery where they will come up again. But for the first time, today we could follow his movement under the water. Interesting!
For a busy lake, we had more wildlife sightings than usual. This duck was sunning on a log on the edge of the water, carrying on a conversation with his neighbor, the turtle.
We had just commented that in all of our time on the water in Canada, we had never seen a turtle. We didn't know if they didn't like the cold weather, or the glacial silt in most of the mountain lakes. We found out today it was really because they were all hanging out at Lillian Lake.
This guy had a bright red-orange belly that was reflected in the water below.
Denisa must have really been missing her turtles, as she kept taking pictures of them today. But these two turtles telling secrets on the log were just begging for a photo.
A series of mountain bike trails can be found across the road from the lake, but we opted instead for a hike. Guess what? We found that water is also included in our hike today at the Wilmer Wetlands. It started with a hike to the top of a bluff overlooking the ponds and creeks that make up this section of the Columbia wetlands. You can barely see Denisa on the bluff on the left side of the picture, looking out over the water. The wind was perfectly still today, allowing for a reflection of the puffy white clouds on the water around us.
This is actually a wildlife refuge, and we think that this would be a great place for a moose to hang out.
But the only things we found taking refuge here are birds, and they are keeping their distance. We got this long distance picture of an osprey surveying the wetlands from the top of a tree.
But we are loving the views as we hike in the hills. In fact, we're feeling the love here in the Wilmer Wetlands and the surrounding Rocky Mountains.
Does anyone else see the love?
It really was a nice place for an unusual hike . . . until Mark thought it would be a good idea to scramble down to a trail way down near the water's edge.
The only problem with that low trail is that in order to get back to the car, we had to climb back up that hill that had somehow grown taller.
Since we are writing about water, we should include that we have been wanting to kayak the Columbia River that flows from Invermere to Radium Hot Springs. But this blog has already gotten too long, so we'll save that story for tomorrow.
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