We didn't see any wild mustangs, only piles of their droppings, but we enjoyed a successful hike to the Mustang Hills on a summery warm day. The day was most interesting, with several changes of scenery and terrain. The Elbow Falls parking area was crawling with people (during the day the parked cars on the highway reached all the way up the hill to the east), but we didn't see another soul on our whole day, except for a family enjoying the campground. We started on the Beaver Flat trail and campground, before taking a rather precipitous trail along the river southward.

Starting out by the Beaver Dams

Goose on the beaver pond

The route through the canyon was rougher than remembered, with some obvious 2013 flood damage. With a choice between tangled deadfall and serious talus rubble, this trail should be upgraded to TL4.

Rough travel over talus in Elbow River canyon (TL4 territoy)

Elbow River between the falls and Cobble Flats

The next section was the braided trails of the flats south of the canyon, where we would have missed the critical junction for the trail to the east hill, if not for Brian's GPS with downloaded map. We had lunch with great mountain views on the rocky dry river flat, before backtracking to find the junction we had passed.

Lunch with a view of Mounts Glasgow and Cornwall

At the right spot, as revealed on the GPS, there was no sign of the trail, but we boldly headed toward the hillside, and found the trail! At a flagged junction we followed some more flagging which led to an open slope to the top. It was a short hop from there to the centre hill, where we enjoyed great views.


Summit group on Mustang Hills centre hill

Again with assistance from the GPS we got on the right route to drop down the north slope to the Rainy Creek valley, but flagging fizzled out and we followed a steep, open slope down to the old pack trail which brought us back to the river. We were surprised on our way across the campground to reach a dead end on the wrong side of the beaver ponds, so had to backtrack, including going back over a makeshift log bridge.


There were various ways of crossing creeks

(all except Phil, who preferred going around the pond and snapping this photo of a "yellow rumped" warbler--his description)


Yellow rumped warbler

There are no flowers that high in the foothills yet, but flora included a grouse, bumblebee and some large mosquitoes. There were still some icy and slushy sections in the tread of the trails in places, and a few areas of moderate post holing through slush, but the terrain was generally dry.

We were back to the cars by 5. Participants: Ginger, Barb, Philip, Rosanne, Susan, Anne, Brian, and Carl, coordinator and scribe.