The Hawk Creek Trail starts at the Floe Lake parking lot on Highway 93 in Kootenay Park. Many will recall this trail, whether by experience or reputation, as a seemingly endless fire road running along the bottom of a densely wooded valley and as a result of negligible interest. All of this has changed! As a result of a major fire in 2003 most of the forest around the trail has been completely destroyed and a new single track trail has been created by Parks Canada mid-slope along the valley side.

The effect is reveal the superb surrounding vistas through canopy of dead tree trunks.

The predominantly dark colours of the vertical trees contrasting with the bright colours of the profusion of new growth on the forest floor. We saw many new plants and flowers along this portion of the hike including aster, fireweed, raspberry and numerous 6 inch pine trees.The burnt forest section of the trail was about 6km, the balance of the approx. 10km to Ball Pass was through a mixture of undamaged forest and alpine meadow

where the flowers were past their best but still evident.We reached Ball Pass at 12.30 having left at 9.30. After a short lunch we proceeded down the east side of the Pass

and up the Whistling Valley to the beautiful Haiduk Lake

where the second lunch was had at 3.

We retraced our steps in the evening light

and got back to the car at 7.30. The final approximate statistics were 29km and 4,000 feet of vertical, (somehat more than was estimate on the trip posting I am afraid). This is an excellent hike which is recommended for others to try. Many thanks to Kaare, Marianne and Petra for joining me (Chris).