Participants: Maria, Gordon, Jenny.

And then there were 3.

It sounds like an ominous start (or end) to a horror movie but it was exactly the opposite - the start of a lovely day in the mountains.

Four of us met at the Little Elbow Trailhead parking at 8.30 am but only three of us left up the trail on our bikes. Sadly, for the lack of a crescent wrench (and a few other essentials), one particpant was unable to join us.

So Maria,Gordon and Jenny mounted up and within an hour or so, found ourselves 12.5 km up the trail at the Romulus campground. As it had been awhile since breakfast, we ate a snack and then stashed our bikes in the trees and headed up hill towards Talus Lake. Gordon and Jenny had done the trip since the flood and recalled several rocky washes you have to cross and ascend to find the trail. Surprisingly, in spite of the closeness of this trail to the campground, it only had a few small (easy to miss) cairns and some old flagging. Fortunately, memory served us well and we made each of the junctions. We crested the last hill to the lake just after 12.30 pm (about 2 hours of uphill walking) and were happy to find no one, no wind and clear blue water with lots of fish we could easily make out from the water's edge. How exciting since Gordon and Jenny had brought fishing rods and happily did some "fish in a barrel" angling which resulted in lots of colourful Cutthroat Trout to see up close (and let go). It was a rare day at a high mountain lake - Gordon and Jenny had been to Talus a couple times previously and almost got blown off the ridge around the lake both times.

After an enjoyable hour and a half of chatting, eating and fishing, we headed back down the trail and soon thereafter, came upon the only people we saw on the Talus trail all day - a group of five with three kids who were walking up the wash and seemed very relieved to see someone else and confirm they were in fact going the right way to the lake!

We rejoined our bicycles and had a much-needed snack break before heading back down the trail to the cars. Maria had done the trail recently in that direction and so wasn't as surprised and Gordon and Jenny at the amount of uphill on the "downstream" return ride! All the same, we made it out in about 40 mins of whooping fun. Back at the cars around 5 pm and Maria and her Garmin confirmed 33 km and 940 m elevation gain for the day. This is the type of trip that really benefits from bikes since it is a relatively easy ride on a non-technical (but bit rocky) road. If you want to do this trip, ask us and we'll tell you which rocks to turn at :). Thanks to all for a wonderful day.

Below Talus Lake

Maria,Gordon at Talus Lake

Gordon fly fishing at Talus Lake

Jenny Releasing a cutthroat at Talus

Talus Lake trail looking back toward Romulus