When snows build up and trails become icy, we head up into the high country to snowshoe.   Up the Lac le Jeune Road we can stomp on routes like Bush Lake, Dogwood Marshes, Stake Lake, Lodgepole Lake, Hull Hill, and Lac le Jeune.   There is good parking for snowshoers of Bush Lake or Dogwood Marshes just off the road so we go there more.   When the snow banks build up it is hard to find parking off the side of the road.   Stake Lake and Lodgepole Lake also have good parking areas.

For our first outing we started on the double track but we went around Bush Lake and then worked our way back to the start making our own track through open spots in the forest.

The main route into the Bush Lakes area is an old road, one that was used for the Bush Lake Trail system that was installed for the 1979 BC Winter Games.   The trails used to connect to more double tracks to the west but the construction of the Coquihalla Highway changed that so now we have a number of possible routes in an area that is 1 km wide by 4.5 km long.

We snowshoed around the edge of Bush Lake which was frozen over.

We made our own route through forest openings and saw many tracks, including those of snowshoe hares.

We saw many tracks of deer, coyotes, mice, hares, and some other small mammals on our return route along a different double track.

Our route for the day was only 3.5 km.  We keep the first outings to about 1.5 hours and work our way up to 3 hours later in the season.   Bush Lake will have a few more visits this winter.   Watch for our tracks.