Kinglet Lake Hike in Nordegg area

Traditionally, we spend the Heritage Day long weekend celebrating in Nordegg's Shunda Creek hostel, for the last few years. This year it was the weekend from Jul 31 (FRI) until AUG 3 (MON).
It was a nice group of hiking friends, consisting this time of Basia W, Mike, Roman, Witek, Basia K, Julian, Gosia, Bozenka, Grazynka, Ania from Banff, Jacek and Agnieszka from Calgary.
We decided to hike to the Kinglet Lake, which is 11 km return and 785 metres vertical, according to AllTrails.

On Saturday we started our day early; we all woke up at 6 am and were ready to hit the trail at 0800h.

The day was warm and sunny, just ideal for a hike.

We were gaining the height rapidly and pretty soon we could enjoy the beautiful view of the entire valley, including Lake Abraham.

Our group was making a good progress.

At about half-way point we came to this interesting rock outcrop that offered a good spot for a nice viewpoint.

It was a windy day, which was good in a sense, because the wind was cooling us down.

After a short hydration break we came to the fork in the road with one arm going to Huff'n'Puff and the other arm going to Kinglet Lake.

But now we had to go down for a bit to cross the creek at the bottom of the ravine...

 

...before following up the mountain back again.

We came across some interesting Hoodoos overlooking the edge of the ravine.

Our amazing ladies were leading the charge.

Just before the lake there was a sign post explaining that we reached our destination point

It was a small pretty lake hidden high in the mountains.

We had a nice lunch at the lake, and ...

.. Mike could not resist the temptation to go for a swim.

After lunch we had a few minutes for a short romantic moment.

Soon it was time to go back again ...

... and to cross the creek, but nobody fell into the water.

On the way down we encountered this guy on his mountain bike, who was taking the same route, or parts of it.

... and we watched him going down before he disappeared around the corner.

After going back to Shunda, we celebrated another great hiking day with wine and with champagne ...

.. and we raised a toast or two for all our friends who were not able to join us!

THE END