Akamina Ridge bent north as it descended, and soon we could look back east across much of the northern aspect of the ridge. This was a new and quite beautiful view; the sun was angled perfectly to highlight the stepped texture of the steep slopes, colored both red and green from a combination of the strata of argillite and the alpine grasses growing on them. Down below, a pretty alpine basin, streaked still with a few late summer snowfields, sloped down to the turquoise circle of Wall Lake.
Akamina Ridge continued to slope down to the north, soon nearing a steep little col where it met the next ridgeline to the west. At this point the footpath made a sharp right-hand turn and descended into the first clump of trees we'd seen since Forum Peak. This was the top end of the Bennett Pass trail - the trail that would take us down to Wall Lake.
Leaving the ridge
From the trail descriptions I had read, I was expecting a more indistinct, unmaintained sort of foot path from here to Wall Lake. As it turned out, however, the Bennett Pass trail was in excellent shape. The trail very clearly led us down and around in a near 180-degree turn, and soon we were heading down in a primarily south-east direction. This top part of the trail was one big, long traversing descent down semi-open slopes (half in open meadow, half in trees).
Descending through patches of forest
After a fairly steep 800ft (250m) descent, the still-excellent Bennett Pass trail began to flatten out. We passed through pleasant forest, a few beargrass-lined meadows, reaching the bottom of the pretty alpine side-valley we had been looking at from Akamina Ridge just half an hour before. The trail became more indistinct here, and we had to strain a little before seeing a faint bit of beaten grass leading down the left-hand(-ish) side of the valley. I suspect that snow must fill this valley bottom until late in the season, meaning that early-season visitors are hiking on snow along this section.
courtesy JInnes
We had only half-filled our water reserves for this hike, instead opting to bring a water filter and replenish along the way. Now back down in the sheltered valley and with a strong afternoon sun beating upon us, we had run out of water, and we began looking for a nice shady spot to take a break and refill.
There were a few suitable spots along the little creek draining the valley we were in, but they were all in the hot sun. We weren't far from Wall Lake at this point, so we decided we'd continue down to there, in the hopes that the tall forest surrounding the lake would give us a shadier place to do our water business. Ultimately, the spot where we chose to filter water was still in the open, but by the time we arrived at the lake shore, big clouds had started rolling in overhead, providing shade.
Dense Forest near Wall Lake
courtesy JInnes
Junction with Wall Lake Trail
Wall Lake is a beautiful alpine tarn, with a huge (obviously, given the name) wall rising far above its southern shore. Even though this was only the end of the second day of our hiking in the rockies, we had already seen plenty of beautiful mountain ponds such as this. Nevertheless, we did not tire of seeing another of these beautiful bodies of water. High, high above, high above the sheer wall of rock, we could see a sliver of alpine meadowland. This was a section of the crest of Akamina Ridge - a section we had been walking on just hours before.
With our water supplies filled up with enough clear and cold mountain water to see us back to the trailhead, we continued on. We did not slacken our pace, even though it was only 2:30 in the afternoon and we had an easy and mostly flat walk remaining; with the arrival of the large, shade-bearing clouds overhead, we had begun to hear some distant rumblings of thunder. Although we were now safely down in the forest, it would still be nice to make it back to the car without getting rained on.
