On a greyish, cool day in May, I returned to an area I snowshoe in winter to hike a loop route.   From the Bush Lake – Dogwood Marshes parking lot I hiked double tracks and single tracks on a known route.    The trails were fine for hiking with no spring mud, but there were still patches of snow in sheltered spots.   I went along an old double track, a former cross-country route for the 1979 BC Winter Games and the regional ski trails in the early 1980’s.    When the Coquihalla Highway was under construction, the trail system was severed and the Stake Lake Trails were built to replace them.     A few cross country skiers still used some of the routes, but in recent years it has become more of a snowshoe – fat tire network.    Not many people hike the trails in summer and the tracks become overgrown with tall grasses and weeds, but in May the tracks were okay.    The inflow stream from Chuwhels Mountain was running at the southwest corner and the marsh was full and wet making it difficult to go around the lake.    I had to hold onto the fence to get past some of the wettest areas.

Bush Lake itself is a small marshy lake, visible from the Coquihalla Highway.

I did some geocaches in the area as I hiked the loop route.    A favorite section is the Big Tree Trail, going past an old douglas fir.    There are several ancient trees standing in the area still.

Spring was slow to arrive to the forests of the Interior Plateau (1264 m in elevation), but there were some flowering shrubs and wildflowers, and the sounds of forest activity around the trails.