Vancouver Island - via Kootenay

I am now (really) on my way...with a stopover to visit family and try a bike hike that I saw published.
Diana Lake - only about 30km from the highway - and if you have the right car you can drive most of it on logging access roads. I don't have the right car. I was able to drive the first ten km and then things got a bit rough so I decided it was a good place to begin the bike portion. As far a a bike ride goes, the path/road is really quite good and fast. It isn't an overly scenic ride but there are very nice views now and again. From where I parked it was up for 3km and down for 4km and up for the final 11km to the beginning of the trail which I was able to ride for about the first km and then it became too steep and rough to do anything but push or carry.

I chose to park the bike which would mean that I would have to walk down, but as it turned out that was the right thing as this trail is definitely built for hiking. The map I had said 5km to the lake but as it turned out was almost exactly 6, which normally wouldn't be a problem but I had allocated only so much time in order to not be late for dinner.

A good portion of this hike is in the trees (which is nice on a hot day) and a good portion is in the open with very scenic vistas.

The Judge

Once you are out of the steeps and getting into the alpine, the views get absolutely fantastic! The majority of the trail is fairly steep and at the rate I had to travel in order to not be late, I was really pushing it....and then the extra km.... but I made it to the lake at one minute after the time I had set as the absolute-must-turn-around time ...so that was good... but that also meant that I had to attempt a 7-8km/h jogging decent (which lasted for about 3km and then slowed substantially) and ended up averaging 6km/h...which was pretty good, but now I had to make it up in the cycle ride down.

Larches around Diana Lake

Things went really well until I got to that 4km climb, and by the end of that I was really hurting  - thank goodness I still had the 3km coast down to the car!
This was really the perfect time of year to go as all the larches were changing color!