On a sunny spring day we drove west and then up the bumpy road (the old highway bypass) above Tobiano to the Six Mile Lakes area, parking on the east end of Pat Lake.    The ice was off the lake and it was busy with fishermen happy to be back after the winter.   We hiked around Pat Lake, then on single tracks and double tracks through the hills, past ponds. working our way over to Morgan Lake.   We chose to leave the more established tracks and instead followed a faint single track around the lake, and then joined double tracks back to the start, a 7.1 km hike.

The first part of the hike was on a single track around the east and south side of Pat Lake, sometimes called Six Mile Lake.    It is one of the first ice-off lakes in the hills of our area, surrounded by grasslands and rocky hills.

Some well-established double tracks wind between the hills to the south, with many lesser tracks heading southeast and south.    This area has no signs, but we have hiked various routes through the Six Mile area over the years, so we knew which turns to take to maintain a circle route.    We followed a route working our way past a series of ponds, looping to the west end of Morgan Lake.

We used to call Morgan Lake “The Slough”, but is was dammed and then stocked so it became a popular small fishing lake, mostly accessed from the Tunkwa Lake Road.    A bumpy road connects Pat Lake to Morgan Lake, but we chose to go through a gate, then around the north side of the lake, past a hidden pond, then back to the main road.   Along the faint trail, we had views to Morgan Lake and beyond to Savona Mountain.

Our route finished on the gravel road to Pat Lake.   A few ducks (coots and Barrow’s goldeneyes) were spotted on both ponds and in a sheltered bay on the lake.

The Six Mile Lakes loop hike is a fine choice for a spring hike in the hills. Use a mapping app to help with the turns at junctions. If cattle are grazing in the area, give them a wide berth. Close all gates, and leave nothing but your faint footprints.