Tim at Elsay Lake:
“Tim, Justin and Alex hiked to Elsay Lake on Saturday. The trail to Elsay Lake is well maintained and easy to follow. However this is one of the most remote trails in Seymour Park and seems to be rarely used. We saw no one all day. The trail leads around the east side of the Seymour peaks (all cliffs), across boulder fields, down some steep rough creek beds and through old growth forest. There are occasional views of Indian Arm below to the East. The lake is the largest in the park, is picturesque, and has large brown salamanders/newts swimming in the shallows. However the last third of the trail to Elsay Lake drops about 600 m down to the lake. It is a real pain to regain that elevation on the way back, especially since the round trip is an arduous 20 km. A far better option would be to avoid that elevation drop and take a side trail westwards up to Mount Elsay (i.e. forego the lake for a better view from the mountain top). The junction is about 2.5 km before the lake, at 050717, and comes a few yards after crossing a rockslide at 050716. Although marked with orange flagging tape, the Mount Elsay trail starts out as a very indistinct path and the junction is hard to spot. However this trail soon pops out into a big boulder field about 500 m west of Canadian Pass. The route up to the top of Mount Elsay is obvious from there.”
