Views near Cook Lake

I continued along the Morrison Road to Oban and turned right there onto the Oban Road and drove down off the mountain towards St Peter’s. About halfway there, I stopped at Cook Lake, once where the road offers a view (at least in the fall), again where a curve was lined with bright trees, and yet again a short distance further down the road where the edge of the lake is a few steps away from the road. Good to excellent colours lined Oban Road on the way back down the mountain, especially along Cook Lake, though few were seen on the other edges of the lake itself. The photos on this page come from these three stops.

Photo #1, taken at the first stop from a hill before the road descends further to the edge of the lake, shows Cook Lake below. The lake curves around the point seen between the rightmost two birch trees and continues south behind the point of land where it once again widens out. A communications tower rises left of the hill in the distance; in this reduced view, it looks to be just an extension of the upper branch of the birch right of centre, though it is indeed a tower. In the summer, this view is often tree-shrouded, with only glimpses of the water, but this day the bare trees opened it up. The red-orange hue seems to predominate on the maples in the foreground. Few colours are showing on the far side of the lake, where much of the vegetation is evergreens.

Photo #2, taken about 535 m (⅓ mi) beyond the first stop, shows a curve in the Oban Road and the lovely red-orange trees adjacent to the lake, which they and the brush below and behind them conceal from view. The sun was out fair here and the bright colours, verging on reds from this angle, caused me to stop for a closer look.

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Photo #3 looks up at the red/red-orange tree in photo #2, which here appears to be more red than red-orange. Other trees can be seen at the right, still in the process of changing colours, while one has already lost most of its leaves.

Photo #4, taken at the third stop, shows the sign marking the southern boundary line of Oban, though I’m not sure which locality is on the near side of the sign (St Peter’s is the most likely choice), set against some lovely trees of variegated hues.

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At the third stop, a very short road leads to the southwestern side of the lake, where people have clearly launched a boat on a trailer in the past. Photo #5 looks along the shore line to the northwest across a sea of marsh grass, bearing a lovely rusty hue. The colours in this corner of the lake are brighter than those elsewhere and are also close to those along the road seen previously. Most of the hulks at the right of the photo are dead spruce trees, done in by that scourge now seen all over the Island.

Photo #6 is a telephoto shot of some of the trees at the northwest corner of the lake. There are a couple of fine reds here, some oranges, and others just starting to change, along with the ubiquitous evergreens. The ruddy marsh grasses in the foreground contrast sharply with the bleached tans of those below the trees.

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Photo #7 looks across Cook Lake to its northern shore. The lake has a crescent shape that circles the point seen in photo #1 and this view does not show its most northerly shore. As can be seen here, the colours are mostly lacking everywhere except in the northwestern corner.