A young visitor to the Canadian Rockies stops to photograph trailside wildflowers.

Heading into mid-August hikers are looking for those final summer trips that will take them into the best wildflower meadows before the first killing frosts of the season.

Many of the traditional destinations are out of reach this year because of flood-related road closures: Sunshine Meadows and Healy Pass (Banff National Park), Summit Lake (Waterton Lakes National Park), Ptarmigan Cirque (Peter Lougheed Provincial Park) are all virtually inaccessible due to road reconstruction.

Here’s a list of five reliable destinations that should provide that riot of colour you’ve come to expect from well-watered meadows in the upper subalpine. All are half-day or easy day trips (trails are described in deatil in the Canadian Rockies Trail Guide):

Taylor Lake (Panorama Ridge Meadows option)

Boulder Pass (Hidden Lake option)

Helen Lake

Cavell Meadows

Burstall Pass

But if you want to catch the last best blooms of the season, you’ll have to hurry. Just over a week ago we overnighted at the Columbia Icefield and awoke to a temperature of -4°C.