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canada general trip reports

More passes! More lakes!

This one was my idea. We were looking to run something new, that didn’t involve summits or ridgelines (it was forecast to be windy), that didn’t involve convoluted car shuffles, and was ideally under 35km.

With this run from Highway 93 through to Sunshine Village we managed the first two criteria ok, got around the third one with a drop-off at the start, and decided that seeing as the last 9km were mostly downhill they nearly didn’t count – which would mean we were only covering 31km.

First up was Vista Lake, with the sun peering out we were still feeling pretty hopeful that the weather might improve.

But that early patch of blue sky was just a sucker hole (is that the right term?), and we were stuck with gloomy grey skies, wind, occasional rain and intermittent snow for the rest of the day.

As we stopped by the second of the Twin Lakes, we watched a little pack of Whisky Jacks harass a poor small sleepy owl. The owl ended up deserting its perch and flying away, which seemed to please the Whisky Jacks.

Climbing up to Gibbon Pass, the weather wasn’t showing off the landscape to its best, but it was still glorious terrain to run through. And note to self – return to Gibbon Pass during larch season! That place is absolutely slathered with larches.

From there we descended past Shadow Lake Lodge, ran by Shadow Lake, and headed into the muddier terrain towards Whistling Valley. Everything was a bit slick thanks to the recent precipitation (we ran into hikers who swore they’d had wet feet for days), but this section was the muddiest. Light pack and trail runners made it easy to jump puddles and skitter across boggy sections like an elf over snow. Well that was the plan anyway; it still occasionally ended with a good dollop of mud sneaking into my shoe.

Whistling Valley is amazing, as is Haiduk Lake. Further note to self – must return and camp here at some point with the family, and maybe get some side trips done.

From there it was a climb up Whistling Pass, which came with whistling marmots, lots of rocks, and a few mountain goats.

At the summit Lincoln held aloft the Banana of Victory, before consuming it to give himself +3 to fortitude.

The terrain between Whistling Pass and Egypt Lake is pretty interesting, and was a definite change to the usual Banff/Kananaskis trail fare. Well, there’s at least one section that was a bit intriguing, with some awesome rocks. And it was after that we hit rock bottom *sob* and had to start the climb up to Healy Pass. I opted to march up it, saving my running legs for the final 9km. Which although it was mostly downhill, was still 9km on tired legs.

And we did reach the Pass of Wonder, and wondered why the weather never cleared up like it was supposed to. Then came the Descent of Foreverness to the car, which actually wasn’t so bad, as it’s on a beautiful trail. Except for that last section, when you hit the second last bridge and say to yourself “Oh, we’re nearly there now, the final bridge is just around the corner, then we’re basically done”. But the final bridge is actually quite a long way from the second bridge, and this just led to a few kilometres of self torture “Surely it’s just around this corner… wait… wait… nope… WHERE IS THAT BRIDGE!”

The post-run soak was attempted, but Healy Creek is flowing so cold at the moment that my brain rebelled when I tried to stick body parts in it for more than 30 seconds. Definitely recommend the run though!

Distance: 40km
Elevation gain: ~2000m

Categories
canada general snow

Simpson Pass – Healy Pass touring

With the wee Moosling safely in daycare, Alex and I headed out with friends for one of our rare “doing-stuff-together-without-toddler” adventures.

We headed up to the top of Wawa chair, and then skinned out across the meadows, dropping down through the tress to Simpson Pass for some surprisingly spectacular untracked powder.

Unfortunately our awesome tree run ended all too soon, and then it was the interminable slog across to Healy Pass.

Despite threats to the contrary, the ski to Healy Pass didn’t last forever though, and so eventually we crested the pass, took some photos, admired how well we’d coordinated our outfits for the day, considered banding together as a singing/skiing group “The Snow Wiggles”, and then removed our skins and headed downhill.

On the way out we ran into a couple with super skinny skis and incredibly enormous backpacks (not literally, thankfully, although there are portions of that downhill track where I could definitely see that happening if you weren’t careful). Hopefully they had fun camping, as the skiing portion of their trip didn’t look enviable.

And then we even made it out in time to pick up the Moosling from daycare! All in all, a complete success.

Categories
canada general hiking moosling

Sunshine Meadows, and the run out via Healy Pass

With family visiting and a warm sunny day, it was time for another trip out to Sunshine Meadows.

We had lunch up at Rock Isle Lake with the ground squirrels (who didn’t get anything from us, but are quite habituated).

And then I left the menfolk behind and went for a run out to Healy Pass and then back out to the Sunshine base carpark. It’s a cracker of a run, about 20km, and plenty of signposts, so it would be very hard to get lost.

There are plenty of fantastic views along the way (above: coming across from Wawa Ridge, looking out towards Healy Pass, and below, looking back towards Sunshine Meadows from Healy Pass). The wildflowers were out, and the bears weren’t.

I was first back to the carpark, so had time to sit with my feet in the icy cold creek. And wish for a cold drink to go with it.