Category: general

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canada general trail running

The not-Powderface 42

A long long time ago, Alex and I thought it might be fun to sign up for a 42km trail race together, the Powderface42 in K-Country. The flood had other ideas though, and the race ended up being relocated to the Canmore Nordic Centre. Less effort to get to, but not very exciting when we’d been looking forward to running new trails. After some indecisiveness we decided we may as well run it anyway.

The course involved two laps that reached all the way out to the end of the Nordic Centre and back, with a particularly cruel section of five kilometres or so of running back and forth above the stadium – being so close to home, but not quite yet there. The first few kilometres basically plunged straight into single track, so there was a lot of very slow shuffle shuffle through the trees, before we finally reached the boring double track and could actually pick up some speed.

There was a photo of Alex on his own, but he looked a little like a serial killer, so we’ll go with this one instead, where he’s peering out from behind a friendly looking stranger.

After running in a huge pack for most of the first seven kilometres, things thinned out more and more, until I was largely running alone for the second half of the race. The weather was good, our feet got wet in that one boggy section, the aid stations had tasty offerings, and the plunge into the Rundle Forebay afterwards was perfect.

(I was 5th female, in 4:40:00 – Alex finished in 5:02:06. We didn’t run together after the first few kilometres, but communicated for a lot of the race by sending messages while taking a break and walking up hills. Don’t message and run single track kids, you’ll sprain your ankle.)

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canada general

Canada Day

The parade down Main Street – I was actually in it instead of watching from the sidelines this year. The biggest standing ovation went to all of the big yellow machinery that had been working so hard all through the flood.

First thing in the morning though, was the Canada Day “fun” run (8km theoretically, but more like 7km with some flood changes). I ran, Alex and the Moosling cheered for me at the end.

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canada general

The Great Flood

The story of summer 2013 in Canmore wouldn’t be complete without telling the story of the Great Flood. No lives were lost, but we were cut off from the outside world for a few days, many houses were severely damaged (in an breathtakingly shocking sort of way) and many more suffered from backed up sewers and rising groundwater.

We went to sleep to heavy rain on the night of Wednesday 19th of June, and woke up to a town that had evacuation orders in place, and usually quiet and barely visible creeks were doing their best to express themselves as the alluvial fans they’d always wanted to be. Washouts to the east, west and south of town cut off all escape routes, and for a while, we were stuck.

Men in large yellow machinery worked like crazy, moving rocks around to save infrastructure and houses (and basically living out every small child’s dream, although probably with a lot more stress and lack of sleep involved). Meanwhile emergency flood hotlines were set up, people were desperate to volunteer, people who had been evacuated were desperate for somewhere to stay, and tourists who were stuck in town desperately wanted to leave.

A few days later Cougar Creek had settled down, but the Bow River and groundwater levels were both steadily rising. Thanks to Stoneworks Creek also going alluvial, there was some major flooding along Bow Valley Trail, Palliser and Silvertip areas. Cars trying to drive around in South Canmore would stall and get stuck in floodwater. The hospital was close to evacuation. Many residents along Cougar Creek had lost most (or even all) of their backyard, but some of them were able to return home.

A week later the state of emergency lapsed, and we were officially into recovery mode. Working hours began to return to normal. Alex was actually able to get to work again. But everyone still twitches nervously every time it rains.

A few photos from other people that capture the chaos…

After and before shots of the Trans-Canada Highway to the east of Canmore

Cougar Creek on the rampage

Cougar Creek at Benchlands Trail

Oh, and Rundle’s Revenge was supposed to be on June 22nd and 23rd, and was very definitely cancelled – so I was stuck doing an entirely different endurance event that weekend (127 phone calls on the Sunday!). I’ll have to wait until next year for the epic attempt to bike 100km and then run 50km the next day.

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bikes canada general

The weekend of the Kootenay Krusher

The Kootenay Krusher is a bike race I’d vaguely considered riding, but decided I didn’t really want to spend the money on. It’s held at Nipika, near Invermere, BC (I’d never been there before, but had heard a lot about the summer and winter trails). Rather luckily, I ended up winning a free entry. And even more helpfully, the weather for the Organgrinder race (that was held the weekend before) was terrible, so I didn’t feel like I’d chosen the wrong race to ride. I had the Rundle’s Revenge coming up the weekend after, so I didn’t want to push too hard, but it seemed like the course didn’t have a lot of climbing, and I chose to do the 50km, and just ride at a comfortable pace and enjoy the scenery.

So we all headed down to Invermere, and on Sunday morning crawled out of the sofa bed (they don’t fit three very well when one is a wiggly toddler) and headed to the race. The Moosling was pretty keen to line up with me at the starting line, but sadly I just rode off on him when the horn blew.

True to what I’d heard, the course was a little rough in spots… but also smooth in spots… rocky in spots… along precipitous drops in spots… loose in spots… newly cut in spots… it’s a 25km lap, you get a little bit of everything. There was even a hike-a-bike over a bridge. It was even flatter than I was expecting though, and after the first 10km I only saw 3 or 4 people for every 10km of riding, so it was a pretty lonely course out there, and a little hard to stay motivated for racing. Particularly with the wonderful views available along some sections.

While I was out, the Moosling entered his own first bike race. Apparently he didn’t go too well – he quite happily lined up with all the other strider bikes, but when the horn blew he dropped his bike and ran to Papa for a hug. Eventually he rode some of the course at least, and scored a prize of sorts.

All-in-all, a nice relaxing kind of race, and a really fun place to hang out. I think I’ll be back to ride and ski the trails, but maybe not to do this race again.

The rest of the weekend was spent relaxing around Invermere, first at the Lussiere Hot Springs, and then with a short wander up Mount Swansea. There was a rocket (rocket-shaped tower) on top of Swansea that the Moosling was very impressed with, and quite keen to try and open the door so he could go to space, the Moon, or Mars – he wasn’t fussy.

Oh, and the end result from the Kootenay Krusher? I came second in my age group (just 4 minutes behind first!), and third overall woman.

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bikes canada general

Epic bike date

The kind offer of a Moosling-sitter led to a cunning plan to check out some now-snow-free trails. We left the list of where we planned to go, and headed out the door.

A casual start up Quaite, and the awful steep rocky section didn’t seem so awful as I remember it being. Maybe not hammering up the start helps a little there. The trail was quiet, and we were starting in the morning cool. The descent down from Jewell Pass was a bit mucky in spots, but still fun, and no bears.

Riding across the boring fire trail sections to get to Mount Baldy, we started to hit the weekend crowds, out to hike the trails in this lovely weather. Unfortunately then the boring fire trail continued, as we climbed up to Baldy Pass. And it’s not even all climbing! The slightly tedious trail winds up and down before settling into a proper climb and some single track towards the pass.

After a brief pause for photos at the pass (for Alex to catch up, and for some photos), we headed down. Cautiously, as there were quite a few hikers out, plus one pile of avalanche debris to hike-a-bike over. Before long the trail had spat us out onto the road and we were heading back to Barrier Lake for a quick lunch stop.

Thankfully the hiking crowds had thinned a little by the time we were biking up Prairie View trail, which although wide and easy to pass on, is always a little painful. Apparently everyone was up having lunch at the summit, all the lookout points were absolutely swarming with people – who were fascinated by the fat tyres on Alex’s Moonlander, you can’t take him anywhere these days. We opted to continue on, and through a crowd of asian tourists (“Well done! Well done!” as I biked downhill past them), we finally made it to the Razor’s Edge turn off.

From there things started to go a little downhill (literally and figuratively), as Alex’s occasional leg cramps became pretty persistent, and he couldn’t really pedal much at all. I was completely unhelpful, with nothing to offer except suggestions that apparently pickle juice fixes cramps instantly. Not that we had any. The lack of flow didn’t do the trail any favours. Being quite technical, I find it hard to ride in a start-stop fashion, and ended up walking far too many sections that I possibly could have ridden. Nonetheless we did eventually make it back to the car in decent time, and have decided it’s a good little 50km loop close to home. We were both expecting the total elevation gain to be a little higher though, I could have sworn it felt like twice that amount!

Distance: 46km
Elevation gain: 1640m
Time: Around 5 hours