Category: general

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canada general hiking moosling

A lakey sort of jaunt

Another exercise in toddler coaxing, this time up to Lillian and Galatea Lakes in K-Country, with a grandmother in tow (although she didn’t require any towing at all).

The best of the fall colours …. weren’t really visible from this hike. There were certainly a few yellow leaves here and there, but on the whole it was green, and just stuck to the standard level of spectacular, rather than the techni-colour version you can get in the mountains in autumn.

Lillian Lake lurks in the trees with some campsites nearby. We had lunch there, because otherwise we may have started gnawing on our hands for sustenance. Afterwards we carried on to the higher Galatea Lake, which is certainly worth the extra kilometre or so of wandering uphill, as it’s a genuinely lovely alpine lake, whereas Lillian Lake is more of a tree-bound puddle affair.

There were nice views, but the trail seemed quite long for how long it was. A side-effect of toddler herding combined with being accustomed to covering trails at running speed more often this year.

Distance: 14km
Elevation gain: 685m

(Sorry for the phone photos, I completely forgot to bring my camera *gasp*)

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canada general

Aurora Borealis

After lots of false alerts, and space weather warnings that led to little more than fuzzy green glows on the horizon, barely visible to the naked eye and certainly not worth staying up late for… finally, aurora!

Not just a little, but crazy bright, visible-from-downtown-despite-the-full-moon sort of aurora. After seeing how bright it was, we headed up out of town to watch the show for a little longer.

It was barely any time before the dancing lights dimmed down to a vague glow on the horizon, but we sat and waiting and try to lure them back.

Alas, they would not return.

We’re heading into a peak in solar activity over the next few years (it’s an 11 year cycle), so there might be more like this on the way.

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canada general hiking trail running

Out to Citadel Pass

More Autumn running. This time driving up to Sunshine Village around the time of the last bus, and then leaving Moosling and Grandma Moose by Rock Isle Lake, Alex and I ran out to Citadel Pass. Aaaaallllll the way this time.

The larches were bright yellow, and there were only two other people on the entire trail.

By the time we reached Citadel Pass the sun was starting to hide behind the peaks.

On the way home I managed to crash at one point, clipping my foot on a rock, and doing an impressive superman dive onto my chest. I was winded, but thankfully no bears or cougars came to eat me while I was lying on the ground trying to regain my breath.

A fantastic 20km return run from Sunshine Village.

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bikes canada general

Jumpingpound Ridge – Cox Hill

The only other time I’ve been on this trail was last year – it was a super hot day, and we ended up bailing off the end of Jumpingpound Ridge rather than riding Cox Hill. This time round, I was much fitter, it wasn’t quite so hot, and I was amazed by how fun the trail was (and how rideable it was on the uphill!)

There were less cows too.

Now I just want to go back and ride it again.

The descent down the far side of Cox Hill was ridiculously fun – no photos, because we were too busy enjoying the riding. New funnest local ride ever? Maybe.

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bikes canada general

The last of the random summer bike adventures

A few more random shots to finish up the summer of riding…

First a fun evening on Razor’s Edge, photos courtesy of Bike Pirate:

Razor's Edge

Razor's views

Razor's descent

And then a photo from a lunch-break epic. There was a lot of lunch-break riding, but very little stopping for photos. It should probably be illegal to have so much fun on a lunch-break, but even worse if you come away with photographic evidence.

I would like to meet whoever came up with the idea of riding bikes on single trail and shake their hand. Perhaps make them a pie. Or a pie per week for the rest of their lives. Something small yet meaningful. Hurrah for bicycles.