Category: general
The Grand Canmore Duck Race is a fund-raiser for the Bow Valley Wolverines football club. Two thousand brave and valiant yellow rubber duckies race along the segment of Policeman’s Creek between the 10th St and 8th St bridges. They are each numbered, with tickets sold for each duck, and the first three ducks across the line winning their owners a great bounty in prize money.
We arrived, and joined the throngs of spectators lining the river. And then wondered how on earth they were going to launch all the ducks – and where were they anyway? The race was due to start about now…
Our duck did not win. Sadly I don’t even know if he managed to finish the race – many didn’t.
It was suspiciously windy in the valley when we set off for my tenth Ha Ling Peak ascent of the year, and the Moosling’s first ascent on the outside.
We were just below the treeline when a stop was called for a nappy/diaper change and a feeding. The change on the mountain side went smoothly, apart from the boy starting to slide down off the changing pad thanks to the lack of handy flat ground. Then it was onwards and upwards and into the wind. And by golly was there a lot of it.
We were about 100 metres short of the summit when we were hit by a gust strong enough to leave everyone crouching (and one of us minus a pair of sunglasses) – and that was about when we decided we didn’t want to be blown off the mountain, so maybe we’d just go and enjoy the view from the saddle.
So after narrowly avoiding a terrible windy fate, we hiked back down again (as you do), and were terribly grateful to arrive in the trees where the wind could no longer throw rocks at us.
And the Moosling slept snug in his baby sack and sling all the way to the bottom of the mountain, blissfully unaware of any wind (or the trembling leg muscles).
Not really nine months, but more like six, as the first three were pretty uneventful – on the outside at least…
It feels like we’ve gone from yellow trees to snow in the space of a week. Maybe it’s a few weeks – time does weird things when you’re never getting more than a couple of hours sleep in a row.
