Category: moosling

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canada general hiking moosling trip reports

Cold Assiniboine days

Following our run into Assiniboine, we spent a lazy evening wandering around as the temperature dropped.

We had found our hut, but felt no desire to spend any extra time in there. For future reference, the first week after school summer holidays end seems to be booked out at Naiset Huts by people who hate children and would prefer to live their lives in blissful ignorance of this terrible way in which the human race is continued. This may be a slight exaggeration, but at least one person there seemed to want to add our child to her collection so that she could make herself a nice coat.

Although it dawned clear the next morning, it was also cold and very frosty. We lingered over breakfast, before heading out to hike up the Niblet. Or the Nublet. Pretty sure it wasn’t the Noblet or the Nablet at least.

It stayed cold, and managed to be a little windy as well. None of us were feeling terribly warm.

I hadn’t realised how unenthused we were all appearing though, until I actually looked at the photos. It wasn’t that terrible, but it definitely wasn’t warm.

Our meander took us over to Elizabeth Lake, then Sunburst and Cerulean Lakes. Then we just had to kill a little more time before we could justifiably sit around in the cooking hut making dinner.

Our post-dinner hike took us out to Gog Lake, where Alex threw the boy in a creek, but the setting sun was lovely, and so was the lake.

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canada general moosling

Moosling Cake Day

Somehow, it was time for another birthday.

During the Assiniboine hike, there had been a great deal of discussion regarding birthday plans. Largely what presents and cake he would like. Because those are good things to discuss if you’re attempting to distract a small person from how far they’re hiking.

And so there was a Woody cake. My first ever fondant effort. Making marshmallow fondant is actually pretty easy. It’s the applying it to the cake neatly part that is hard.

There was no singing of Happy Birthday (too loud and scary) and no blowing out of the candles (mama had to do it).

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But there was certainly eating of the delicious cake (insides made by grandma, decorating courtesy of mama)

And now it’s all: “Next year I’ll be this many [holds up five fingers], and I’ll go to school!”. Yes, yes you will *gulp*.

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bikes canada general moosling

Recovering in Revelstoke

The Singletrack6 madness was followed by four days of relative relaxation in the Revelstoke campgorund. Suffering from the after effects of heat exhaustion (walking hurt my stomach?) I didn’t get an awful lot of riding done. There was a lot of lazing and reading. But of course a little riding.

First on Frisby Ridge…

Then I took the boy out on the Macpherson Trails while the others actually went for a proper ride. He’s still riding pedal-free, but is getting better and better on his run-bike. He’s quite the cautious descender though – no madcap rolls down anything and everything for this boy.

Then there was an aborted attempt at Keystone Standard Basin. I’d finally recovered from the heat exhaustion, but bonked on the first hill and couldn’t understand what was wrong with me. Struggling on, eventually it got so bad that I could barely walk my bike along, and had to have a lie down. Once it occurred to me to eat the rest of the food I had with me, I magically felt fine, but decided heading back to the car probably wasn’t a bad idea. Apparently my body wanted about 10 times the calories I’d fed to it (although I’d spent most of the morning eating).

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canada general hiking moosling trip reports

Mount Assiniboine Redux: Day Four

Day Four dawned, another clear day with warm weather. Marvel Lake campground is a little dark and claustrophobic, so I didn’t mind escaping it. The boy was very unimpressed with the fact he had to leave his friend behind though.

He did cheer up a little when he discovered all trail signs had a chocolate button at the top though. You get someone (Lincoln) to lift you up so you can push the button, and then you get chocolate! Hurrah!

The trail widened to double track in to time, and we started working the child entertainment mojo. With some good trail breaks in there to keep everyone happy. It was blissfully cloudy for some time, for which we were all thankful, but still pretty warm.

At one point, the boy discovered that my backpack had a turbo button. Press it, and I had to (reluctantly, and with flailing arms) run for 10 – 15 metres. He took to this with great relish. Everyone else seemed to have some sort of turbo button as well – although they worked with varying degrees of effectiveness.

The boy stole a flower flicker and claimed it as his own though, beginning to pore over it with great interest.

When you’re hiking in this sort of weather, every lake is for swimming. We discovered just how shallow Watridge Lake is though, it’s possible to walk across the entire thing. And there’s so little current that footprints of others remain for some time.

It was at Watridge Lake that we were finally caught by the boy’s friend, and he enthusiastically joined her in identifying flowers for the final walk out to the car park – hurrah!

The final section was, as always, a bit of a slog. And, as always, raised many questions as to why the signage does nothing more than tell you that you’re on a road. We know that we’re on a road! It’s a large straight road! It’s blindingly obvious! What we would quite like to know, is how far it is to the carpark. Or the lake. Or both.

But we did it! And the boy did it! And none of us went mad and strangled any of the others after the three hundredth rendition of the bear hunt song! The weather and views and company were wonderful, even if the mosquitos were not. And although I wouldn’t recommend a 3.5 year old as a hiking partner to anyone planning to cover long distances, I was pretty pleased we managed to cover our 15 kilometres a day. Next time, I won’t underestimate just how much tasty bribery food would be ideal though.

Hiking distance: 14.5km
Distance covered by small child: 14.5km plus additional running to and fro and general gallivanting metres
Flowers species identified: 23
The 2010 version: Here

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canada general hiking moosling trip reports

Mount Assiniboine Redux: Day Three

Alex got up early this morning, and headed out to hike up the Nublet with a couple of others. I bravely guarded our tent from intruders in his absence.

This is the photo you can get if you hike up the Nublet for sunrise though:

We got going in a semi-organised kind of way, although the boy’s enthusiasm wasn’t high first thing in the morning.

He spent plenty of time sitting on the ground and complaining about tired legs for the first kilometre – we weren’t too concerned though, as they promptly got better and were good for running as soon as anything interesting happened.

We ended up taking it pretty easy that morning though. First there was a prolonged break to throw rocks at the majestic scenery.

Which turned into wandering around naked in the lake for those of us under the age of five.

That was followed by lots of running along boardwalks, and then watching fish swim up a stream. Alex tried going trout tickling, but failed to catch us one for dinner, despite some fairly amusing fish stalking attempts.

We were amazed by how beautiful the Wonder Pass trail was though, especially in comparison to Assiniboine Pass which we’d hiked over last time. We had gone that way because we thought it was shorter, but I’m not even sure it is shorter! And even if it is, a trail is much easier to hike along if you have wonderful things to stare at.

Speaking of wonderful things to stare at, a helicopter flew overhead at one point. The picture below captures the boy going “Wow! Coool!” as the helicopter went by. His excitement quickly transformed into terror as the helicopter kept flying back and forth, getting closer and closer to us. After that close call, we armed ourselves with sticks, just in case any other helicopters tried to get us.

The awesome scenery continued, as did the slow pace. But we had Lincoln with us this time, which helped keep the small person a little more entertained.

And there were lots of streams and bridges to stop at. Right towards the top of the pass we came across an enormously fat and content marmot. He hopped off one rock, then belly-flopped and wiggled his way onto another, before continuing to lazily sun himself. Marmots seem to have their life priorities sorted.

As we crested Wonder Pass, we found a nice breezy spot with a bit of shade to stop for lunch. Oops, we still had a long way to go, better pick up the pace!

Setting off after lunch, we realised that the others had lunched just a few hundred metres ahead of us. But we quickly lost them as we hiked down towards Marvel Lake.

There were some exciting snow patches to cross, and snow balls to be thrown.

But then the switchbacks began. Back and forth, back and forth, singing the Bear Hunt song again and again and again (“Uh oh, chocolate!… We can’t go round it. We can’t go under it. We’ll have to eat our way through it!”) The day got warmer, and the lake got tantilisingly closer.

Eventually the path stopped descending, and instead traversed along above the lake, taunting us with its glittering blue presence, so close yet so far.

Every stream crossing the trail became an opportunity for a break, and occasionally, for re-filling water containers.

But then we finally caught the others! And their tasty, tasty goldfish crackers.

From then on we hiked mostly as a group until we reached Marvel Lake.

The boy was thrilled to find a friend at this point, in the shape of a very sweet 9 year old girl who was out hiking with her parents. She very patiently listened to him enthuse about trains, and kept pace with him as we walked to the shores of Marvel Lake.

There we stopped to cook dinner, while the new friend kept going. There was much despair for some time, but food heals many issues in life.

Eventually we got up and hiked the final kilometre to the campground, and there was much joy as we set up our tent in the campsite next to the new friend, and went and visited her before going to bed for the night.

Hiking distance: 15.5km
Distance covered by small child: 15.5km plus additional running to and fro and general gallivanting metres
Free cookies: None :(
New friends for the small child: One very sweet nine year old girl from Calgary
The 2010 version: Here