Just a short one, with some of the fun we had in the snow over winter… Filming locations include Canmore Nordic Centre, Lake Windermere (Invermere), Chester Lake (Kananaskis) and Goat Creek Trail.
Category: moosling
A return to Minnewanka with the Tout, because it’s a nice cruisy place for a family ride…. and this time it was actually sunny.
Distance: 30.5km
Elevation gain: 400m
It was around the time of the year when we start getting impatient to do longer rides. The trails in town are dry. Surely some of the trails further out of town are dry too? And so we set off up Skogan Pass, hoping the snow at the top would have cleared.
We didn’t get away super early, despite the threat of worsening weather in the afternoon. The scenic powerline trail was as scenic as ever, as we pedalled from downtown Canmore towards the Skogan Pass trailhead. The Tout Singletrailer has been making everything easier, even wide double track like this. The start of Skogan Pass was clear. Half-way was still totally fine. But then at that fateful bend to the south, just two kilometres from the summit, and the snow began.
After some silly antics to push the bikes through the snow, we gave in and walked. A kind grizzly had left tracks through the snow for us, so we didn’t have to do our own post-holing. Vicious sharp crystals in the snow tore at our legs though, rubbing them raw, red and angry.
At the pass it started to snow, so we briefly admired the view and then started the trek back downhill. The snow turned to rain, and for a while things got quite miserable , but the weather improved as we reached the bottom of the trail to the pass, and the sun started to dry out our soaking wet clothes. Once we hit Canmore the weather was downright lovely again.
Distance: 45km
Elevation gain: 1100m
There aren’t many dry trails around here yet, but the Lake Minnewanka trail is pretty close. The first kilometre or two has a lot of mud and ice, but once you round the hill, the trail was bone dry. Until it started raining anyway.
We gambled on the weather and lost. Actually, the rain was a bit of a foregone conclusion, and it wasn’t so bad for the first half of the trip. After a short lunch at the Warden’s Cabin, the return trip just got wetter and wetter though.
The single trailer experiment was a success though. Apart from a few fallen trees that haven’t been removed by Parks yet, the trail was great for the Tout… actually, great may be a wee exaggeration for the enormous hill climb at the end, I don’t think that was particularly enjoyable. Apart from the enormous hill, the trail was great for the Tout.
Now we’re just waiting for more warm weather to clear some more trails for us.
The day started with rain, and I happily lurked in my tent until I was ordered forth by a toddler overlord who requested ‘tasty food’. I cooked porridge in the rain, and I don’t know if he was terribly impressed. I wasn’t either, as the showers continued until 11am or so. We moved our picnic table under the juniper tree and huddled.
Brendan, who by this stage was known as Greban (and don’t even think of arguing with a two year old on such matters, it’s just not done) suggested we should ride the Garden Mesa trail over in the Sovereign Trail System. In a pattern that was to be repeated many times over the coming days, I said “Oh alright, that sounds like a good idea”, and we set off.
The Sovereign Trail System is full of coppery green, and looks suspiciously like a generic ‘alien landscape’ set from any number of low-budget space movies. After overcoming my initial reservations about this strange green landscape, the trail turned out to be fun, if a little on the sandy side in places. The place was fairly deserted as we climbed up onto the Mesa, rode around a bit, and then dropped down back to our car.
After returning to camp for what was either a late lunch or an early dinner, who can say, we all set off together and headed to the Klondike Bluffs area.
By the time we started riding it was around 5pm, which ended up giving us really nice light, a good temperature level, and pleasing lack of rain. Now if only we could make it to the summit and back before sunset, we wouldn’t be eaten by wolves. (Spoiler alert – No-one was eaten by wolves)
The riding was pleasant, and easy enough for towing the Tout over, and finished with a wee walk into Arches National Park to reach the summit of the Klondike Bluffs area. The Moosling was impressed with his freedom, and enjoyed galloping to the top of the mountain and declaiming something or other at the pillars.
And so we descended the mighty mountain, and it was lovely and quite enjoyable, and then the Moosling played ‘Help, help, I’m stuck in a cattle grid!’ while we loaded everything back into and onto the car. (Oh, and there were also some alleged dinosaur footprints, which I was unexcited by)
Distances biked: 14.5+14 km
Elevation gain: 320+225 m