Our prolonged autumn season is now over for good, and any fun on the trails will be snow fun.
Category: snow
That we would bike the Goat Creek trail today,
And all the way to old Banff town — and maybe back again,
so we needed one more snow bike for the ride.
All the gear was gathered from the cupboards high and low
And piled in heaps upon the hallway floor,
For we’d learned to love hard riding through the snow and mountain air,
And the toddler in his carriage cried for more.
The bikes were fully loaded, so we set off up to Whiteman’s Gap,
The old pass that takes forever just to reach;
But from the top the views around could not be beat —
On a day with such a blue and cloudless sky.
As we reached the trailhead we switched the Chariot to skis,
The better then to glide over the snow;
For things were getting tougher as we pedalled down the trail,
Could be we’d bitten off more than we could chew.
The snowy path we pedalled — staying out of skiers tracks
So the going was as hard as it could be,
For we rode on deep fresh snow, completely uncompressed
A straight line was hard to keep, and so we tired.
Then we halted for a moment, for a snack and sip of tea,
And for the wee young toddler to run about,
Before long we returned sore rears to seats and then were off,
Churning through the snow with heavy legs.
And down by Banff Springs Hotel, where the tourists flock about
The mountains rise majestic up on high,
Where the air is clear as crystal, and the white stars fairly blaze
At midnight in the cold and frosty sky,
And where around the ski trails the pine trees sweep and sway
To the breezes, and their icy beauty cannot be denied,
The snow bikes are still looked at with amazement and dismay,
And the people tell the story of their ride.
(My apologies to Banjo Paterson, I have no idea what possessed me.)
(Distance covered: 30km, Elevation gain: 750m, we didn’t bike back to Canmore as we ran out of time, and weren’t feeling that masochistic anyway)
It was actually the day before full moon, but the dubious forecast was looking slightly better for Sunday than the actual full moon, and I had managed to convince a fellow mad-man that it would be a good idea to come with me and go for a night-time hike in the snow. Towards the evening there were threats of winds gusting to 40-60 km/hr, but we laughed in the face of danger and decided to go ahead and hike anyway.
We managed to leave town not too long before 7pm, driving to the trail-head on the grounds of common sense/boringness/time considerations (delete as appropriate). The sky was looking thoroughly overcast, and my fellow mad-man was making comments about the clouds thickening about the Three Sisters and the east end of Lawrence Grassi, yet we decided to push on.
The trail was just packed snow until we hit the tree-line, where we were suddenly slowed by deep drifts and very breakable crust. There was a little waist-deep wallowing, and then a little more waist-deep wallowing, some scuttling across wind crust and hoping it wouldn’t break, and then we were hopping from rock to rock, making our way through the scree.
On sticking our heads over to admire the view from the saddle, we decided that the wind really wasn’t too bad, and we may as well push on to the summit. It was a bit too windy for any camera balancing or long-exposure tripod action though, so there was just a lot of trying-to-stay-quite-still photographs, while not really wanting to remove gloves or turn off my headlamp, as it was still quite cold up there, and getting colder with all that messing about with a camera.
In a strange moment of serendipity, the clouds in front of the moon cleared for about 15 seconds just as we reached the summit, and the full moon peered out at as from a tiny hole in the overcast sky. Not long enough for a photo, but long enough to go “Ooh look, the moon really is out tonight”, what an excellent idea this was.
As we turned around and started to head down, we realised that it was indeed quite windy, and battled downhill into the gusty wind, back through the scree and down into the punchy snow for some good old-fashioned snow slogging. After not quite forever we actually made it into the trees, then scampered/slid our way back down to the car again.
In the end it was a three hour return trip, door-to-door, which is fairly slow, but not bad given the amount of the hike that was spent waist deep in snow. Same time next month?
If you’d like to experience a nice long bout of self-conscious conspicuosity, there’s nothing quite so good as riding a snow bike around the Canmore Nordic Centre in the middle of a sunny Sunday, while towing a Chariot on ski runners. On a related note, the list of things which it’s appropriate to yell out at snow bikes:
“What wax do you use on those tyres?”
“Now I’ve seen everything!”
“You don’t see that every day!”
“I love your bike!”
“Nice bike!”
“Nice tyres!”
“That’s hardcore!”
“Nice work!”
I also got a lot more hellos than usual, largely thanks to the large number of skiers who were staring at me. Whenever I looked about and caught someone’s eye (not hard, as they were generally pointed my way), apparently they’d feel a little obliged to say hello. So it was certainly a very social ride.
It seems to be a little easier than trying to ski with a heavy Chariot, although getting up a steep incline is hard work no matter what (for reference, the Moosling is now just over 30lb, but there’s also the weight of winter boots and blankets and spare snacks and drinks, plus of course the weight of the Chariot itself). Definitely a fun kid-friendly jaunt not far from home, but one I’d rather be doing when it’s a little quieter on the trails.
Categories
Winter running
Some shots taken while out running so far this year…
