Category: trip reports

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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 snow trip reports

Running into Assiniboine – A Winter September Wonderland

A few months before my Mum came to visit, I checked in with the Assiniboine Lodge folks to see if there was any availability in the Naiset Huts in the weeks she would be staying with us. There was – but there were only two nights left. So we booked them, and hoped for good weather.

Based on the other weather we had while she was here, it could have been much worse. But it was far from perfect.

While she and the now 4-year old boy flew in by helicopter, Alex and I ran in together from Sunshine Village.

At least it had stopped snowing – mostly. And it was fairly warm, there was barely a breeze, and it was quite a novelty to actually get out for a run with Alex for once.

As we ran towards Citadel Pass, the snow got deeper and deeper. The larches looked miserable under a heavy load of snow on their green needles. As it warmed up, snow on the trail turned into enormous puddles. I was tremendously pleased that I’d remembered to wear my goretex socks – my feet were toasty and warm, despite the occasional drenching in snow melt.

As we dropped down from Citadel Pass though, we quickly lost elevation, and snow.

The transition back into summer was joyous – we didn’t know who had killed the White Witch, but were pleased that someone had finally gotten around to it.

Also, we were excited to actually be running the high trail above the Porcupine Campground for once, instead of having to drop all the way down into the valley, before climbing all the way back out again.

The Valley of the Rocks always seems to last longer than you’d expect. Although we did spend most of the run marvelling at how quickly we were arriving at places. Our pace was four or five times faster than we could travel with small child in tow. Distances that would have taken us an hour or more with him were only taking 15 or 20 minutes, which was continually amazing.

In no time at all we were running our squelchy footed selves along the final stretch of trail from Lake Og to Assiniboine Lodge – where we found the grandmother and boy, who had enjoyed a non-eventful helicopter ride, and had just been for a walk down to Lake Magog which had been rapidly aborted when a bear was sighted wandering along above the lakeshore.

What luxury, to travel here without a heavy pack to carry! How bourgeois, to pay a helicopter to carry our things to a mountain hut!

Most miraculous of all, my legs were still holding up after the epic weekend I’d just put them through. Hurrah!

Distance: 27km
Elevation gain: ~1100m

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canada general trip reports

More passes! More lakes!

This one was my idea. We were looking to run something new, that didn’t involve summits or ridgelines (it was forecast to be windy), that didn’t involve convoluted car shuffles, and was ideally under 35km.

With this run from Highway 93 through to Sunshine Village we managed the first two criteria ok, got around the third one with a drop-off at the start, and decided that seeing as the last 9km were mostly downhill they nearly didn’t count – which would mean we were only covering 31km.

First up was Vista Lake, with the sun peering out we were still feeling pretty hopeful that the weather might improve.

But that early patch of blue sky was just a sucker hole (is that the right term?), and we were stuck with gloomy grey skies, wind, occasional rain and intermittent snow for the rest of the day.

As we stopped by the second of the Twin Lakes, we watched a little pack of Whisky Jacks harass a poor small sleepy owl. The owl ended up deserting its perch and flying away, which seemed to please the Whisky Jacks.

Climbing up to Gibbon Pass, the weather wasn’t showing off the landscape to its best, but it was still glorious terrain to run through. And note to self – return to Gibbon Pass during larch season! That place is absolutely slathered with larches.

From there we descended past Shadow Lake Lodge, ran by Shadow Lake, and headed into the muddier terrain towards Whistling Valley. Everything was a bit slick thanks to the recent precipitation (we ran into hikers who swore they’d had wet feet for days), but this section was the muddiest. Light pack and trail runners made it easy to jump puddles and skitter across boggy sections like an elf over snow. Well that was the plan anyway; it still occasionally ended with a good dollop of mud sneaking into my shoe.

Whistling Valley is amazing, as is Haiduk Lake. Further note to self – must return and camp here at some point with the family, and maybe get some side trips done.

From there it was a climb up Whistling Pass, which came with whistling marmots, lots of rocks, and a few mountain goats.

At the summit Lincoln held aloft the Banana of Victory, before consuming it to give himself +3 to fortitude.

The terrain between Whistling Pass and Egypt Lake is pretty interesting, and was a definite change to the usual Banff/Kananaskis trail fare. Well, there’s at least one section that was a bit intriguing, with some awesome rocks. And it was after that we hit rock bottom *sob* and had to start the climb up to Healy Pass. I opted to march up it, saving my running legs for the final 9km. Which although it was mostly downhill, was still 9km on tired legs.

And we did reach the Pass of Wonder, and wondered why the weather never cleared up like it was supposed to. Then came the Descent of Foreverness to the car, which actually wasn’t so bad, as it’s on a beautiful trail. Except for that last section, when you hit the second last bridge and say to yourself “Oh, we’re nearly there now, the final bridge is just around the corner, then we’re basically done”. But the final bridge is actually quite a long way from the second bridge, and this just led to a few kilometres of self torture “Surely it’s just around this corner… wait… wait… nope… WHERE IS THAT BRIDGE!”

The post-run soak was attempted, but Healy Creek is flowing so cold at the moment that my brain rebelled when I tried to stick body parts in it for more than 30 seconds. Definitely recommend the run though!

Distance: 40km
Elevation gain: ~2000m

Categories
canada general trip reports

Passes, lakes and flood damage

This one wasn’t my idea, but instead Lincoln came to me and said: “I have a cunning plan”. The plan was to run Rummel Pass, to Guinn’s Pass, to North Buller Pass. Possibly with a side trip to a summit thrown in.

Heading up towards Rummel Lake was the typical Rockies start – get out of the car and start heading straight uphill. The lake came and went without much fanfare, and then eventually we topped out on the first pass of the day.

It was quite windy – we probably weren’t going to be hitting any summits today. Dropping down the other side of Rummel Pass, we wandered towards Lost Lake without a path, hitting undergrowth and bashing about and getting wet before finally emerging at the lake. We had found it, hurrah!

From Lost Lake on, there was actually a trail. A trail that was absolutely covered in deadfall, but at least a sort of trail. Still, the going was a little slow, and we were looking forward to hitting the main trail.

And then we hit the main trail – oh, that’s right, flood damage. We followed along the tagged future trail up towards Lillian and Galatea Lakes, together with exciting creek crossings. Over well placed trees. It’s always amazing to see how much damage the flooding did out here. The amount of water and the forces involved are just mindboggling.

From there, it was up towards Guinn’s Pass. The trail was also a little flood affected, but not too badly.

From Guinn’s Pass, we thought about heading up Mt. Kidd South, but decided we didn’t want to be blown off the ridge. Another day.

It took no time at all to drop down from Guinn’s Pass and wander across to North Buller Pass.

There was more flood damage just below North Buller Pass, with huge swathes of ground just becoming saturated and giving way.

And after admiring the view from North Buller, we made the final run back down towards the road. And then there was the 5km jog back to the car.

Distance: 30km
Elevation gain: 1750m

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bikes canada general trip reports

Singletrack6 – Day 1 & 2

Back in the middle of winter, I entered into a competition by Tourism Golden, to win entry into the Singletrack6 MTB stage race. It was going to be the replacement for the old epic Transrockies bike race from Fernie to Canmore. Just with a lot more sleeping in town, a lot less mud, shorter days, and much much more singletrack. But still six days of bike racing.

Then when we were on holiday down in Bend, I found out I’d won it. And I was a little bit scared, but quite a lot excited.

Day One – West Bragg Creek. 42km, 1500m gain
The event started over on the West Bragg trails. We arrived super early, so I’d have plenty of time to check in. Checking in took 30 seconds. So we spent some time throwing rocks in a creek, and messed around, until all of a sudden it was time to be getting into the starting corale, and I had left it a little late, and crammed in somewhere towards the back of the mid-pack.

The customary ACDC Highway to Hell played over the speakers, and then I spent a lot of the first ten minutes trying to overtake as many people as I could before we hit the singletrack. Where I was stuck. In a slooow slooow singletrack train. It did eventually thin out though – especially once we started climbing up Pneuma!

Things were going pretty smoothly, except I’d started to lose my lower gears – the chain just wouldn’t want to sit in granny gear. I wondered what could be wrong, and whether I’d be able to get my bike seen by a mechanic that afternoon, until somewhere along Strange Brew, my back wheel fell off. Ah. So apparently that’s a thing with the new hollow axles – they can be too dry, and they’ll work their way out, until your wheel will drop out. Fitting my wheel back on fixed the issue with the gears though – hurrah!

I’d lost some time messing around though, and was overtaken by another solo female – although I could out-climb her, she totally outclassed me on the descents, and so as we dropped back down towards the finish line, I didn’t have a hope of catching her. Especially after I ran into a tree with one kilometre to go. Well, the end of my right handlebar ran into a tree. My bike took this as a sign that I wanted to hug the tree. So I did, before picking us both up and continuing.

Day 1 down – that wasn’t so bad! I’d tried to take it as easy as I could – my first real multi-day event, who knows how it would go.

Day Two – Nipika. 42km, 800m gain
Ah, Nipika, my old nemesis. Actually I’d only ridden here once before. Although my memories of it were vague, I was haunted by a sense of not wishing to return. Once we started racing it all came flooding back to me. Nipika is rough! If it’s not rooty it’s rocky. And if there are no roots or rocks, there is constantly uneven ground, so you can never just easily sit and spin to cover distance – you have to fight for Every Single Metre. And for my spinners legs, it’s a challenge. They’re not great at pushing over that kind of terrain.

On the plus side, it is beautiful though.

We started this day in waves of 10, based on the results of the previous day. I was in around the ninth wave, so got to watch some of the fast kids taking off before I set off – and met someone who rode the same awesome bike that I do! She was riding in a mixed pair, and they were the beginning of a collection of riders I ended up getting to know, just because we kept a pretty similar pace each day.

Things got warm, legs kept spinning. I spent most of the last 20km just dreaming of the nice cool pond back at the finish line.

Once I hit the finish line, it was straight to the pond, feeling a little in need of a hug. I’d caught the ST6 bus out to Nipika that morning – just me, my bike and my duffle bag, out to take on the world on our own, while my menfolk stayed home. But it’s a little lonely, doing a big multi-day race on your own. Although I ended up meeting a whole lot of awesome people, it would be really fun to do a race like this with some friends you knew beforehand too.