The snow around Canmore has largely been a bit average so far this season. Certainly it’s been a bit of a rubbish cross-country skiing season for the Nordic Centre. But that’s just a good excuse to get out on the bike a little more often.
So here’s an image dump of some of the riding I’ve been doing over the last month or so….
We did it! The sun is coming back! Huzzah to all Northern Hemispherians, the evil Southern Hemisphere is now bound to return our sun to us.
We left town at 6am, and hiked up to the summit of Ha Ling Peak to arrive just as the sky was starting to lighten, at around 7.45am. On the one hand, it was beautiful. On the other, it was very windy (the forecast was calling for 30km/hr, gusting to 50km/hr). There may have been some huddling.
Poor Lincoln was just about freezing to death.
There was some attempted photography inbetween bouts of huddling.
Then the rest of the crew made a brief stop at the summit.
At which point we all decided it was time to start heading down.
As we reached the saddle below the peak, the pink in the sky started to brighten with the sunrise proper, and we took a few more photos before scarpering back down the hill.
The trail is mostly in good condition at the moment – some ice lower down, but mostly packed snow. Two years in a row (three if you count the time I went up the day after solstice) this is becoming a solstice tradition.
It’s been a while since we’ve headed up Ha Ling Peak as a family. This was the last warm day of our prolonged pleasant Autumn. Well, I say warm, it was going to be about 10oC, which only counts as warm when you’re comparing it to -20oC.
But anyway, pleasant weather, must get out and enjoy it, so we decided to head up Ha Ling Peak together, with the invitation extended to whoever else we thought might be kicking around.
And so the Ha Ling Peak expedition began. We’re trying to stop carrying the Boy these days. So this was his first unaided ascent. Of course, he felt he needed to take his own backpack, so he could carry his trains to the top of the mountain too.
It was quite a busy day – we weren’t the only geniuses who’d come up with this idea. And lower down the trail was nice and clear.
Up higher though, things changed. After the first three main switchbacks, the trail started to get icy. We pulled out ice spikers (well, mine are actually Kahtoola Microspikes, and Alex had the Yaktrax Run) but we didn’t have a small pair. After one falling over incident, I started carrying the boy – so that was the end of his first unaided mountain ascent.
It started to get windy and cold (unsurprisingly), and we ended up making the call to turn around at the saddle, after admiring the always-wonderful views.
Then there was just more cautious trip-trapping down the ice, down into the warmth and calm of the trees.
And as we reached the bare ground, release the Boy, and then attempt to slow him down as he tries to run down the mountain.
We planned a grand adventure for the day – from Canmore, then out to Smuts Pass, along the slopes of Birdwood, and over Burstall Pass, then back to Canmore.
First of all to ride along the dusty roads, through biting headwinds, along rough gravel, by many cars.
We attached the magnificent velocipedes to a hidden tree, snacked and tied on some speedy shoes.
Beating through the vicious creek until the valley opened, we began our ascent to Smuts Pass, where the trees finally relinquished their grasp on our flesh.
There we found snow, and trod carefully for fear of getting our shoes dampened.
We looked on the magnificent Mount Smuts and pondered the difficulty of reaching her summit.
Far below lay the Birdwood Lakes, turquoise and marvellous in their alpine splendor.
Then a small traverse, through inches of snow. We thanked the footsteps of those who had travelled before us and made our work easy.
Onwards, and under the mighty slopes of Mount Birdwood, majestic and looming.
We trod carefully as we travelled through yet more snow, our traverse continued.
And then, peering backwards, we admired our footsteps, and the slopes of Birdwood, the marvellous Smuts, and the perhaps less marvellous and certainly oddly named Smutwood.
Then finally Burstall Pass lay before us, with just the slopes of Snow Peak to sidle along before we reached the final pass of our day.
The sidling was long, hard and snowy, but then finally safely over and done. We had reached Burstall Pass and were now on a veritable highway of slush, jogging downhill and back to the flat land below.
From there, the journey to the velocipedes was long, yet not difficult. Except for the large amounts of fatigue in our feet and legs.
As darkness fell we retrieved the velocipedes, attached glowing lights to them, and soared home with a favourable wind at our backs and starry skies overhead. It was glorious.
Distance travelled: 80km (velocipede), 27km (on foot)
Elevation gain: 1130m (velocipede), 1050m (on foot)
Max elevation: 2424m
The foot portion of the day:
At 50km, the Grizzly Ultra is barely an ultra-marathon. Which just goes to show how perspectives change – when you’ve started hearing all about other people who are out doing 300km+ trail races, 50km barely seems any sort of distance. Which isn’t the best mind set to fall into.
Despite having the best of intentions when I signed up for this race, I managed to yet again fail to train properly. I definitely got in a lot of long, slow runs, but apparently that wasn’t enough, and I really did need to get in some more shorter runs that actually involved some running.
I was noticing reticence on the downhills even just 15km into the race, and by the time I’d hit 30km, there was no doubt about it. My knees were unhappy, no part of my legs wanted to hammer down hills. Or on the flat really. They were vaguely accepting of hills, but mostly they were trying to convince me I should just go and lie down, and pulling out of the race early wouldn’t be such a bad idea. I told them to shut up, and tried to ignore their whiny complaints. Because there was nothing serious going wrong there, it was just a case of legs going “Waah, we’re tired, this hurts, we don’t like it, we’re hungry, are we there yet?”
So apart from that, I did actually manage to have fun. The first leg I ran with Lincoln, before he disappeared into the distance like a lanky mountain goat. Then I came across other people to chat to. Or to harass with my terrifying race outfit. Here I am, endeavoring to look as threatening as possible as I leap across the finish line.
After which I sat down for some time.
Distance: About 51.5km
Elevation gain: ~1450m
Time: 5hr32:30 (40 seconds slower than last year, 13 minutes slower than 2012, grrr!)