Lake Minnewanka and the Cascade Fire Trail share a trail-head; and so we hatched a cunning plan where I would run along the shoreline of the lake, while Alex would take Moosling and Chariot and go towing up the Cascade Fire Trail. The plan was to turn around after an hour or so, and be back at the car at 11.30am (so we could then get back to Canmore to watch the finals of the Cross-Country Skiing World Cup sprints at the Nordic Centre).
The trail was well-packed to the bridge and beyond,to the high point of the climb up and around the spur.
After turning around to head north-east though, the trail was progressively less and less travelled, and by the time things flattened out it was just me and some old animal tracks. Thankfully there wasn’t a lot of snow on the ground, but it was still slow going. And a little eerie, as I kept running about four kilometres past the last sign of people tracks. There wasn’t a sign of another creature, human or animal, the whole time I was out past the bridge though.
Thanks to relatively benign weather so far this winter, the lake remains un-frozen. The trail was in the shade until 11am though, so it still wasn’t the warmest of runs.
The appearance of the sun was cause for celebration though.
(And the plan worked, and we went and watched the World Cup, and clashed cow bells with great enthusiasm, and were amazed at how fast everyone could ski)