Featuring some newly developed crawling skills, plus a related “I’ve crawled under the coffee table and now I’m stuck and everything is terrible” moment.
While all the snow was around, the ride out along the riverside path became a pretty standard go-to bike escape for us. It got to a sort-of clear state long before the single trail on the benchlands either side of Canmore did. So although we had a sunny day on Sunday, thanks to all the rain and snow recently we thought we should probably give the trails another day to dry off – so the river trail to the cafe out at Three Sisters was beckoning.
After some hot drinks and food out in the sun, we decided to keep exploring the trail towards the end of the Three Sisters area. First through some construction areas – more condos, hurrah. Then past the fancy expensive golf course. Then out along what’s apparently an old mining road. There were a couple of nice meadows, but it was mostly just a gentle uphill through the trees, with the trail gradually getting smaller and rougher. We finally stopped when we hit a steep-ish hill that was too shady to have lost the pile of snow covering it.
The trail we were on though, looks as if it might lead to the Pigeon Mountain carpark, by Deadmans Flats. From that carpark, you could follow another fire trail up past Pigeon Mountain to Skogan Pass. From there you could descend into K-Country if you’re feeling keen – if you’ve been towing a Chariot, like we probably will be, you’ll probably just want to turn around and ride back to Canmore.
After our bike trails got all dry, and we spent a week doing things like this:
(Actually, I didn’t do things like that, that was my friend Dan on the Star Wars trail in Banff)
But there was lots of bike riding – out along the Montane Traverse, and round the G8, and things like that. And birds sang, deers frolicked, and the baby bunnies ate all the new plants turning up in gardens Then yesterday it snowed all day, and we ended up with a couple of inches of the stuff sitting on our balcony. And now everything is damp and it keeps raining and being cold and miserable. And generally unmotivating.
At least one of the dolls I’ve made (while sitting inside glaring at the weather) is getting in some bike time.
Trying not to be put off by the miserable weather forecast, we decided to set off for a hike anyway – it might make for a good time to test our rain gear, including the new little Oaki Adventure Suit for the Moosling.
In the end it never rained, just stayed cloudy and drippy and miserable all day. At least it was atmospheric. The trail up Barrier Mountain (in K-Country) was thoroughly muddy too – definitely not good cycling yet.
Thanks to the cloud we didn’t bother going all the way to the summit. Just most of the way. Still a nice little hike though, and thanks to the weather we had the place to ourselves.
Distance: 12km return
After last month’s disastrous Ha Ling Peak attempt – well, not disastrous exactly, we didn’t fall off the mountain, and weren’t eaten by bears or grues, we just didn’t make it to the top, but did spend a lot of time wallowing about in thigh-deep snow.
Anyway, I thought we’d had enough warm weather that it was worth trying things again. So the Moosling and I set off from the carpark. But only after we’d spent some time discussing whether or not he’d be wearing a hat and sunglasses – the removal of which is a new trick that he’s working on perfecting.
The first half of the track up is nearly bare, although with plenty of snow patches and mud. Closer to the tree line the snow patches morph into permanent snow. The traverse across the treeline to get to the start of the scree trail isn’t clear at the moment, and nor is there a packed trail in the right spot – there are a couple of meandering paths that are getting down to bare ground in completely the wrong spot though, and some good deep snow to wade through otherwise. The scree to the summit is clear though.
It was a lovely warm day with barely a breeze (unlike the gale you get sometimes), so we hung out on the summit for a while, and the Moosling had a play with some rocks and dirt, but totally failed to notice the chipmunk that was bouncing around all over the place.
