The Le Mans style start – lots of people trying to run in bike shoes in the mud. It did eventually stop raining, and the course dried up a bit, although remained pretty greasy in some sections for the rest of the race.
Riding over the evil bridge at the start of the race, on my Sunday morning lap.
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.
We’ve ridden out along the bike path towards the Three Sisters a few times in the last couple of weeks. Finally, it’s nearly clear of snow, and the Chariot is only getting a little muddy when we venture out.
Rumour has it that the Legacy Trail between Banff and Canmore has now been cleared and swept too, so once there comes a day without rain or snow in the forecast, I might get out there with the Chariot for a ride.
A bonus foot of snow for the morning. Thankfully it was basically all melted by the end of the day.
And a bonus picture of the Moosling with a bucket. He likes the bucket. And now he can crawl, so he can get to the bucket whenever he wants.
Instead of going skiing yesterday, we optimistically decided to head out on the Legacy Trail. Theoretically it was rideable, as it was certainly bare of snow in huge patches. It would be the first proper test ride for the biking version of the Chariot as well.
Things went well until we actually reached the Legacy Trail, at the Banff Park gates.
We rode around the first huge snow drift, then there was just a whole lot of gravel, as we were right next to the highway. That wasn’t great, but still, easy enough to ride on.
But then we hit the uphill, which was covered with a huge snow drift. We could see a bare patch afterwards, so we though “Why not?”, and pushed on up through it.
Alex started out through the next drift, and this was the “Seriously? There’s just more snow?” moment. So the Legacy Trail is rideable in parts, if you’re happy riding on the highway the rest of the way. We opted to sit in the sun on the bare trail and eat cookies, and then turn around and go home. Defeated once again by Super Winter. At least the Chariot passed the biking nap test.