Ha Ling Peak - the Fall version

Last Sunday Tom, Breanna, and I decided to slip in a hike at Ha Ling Peak. This was the very first hike I when I moved here, but with Queen's friends Drew and Maureen in mid-July. Needless to say it's looks a bit different in autumn and the snow makes it more challenging. It's a 6.2 km loop with 819 m of elevation gain (that's what I did back in July., shown in black on the topo map.. notice I got the distances wrong there, but feel free to skip back and check out what it looks like in the summer). On this trip we only did 5.8 km and 747 m of elevation gain, shown in blue on the topo. The wind at the top was frigid - at least 10 degrees colder than hiking below the tree-line and my hands were burning so we opted to call it at that point rather than complete the summit. This time we took 3 hours to climb because of sliding on snow... I did it in 2 1/2 back in the summer... although some people were putting us to shame by running it.

Ha Ling peak from Canmore... we were pretty sure we would be hiking in snow from the outset but this confirmed it.

Yep... snow at the trailhead.

I love this shot of the mountains over the reservoir at the trailhead!

View of the valley and the snow-covered trail. It was pretty slippery... next time I'm wearing my yaks!

Aha! First sight of the top of Ha Ling!... and the end of the trees.

At this point we started getting chilled - it was the same even in July that the top was significantly colder than the hike up.

I guess the bonus of it being so windy up here is that it blows a lot of the snow off, but there was still enough on the scree to make it slippery.

Pan of the top with some extra-funny distortion: We still had to stop to take a group photo...

We didn't think the first one worked so I went back and pressed the button again... not settings were changed so I have no idea why this exposure happened, but it's kind of funny so I included it anyway.

We got feeling back in our hands part way down, and made it back to the car before it got too dark (although the sun had set behind the mountains.... totally forgot about the sun going down so much earlier since this was the first day of the time change!).

Old Baldy Ridge - Oct. 23

I got a long weekend a few weeks ago so I went hiking with a couple of friends from work. We were all of to a bit of a sluggish start so decided to go with Old Baldy Ridge. The name deceptively suggests that it's a ridge walk, but the vast majority of it is along a river through the valley. Tom had the GPS so we were on our own for navigating except for my (mostly) trusty guide book... which should have been fairly easy except the trail was completely unsigned, very rough, and covered in snow so we couldn't actually see the trail for part of it - just one set of boot prints that we followed hoping they knew where they were going. We lost the trail towards the end of the hike, but I think we made about 12 km (estimated in blue) of the 14 km trail (remainder shown in red) before we lost it completely. No GPS profile on this, but based on the topo I'm estimating we made about 720 m of the 800 m or so total.

Krista, Heather, and Breanna... not quite sure what B's finding so funny here...

The trail:

Looking back towards the highway... not sure what the name of this mountain is, but we got lovely views of it.

In many places the trail was barely wide enough to walk on (probably started off as a game trail) and covered in snow, of course increasing in snow as we meandered up the valley.

This was our point of confusion. We started up a little ridgeline with a lovely view of this little cascade, but lost the trail. We were probably supposed to keep going up it and loop around but we couldn't see any more boot prints.

We spotted some back down in the valley and up on an opposing ridge so we went back down and started up the other side. Tom would be proud that I led them scrambling up this... a very Tom-like off-trail maneouver.

The way up to Old Baldy Ridge? ... there were boot prints at least, but lost them on the scree slope above and couldn't find the trail through the forest to loop back down.

View from the ridge:

Apparently an excellent place for a photo op:

We paused there for lunch, long enough to get a good chill going then headed back down with a few more layers on... stopping for a group shot along the way. Great use of a day off!

Fullerton Loop

Yesterday we decided to go for an easy hike/puppy walk at Fullerton Loop, just outside Bragg Creek leaving from the Allan Bill Pond parking lot. The loop was about 8 km with only 200 m of elevation gain. The temperature was gorgeous, the trail not too sloppy, and the puppies loved it!

Okay... so note that this was largely a puppy walk - no mountains here, but plenty of puppy pictures. Uma's getting pretty big now (red collar). She's 10 months old and almost the same height as Kali (black collar), but still quite a bit thinner and her head is smaller too. Still abundant energy but Uma's now starting to focus on things for more than a micro-second... even enough to follow the laser pointer in the morning (Kali adores it - obsessed even... Uma followed it for a couple of stomps but then got distracted with a play buddy). We're still working on getting her to focus enough that she stops ramming me in the head with her head, and she's still occasionally chewing inappropriate things if she doesn't get out for her morning walk early enough or meet up with enough play buddies to help wear her out on the walks.

The view from the look-out at the highest point of Fullerton Loop:

Prairie Mountain

Back on Sept. 23 I was lucky enough to get a day off! My friend Heather and I took Kali & Uma for a little hike up Prairie Mountain... since Tom had already done this hike with me I didn't think he'd mind. I didn't have the GPS so no track or stats, but it took us a few of hours, I think it's about a 300 m elevation gain, but not over much distance. This is the 360 from the top with Moose Mountain on the right just past the cairn.

Kali and Uma had a great time, especially once we got to the top. They're standing next to a fairly sheer drop that they were fascinated by...

... Kali loves staring off over the edge into the mountains (just check out some of the other posts...)

Apparently someone decided that Prairie Mountain reminded them of Nepal and hung some prayer flags out... I made the girls pose with them.

Unfortunately the snow's been flying around here already so the girls will have to wait for next year for more hiking... they're not really cold-weather kind of dogs. Kali always looks like she's on a death march when we take her snow-shoeing... thank goodness for dog parks!

Grassi Lakes

I'm helping to run the New Hire Mountain field trip for work this week (I posted about it back at the end of June when I went on it). Unfortunately we weren't able to go to the Grassi Lakes outcrop due to a road closure, but I'm supposed to be presenting it this time so Breanna and I went out last Monday to check it out. It was a gorgeous day in Calgary, but not so lucky in Canmore where we got hit by some horizontal rain and cold wind gusts. Just thought I'd share a few pics of the area...

View of Grassi Lakes looking out towards Canmore:

Since we were on company time we were trying to be safety concious, but noticed this sign on the trail only as we were leaving the area! ... kind of had to get in there anyway to look at the rocks.

Okay... so here's the outcrop from afar (climbers for scale... note to self, must come back to go climbing!). For those inclined to notice rock stuff, try finding the stromatoporoid reefs and parasequence boundaries.

And a slightly distorted view of the lake looking up to Ha Ling Peak and the top of the Spray Lake Road/water tower (where we started from).

I noticed I have no close-ups of the rocks... will remedy this when I revisit the site this week.

West Wind Pass

My parents are in town this weekend so we took them for a hike. I chose West Wind Pass, which is a 5.3 km loop with something like 429 m total elevation gain (~387 m max elevation gain)... so comparable to what we tortured Tom & Jane with when they came out. Once again the topo map is having a funny colour day...

This is Spray Lake from part way up:

From the top looking down West Wind Valley (you can see the LaFarge concrete plant in the valley).

Group shot at the top: This is the panoramic view into West Wind Valley. The 360 pan from the other side of the pass into Spray Lake Valley: One last view of Spray Lake:

After the hike we were supposed to head out to Banff for a quick dip in the hot springs... we were running about an hour late but we passed a convenient and completely random phone booth next to an outhouse on the side of the Spray Lake Road (a dirt road that runs through the mountains). I decided to try to call Breanna from there to see if she could let the dogs out... my attempts on the mountain were thwarted by bad reception on our cell phone (it's an emergency phone but is pretty useless as such because of chronically bad reception). We tried to put coins in the phone but it was jammed... Tom managed to shake out 85 cents but still couldn't get out all the coinage. After a bit of trying I managed to get a dial tone and an operator, informed them about the state of the phone, and they patched me through to Breanna's voicemail at work after I coughed up a credit card number... unfortunately did not have her cell phone OR home number with me (just remembered the office extension because I bug her a bunch at work) so hoped she'd get the message before she left for the day. All was well by the time we got home though - Breanna had come to the rescue of Uma & Kali and both pups had been let out and fed!! You're awesome B!

Old Goat Glacier, revisited

Okay... so I'm slowly catching up on blogging. A couple of weekends ago I revisited Old Goat Glacier with Tom & Breanna since neither of them had seen it before. The track accidentally got deleted but it's was 10.5km round-trip with a 620m elevation gain. We got a bit of a late start to the day... partly planned, partly just little things that crop up... but mostly because we got to the trailhead and I realized that I had forgotten my socks so we had to drive back to Canmore and buy some. It was still a nice hike, but we were losing light fast in Old Goat valley and the light wasn't particularly good for the group shot at the end.

Looking to Spray Lakes Reservoir from the edge of the hanging valley: Tom & Breanna on the moraine hiking up to the glacier:

Old Goat Glacier, the panoramic version:

Heading back out:

Puppies

I thought I should post a bit of a puppy update. Uma is just about 9 months now and is close to Kali's height and length, but defintely a lot scrawnier... and has a smaller head. She's a mostly well-behaved puppy but has gotten into a bit of mischief lately when she's bored... for example she's chewed a few pens on the carpet, destroyed Tom's hat, and very recently dug out and eaten carrots from my garden (who taught her carrots were yummy?!). We're doing our best to exercise the mischief out of her and Tom has even taken the girls to work on occasion (he's building mountain bike trails so they get to play in the forest). She's a super snuggly puppy and I love her a ton, but Kali definitely had us spoiled for what to expect from a Ridgeback puppy! Kali is doing quite well and enjoys tackling Uma in the long grass at the park. Her elbow doesn't seem to be bothering her too much.

House renos

Just thought I'd share a few before and after shots of our yard. As you can see we painted the house blue instead of the peach, ripped out the deck and replaced it...

cut down some trees, added a garden...

...and Tom certainly seems happier =o)!

Hiking in Yoho: Day 3 (Heading home)

On Sunday we woke up to a third chilly morning. We were still cold after breakfast, even with multiple layers of clothes on (the sun was taking it's sweet time to creep over the rim of the valley and the clouds weren't helping either), so we decided to hike up to Twin Falls again to warm up and catch the light hitting the Falls better.

To be fair I had to let Tom take a funny pic of me too... A couple shots of Twin Falls... not as twin looking in the morning since the cold kind of put a damper on the amount of melting:

On our way out from the little lookout trail we passed the Twin Falls Chalet. Apparently you can have lunch and tea here, and if you book ahead of time stay in this comfy lodge instead of in a tent on the ground.

After we got back to camp, all toasty at that point, we broke down the tent and packed up our stuff for the hike out. We paused again at Laughing Falls...

Tom had to clamber along this slippery log to get to and back from the rock in the above shot... that's my monkey man!

... more trail shots on the way out

This was the lookout at Lace Falls - Tom is strategically placed to block other people viewing the falls.

From there we stopped off at the Angel's Staircase Falls, although they weren't looking too impressive this early on a chilly day.

There was a brief glimpse of sun so we sat down on the river's edge for lunch. The sun soon disappeared though and the spot became a bit too cold to hang around long so we cut it short and hit the trail again...

Still no sun as we got back to Takkakaw Falls... but the car was warm!

The sun came out again and it warmed up on the drive back to Hwy 1... we stopped off at this lookout to see the Spiral Tunnel and finish our lunch in the sun.

It was impossible to see where the track and tunnel was at first but we were lucky enough to be there long enough for a train to come by so we could see it on two levels.

From here we just headed back to Calgary, got in around dinner time and picked up our pups from their fun weekend hanging out with our friends and their pup. Needless to say, excellent weekend! (especially since we did find the GPS at the end!)

Hiking in Yoho: Day 2 (Twin Falls and the Whaleback)

We woke up Saturday to another pretty chilly morning... good thing for hot oatmeal, many many layers of clothing, and a warm car ride to the trailhead! While Tom was cooking breakfast (and adding some zip to his coffee) I snapped a few shots of our "restful" camp-site in Lake Louise.

This was our site... surrounded by many other tents...

And backing onto the road that looped the camp-site. In the background you can see a yellow line that marks the top of the electric fence that encircled the tent/tent-trailer portion of the campground to keep bears out... and through the night you could hear the sound of trains and road traffic. VERY restful...

For this part of the hike we started from the same parking lot as the Burgess Shale hike at Takkakaw Falls but headed north along the river instead. Since we got back in rain the night before our stuff just got tossed into the back of the car, which led to us misplacing our GPS (we found it when we unpacked at home but there are unfortunately no tracks for this part of the hike... although if I get ambitious I'll scan the map).

Most of the initial hike to our camp-site at Twin Falls was along very easy trails, with only a small section of only slightly less smooth track (kind of nice with full packs on and after having already done one day of hiking).

Part way along the hike we dropped our packs to explore some lookouts along the river =o)

Resuming the hike:The bridge to Laughing Falls (another of the back-country campsites). Laughing Falls: The slightly more rugged trail leading onward to Twin Falls:

This part of the river was pretty neat because there were a lot of these bowls carved out along-side the river where it was under-cutting the rock.

Our camp-site at Twin Falls! There were only a hand-full of tents around, and instead of traffic we got the pleasant sound of rapids! We stopped here long enough to pitch our tent and enjoy lunch in the sun by the side of the river...

After lunch we decided to tack on another 10 km or so loop that took us up to Twin Falls proper, across the boulder field that bordered Marpole Lake and a cliff-face, then up over the Whaleback to the very top of Twin Falls and then back down to camp for dinner! We decided to leave our packs here and just took a light bag with some water and a snack for this part.

Twin Falls at a fairly peak flow (late on a warm day = lots of glacial run-off!):

Pan from the bridge that crosses the river leading from Twin Falls to Marpole Lake. Twin Falls is on the extreme left.

Marpole Lake:

The trail through the boulder field... mostly well marked, but easy to lose if you're not paying attention!

Once we got off the Marpole Loop intersection we had to make a decision whether to back-track, head up over the Whaleback, or to head down to Laughing Falls and then retrace our steps to camp. We were a bit concerned about the time and getting back before dark because we were getting conflicting distance estimates. At one point we met a lady coming of the Whaleback and we asked her how long it had taken her from Twin Falls... she said 5 hours! ... after a bit more discussion we realized that she had gotten the falls confused and the 5 hours had been from the start back at Takkakaw Falls so we forged on ahead over the Whaleback.

We had an excellent view of the mountains across the valley and the big moraines along the edge of the remnant glaciers:

At the top of the Whaleback there was this marker: I don't think we had anything to worry about during our hike though... A few pans from the Whaleback... unfortunately the sun didn't completely cooperate so the pictures are a bit patchy for light.

The trail down, leading towards Twin Falls. There was still snow packed around parts of the river where it would have been shaded for much of the day.

The top of Twin Falls:

From here the trail wound down the cliff in a series of switchbacks... a bit longer than we had expected, but that was probably because we were getting tired and hungry! Still made it back in time to have enough light for dinner (mmm... chili and cheese bannock), and then off to bed for a good night's sleep!

Hiking in Yoho: Day 1 (Burgess Shale)

Last weekend was a long one for me so Tom and I went hiking in Yoho National Park, B.C. It all started when a friend of mine from work decided to organize a trip to the Burgess Shale, but we decided to tack on an extra night there. We drove out to Lake Louise on Thursday night (stayed in the campground there Thurs & Fri nights), hiked the Burgess Shale on Friday, then backpacked into Yoho on Saturday and out on Sunday.

The hike started from Takkakaw Falls, North America's second highest waterfall. The hike was something like 24.7 km and an elevation gain of 740 m (I have a track and profile that I'll add later).

The morning was quite cool (about 5 C or less...) but we warmed up fairly quickly heading up this slope, although since it was a guided hike there were many stops so the whole thing was fairly leisurely. Lake Yoho:

Beyond Yoho Lake we entered Yoho pass where we saw this sign warning people they aren't allowed in the Burgess Shale quarry unless they have a guide with them (although everyone is allowed to hike along the trail that goes past it, just not the turn-off up to the quarry).

Panorama of the area... The falls to the right are Hamilton Falls on Hamilton Mountain (Emerald glacier on top and behind that mountain), and you can just see the tip of Emerald Lake in the centre.

Pan of Emerald Lake:

We stopped for lunch at what must have been a popular lunch spot because the chipmunks were obviously used to people - here's one munching up some crumbs that Tom had dropped from his lunch:

Probably a common shot for people hiking here... this is the turn-off to the Burgess Shale quarry... although the quarry isn't up at this mountain, just around the far right of photo.

The quarry! The guides have a bunch of representative fossils they keep in the green cabinet so they can whip them out to show people... of course the fun part is sifting through the scree to find your own (not that you get to keep them). Unfortunately we didn't get to spend too much time here because the hike was kind of leisurely and then we had to get back for a specific dinner reservation that Tom and I ended up missing anyway.

Of course we saw some neat fossils, some of which would definitely not been obvious to me me so I'm just showing a few that actually look like something people might recognize... like this trilobite!This is the jaw of the critter shown to the left... the name of which is completely escaping me at the moment (starts with an O anyone?)... I'll update this once I remember.

This is a crab-like critter named Waptia:

Marella, the lace crab: The group, mostly consisting of co-workers, co-worker spouses, and a couple friends of co-workers:

From here we got to descend at our own pace (Tom and I were in the lead and didn't really see many people from the time we left the switchback out of the quarry until we got to the parking lot). When we were about 15-20 minutes from the parking lot it started to pour, but after a bit of debate since the car was so close we pulled out our rain gear (not wanting to have to dry stuff in a tent).

Guinn's Pass and Galatea Lakes

Tom, Breanna, and I decided to hike Guinn's Pass last weekend and ended tacking on Galatea Lakes as well. It was a 19.4 km round-trip, with a maximum elevation gain of 870 m (although over 1km if you count all the ups and downs). The day started off kind of cool, but was comfortable for most of the day... really until the last hour when we were hiking back when we got poured on. This trail is particularly known for the amazing wildflowers!

We started from the Galatea parking lot where there was a fantastic view of Mt. Kidd (featured in a previous post). Unfortunately it was also a super hazy day so many of the scenery shots ended up a bit washed looking.

The trail started off with this lovely suspension bridge, and I think there were 8 bridges in total of varying types.

Just a few shots of the river... the trail wound back and forth across the creek providing ample scenic river shots and bridge photos.

The trail was beautiful and relaxing too! It was a fairly comfortable hike over a soft forested trail, pleasantly shaded, and very peaceful...

Relaxing on one of the bridges:

Another bridge... losing count at this point:

Heading out of the trees...

Okay... so the flower pics begin again. This time the botany lesson is scattered throughout the post... and Breanna threatened to start calling me "Botany Becky" after the numerous stops to photograph them. This one is an Orange Agoseris. It was pretty neat seeing the progression of flower types. The lower slopes were dominated by red, purple, and white, moving upward progressed to yellow, blue and white, and then at the top only light yellow and white.

I think this one is a Tall Jacob's Ladder.

This one was harder to track down... I've noticed it on previous hikes but without the berries so I didn't clue in to look in the shrub section It's a Bracted Honeysuckle, otherwise known as Black Twinberry. Don't eat this one - considered somewhat poisonous and apparently tastes so bad that nobody would really want to eat it anyway.

Yellow Columbine: This lovely one is Low Larkspur (aka Delphinium)

The scree trail leading up Guinn's pass (the trail actually zig-zags only part way up and then exits towards the left of the shot).

I was kind of wondering over these plants for a while. They looked a bit funny with the "fruit" being attached to the leaves...

Tom threw a bit of enlightenment on the matter by breaking it apart and revealing a parasitic worm inside.. kind of neat though.

Many of the rocks on the slope had some fantastic dune trough cross-stratification (for all you geo-geeks):

This one was pretty neat - a pretty purple with yellow-tipped stamens. It's a Silky Scorpionweed, aka Silky Phacelia.

Don't know what this is... maybe if I could have seen it earlier in the flowering season, but it looked neat:

The scree slides were pretty neat looking along the trail to Guinn's Pass: A view up Guinn's Pass: A view down Guinn's pass: Red-Osier Dogwood: I think this is a type of Parnassia. These two are pretty common... Purple Aster and Red Paintbrush.

Panorama from the top of Guinn's Pass. The view was amazing!! I'll definitely do this one again, but maybe hike over Guinn's Pass, overnight in Ribbon Creek, and then hike out through Kananaskis Village and back along Terrace Trail. This one is highly recommended!

It was a bit chilly on top so Breanna and I bundled on some layers (you know this one was going to show up B!).

We came across this little guy on our way out. He was popping in and out like a whack-a-mole, but I managed to catch this shot of him anyway.

Heading back out:

We were making pretty good time so we decided to swing up the other fork of the trail to Lillian Lake (only an additional 0.9km).

Then from there we figured we might as well tack on the extra hour to make a quick round-trip to Galatea Lakes at the far end of the trail (although if we hadn't done this we would have got back to the car just before the rain hit rather than hiking in it). This is the trail up to Galatea Lake: A hazy view of us at Galatea Lake and a panorama of it:

No photos of the way out... it was raining too hard and we were all getting hungry so we booted it out pretty quickly... awesome day as usual though! Any day in the mountains is a good day!

Rawson Lake

Tom Sr. & Jane are in town visiting so we took them on a drive and walk through the mountains. We opted for Rawson Lake because it's a wide, easy trail with a relatively low elevation gain and distance. The horizontal distance ended up being 9.45 km (rather than the 7.8 in the book), and 347 m elevation gain. I don't know what's up with the topo map today but the lakes are showing up in yellow. The grey line that runs along the bottom marks the border with B.C.

The hike started from the Upper Kananaskis Lakes parking lot, across the lake from Mt. Indefatigable (shown below), which we hiked earlier in the season.

The wide-open trail started off along the edge of the lake before cutting up to Rawson Lake.

Fairly soon we came upon this little waterfall:

Tom, Tom & Jane checking out the waterfall:

I decided to take a few pans of the lake. Unfortunately there was a lot of haze so the colours are pretty muted.

We stopped for a while at the lake to enjoy the sun and harass the chipmunk that kept trying to mooch food off us.

We took the Spray Lake dirt road back up to Canmore to give the folks a different view of the mountains on the way home and managed to see a coyote and a couple of moose on the side of the road.

BBQ on the new deck!

We had our first BBQ on our new deck last Friday... not that the deck is necessarily finished (still waiting on a railing and pergola), but we were getting tired of putting it off... and we wanted an excuse to pick up a Party Pig. There's a brewery in town called Wild Rose Brewery where you can pick up a pig-shaped vessel to transport your favourite brew (we chose Velvet Fog). It holds the equivalent of 25 bottles and is hilarious! True to form I didn't take pictures of any people at the actual event...

Trip to Thunder Bay

I went home to visit my family in Thunder Bay last weekend. Apparently I'm not super great with taking lots of photos during family events... I usually feel awkward taking photos of people. This is my grandma, with my nieces Seren (on her lap) and Breanna. Everyone's looking pretty in pink...

The reason for the congregation was my sister traveled from Seattle to Thunder Bay for Seren's 1st birthday... and what's a 1st birthday without a caky face?

Amy and her daughter Breanna:

Tonya:

James Walker Creek and Wild Flowers

A couple of weekends ago Tom, Breanna, and I hiked the James Walker Creek. This trail (green on the topo map) is just a canyon south of the Headwall Lake/Fortress/Chester Lake hike (blue) I posted back on July 4. It was 18.1 km round trip with 664 m elevation gain.

It was a bit hazy out for most of the day so some of the mountain shots aren't that spectacular. Here's looking back on the overgrown trail at Breanna as she fiddles with her camera (she only brought one this time). In retrospect the haze was probably from the fires around Kelowna.

It was hazy enough that there was a nice halo around the sun. The first tarn in the James Walker Creek valley:

We came across a number of cascades along the hike - most of mine didn't turn out very well, but here's a shot of Breanna making some attempts. Hopefully her's came out better!

One of the few waterfall shots that worked... had to do a bit of a panorama stitch to get it though!We stopped in a clearing at this waterfall for a group photo. Like the straw cowboy hat? I picked it up after stampede for $10 and figured I might as well wear it since it's a lot cooler than my oilskin hat... and it's hilarious!

After the brief photo op continued the trek up the debris slope...

View up the left fork of the canyon towards Mt. James Walker: Tom checking out the bedding dips:

View of a fold from an upper tarn. The moss was an amazing green here!The creek feeding this tarn was still edged in ice and Tom couldn't resist taking a few shots of it... kind of reminded us of summer in the arctic!Tom & Breanna's victory pose:

To go further up the valley we had to skirt the edge of the tarn by crossing some snow - fortunately it held up and nobody got wet... although Breanna thought it was a perfect time to toss snowballs.

A bit further up the valley we realized we had gone a fair bit further than the trail indicated, and since the "path" we were on was getting impassable due to sketchy snow across the creek, so we headed back down to check out the other canyon fork... Tom again leading the way on his make-shift toboggan...

Back down at the upper tarn... haze finally starting to lift to show some lovely blue sky.

Crossing James Walker Creek: The view from the forks down the valley: Tom couldn't resist having a brief nap in the moss... I was jealous.

I took a panorama in the right fork valley, which lead towards Mt. Inflexible (right edge of pan). We didn't go too far into this one because we were short on time and we could already see the end of the canyon from this point. If you look closely you can see Tom & Breanna.

Back at the lower tarn - the lake was beautifully still with a vivid blue sky so I couldn't resist snapping a few (okay, Breanna also demanded that I do this since she was using black & white film at this point).

... okay, on the botany lesson. On the Mt. Allan hike I was inspired by the beauty of the wildflowers so I picked up a wildflower book and decided to take the time to photograph some of the flowers we saw:

Okay... so this one isn't in my book, but it looks like it's part of the Aster family.

I think this one is Roseroot, a succulent that is supposed to have edible roots and leaves (although I think I need to get better with my I.D. before I eat it).This is a Prairie Crocus - they tend to be quite common on the hikes we've done, sometimes with a pretty purple hue.

These cute little flowers are Mountain Forget-Me-Nots.

This hike was the first time I noticed these pretty Alpine Lanterns.

Streamband Groundsel, part of the Aster family:

Scarlet Paintbrush, a relatively common flower on our hikes:

This was the first time we saw it in vibrant pink and purples though:

Okay... I don't know what this one is either - it doesn't look like any of the ones in my book. If somebody can identify it please let me know.

This one is Blue Clematis, aka Blue Virgin's Bower.

Mt. Allan

Last Sunday Tom & I decided to push our elevation gain by hiking Mt. Allan. Our guide book boasted this hike as having the biggest elevation gain in the Canadian Rockies with a supposed 1.7 km vertical combined with 14.4 km out & back. Our GPS pegged the hike at only 1.5 km vertical and 17.6 km hike. It was a bit of a slog to start with, the scenery not as nice as last weekend, but once we hit the sub-alpine zone the wild flowers were amazing! Still made for an excellent day.

The route:

The profile:

The trail started off on a nice wide trail, ironically called "Hidden Trail" despite it being incredibly obvious. The trees were fairly thick around the trail, blocking the wind. We were thinking we'd be running out of water before the trip was done, but thankfully once we got a bit higher out of the trees it cooled off to a perfect hiking temperature.

Unfortunately this was pretty much it for snow on this trek... just a dirty pile amongst the trees on the side of the trail.

This is the top of Mt. Olympus, a little bump really half way up to Mt. Allan.

Once we got up this ridge we got our first good view of Mt. Allan (other than from the highway). .. and this is where the hike started getting good.

Apparently this is where they do the weather measurements for the Kananaskis recreation area... There were two stations set up here, and a partial one on Mt. Allan.

... and also the top of the chair-lifts for the Nakiska ski resort.

Most of the hike was through Cretaceous conglomerates (I'm pretty sure they're equvalent to the same stuff I found dinosaur tracks in during my work field trip that I posted back on June 30). In this spot the conglomerates were all turned up on end forming this palisade wall and some of the rubble blocks had slickenslides.

From the top of Mt. Allan! Yay, victory!

Pan from the top:

There was a cement block on the very top with this survey marker:

We also found another little bit of interest up here... a small plaque stuck to a precarious rock (black rectangle on the rock to the far right of Tom).

Here's a close-up of the plaque. Tom & I thought this was a really awesome idea and hope we can have a similar memorial on our favourite hike some day (although we have to check out many more hikes so hopefully not any time soon!).

This is the view on the other side of Mt. Allan. If you want to turn this hike into a shuttle trip you can follow this trail down to the valley and head out to Hwy 1.

This is the gentle part of the ridgeline back towards the trailhead.

View of the ridge of conglomerate on the way back.

I stopped to take some pictures of the wild flowers on the way down. I don't know what they are but I think I'm inspired to head out to the bookstore to find out.

Storming the Fortress

On Friday Tom & I thought we'd take advantage of the Stampede Parade keeping the crowds in town while we got the heck out. We originally opted to hike up to the Headwall Lakes, a 14km round-trip with only 430 m of elevation gain, with the possibility of tacking on the Fortress or popping over the ridge to come out on the Chester Lake trail. Instead, we ended up doing both, so hiking up the Headwall Creek canyon, climbing to the Fortress, and then out Chester Lake for a total hike of 20.8 km loop with 1115m of elevation gain, most of it at the Fortress.

I tried putting labels on the profile but for some reason every time I've tried to upload it the words are missing. The Headwall Lakes are after the first steep slope on the left ~7km, the sharp pointy part is the Fortress ~11km, and Chester Lake is on the right at ~17km.

The trail started off on wide cross-country ski trails rated blue and orange (which are the easiest here rather than the yellow and red equivalents back home in Ontario).

After about 45 minutes or so we took a small trail marked by a cairn and headed up the Headwall Creek trail.

Headwall Creek:

The forested trail shortly gave way to a rough bouldery trail marked by small cairns (rock piles).

Once again we hit snow, pretty minor at first...

But then more snow... and by the end of the trek my ankles were a bit chilly from having snow packed around them and my socks were a bit soggy.

Lower Headwall Lake - that's ice on the lake in the foreground.

Tom checking out the cut-throat trout in the Lower Headwall Lake:

View down the valley from the top of Headwall Lake. At this point the creek was gushing out of the ground. A combination of thick scree and karsting of the limestone means that the creeks run underground for a while.

Upper Headwall Lake:

Some crinoids on a boulder - centimetre scale at the bottom. Tom laughed at me because I had my scale card stashed in camera case. With preservation this good I wish I could poke around the bed this came from to see if there was a calyx to go with it.

First view of the Fortress:

Entering the sub-alpine valley above Headwall Lakes with Headwall Creek running through it.

The steep snow-covered slope leading up to the ridge separating Chester Canyon from Headwall Canyon, with the trail going up to the Fortress starting from the ridge-crest.

On the trail up to the Fortress looking back at the ridge-crest...

We found a geocache at the top of the Fortress!

This is the view from the Fortress looking back to Headwall Canyon.

The view slightly to the right of the last, looking towards Chester Lake.

360 degree panorama from the top of the Fortress:

The scree trail leading to the Fortress:

The scree slope leading from the ridge-crest down to Chester Lake. Just below this we hit deep snow. It was so steep we decided not to toboggan down it, but it was a pretty good, although precarious at times, boot-ski.

Finally off the rubble trail, looking back to the Fortress. Chester Lake - the wild-flowers were amazing!

The well-groomed gravel trail that leads from Chester Lake to the parking lot. This part of the trail is rated easy.

In the end it took us just over 5 hours of moving time, more like 7 total though once snack time, photo-ops, and lounging around various lakes and the top of the Fortress were taken into account. Made for another sweet summer day though! Needless to say, we decided to take it easy today...

Mountain Trip

Last week I went on a trip to the mountains with the other new hires at work, really it was just a bit of geo-tourism to familiarize ourselves with the local foothills geology. I thought I'd share some of the neat things we saw (okay, neat to geo-geeks maybe).

A view of the dam near Mt. Yamnuska where several of the following pictures were taken.

Dinosaur tracks:

I believe these trace fossils are Rosselia, which is generally interpreted as the dwelling tube of a terebellid annelid (a type of worm). This is the trace fossil Ophiomorpha, which is a combined dwelling and feeding burrow created by shrimp by lining it with fecal pellets.

This trace fossil is Diplocraterion, which is a U-shaped tube with spreite within the "U". The organism lives in the tube and moves the burrow up or down depending on sedimentation, erosion, or growth of the organism. Trace maker unknown.Trace fossil: Asterosoma, trace maker: unknown. The organism would have been farming the sediment by burrowing down and then digging burrows out from the main tunnel in a star-shaped pattern.

Mt. Kidd - one of the most photographed mountain in the Rockies. The structure here is the result of a fault-propogation fold. I had planned to sketch out how it formed in photoshop but haven't gotten around to it... so this photo may be updated at a later time (or not).

Panorama of Mt. Lorette - Tom and I took shots of this last season when we hiked Wasootch Ridge. Lots of neat thrust faults here that give repeating stratigraphy (that I also had planned to sketch in and might do later).

Mt. Indefatigable (aka Mt. Fatty)

Tom & I headed out for another hike on Saturday - it was weird not having Kali with us, but she's not quite up to it anymore with her bad elbows. We've been wanting to hike Mt. Fatty, a 7.6 km round-trip with 920m elevation gain (although our GPS recorded around 1100 m). The trail started with a brief foray into the woods, but with an instant hit of steady climbing.

This is the view from the lower slopes of Mt. Fatty back towards Upper Kananaskis Lake.

Out of the trees and up the rocky slope: I paused here to take this pan:

Our first view of the peak of Mt. Indefatigable:

The Opal Ranges with Kananaskis Lake in the foreground. At 2266 m we hit snow. Most of the trail wasn't too bad - compacted footprints made for decent footing and closer to the top the drifts had been blown away. Tom making snow angels: A snow-filled valley looking up to the peak of Mt. Fatty:

Getting close to the peak:

From this point we decided to take an impromptu ramble towards the northern outlier of Mt. Fatty. This is a view back down to where we came from.

A view of the wild flowers growing up the slope of the northern outlier: A view of the northern outlier from Mt. Fatty: A peek over the edge of Mt. Fatty:

Tom on a lower peak, but the highest we got to.

From the secondary peak up the ridgeline towards the real crest of Mt. Fatty - it was a bit more than Tom's hand could handle. Tom suiting up to take the fast way down. If you strap a wind-breaker to yourself you can use it like a toboggan and slide down the snow (note to self: always pack wind-breaker on a trip like this!) Tom getting the hiking poles ready for braking: Tom en route: Since I didn't have a wind-breaker with me I had to settle for boot-skiing down the snow. Heading back down, and loving how beautiful the day was - great hike, great weather, and a beautifully lit fold =o)!

Hailstone Butte

Last weekend Tom & I decided to go hiking (since it's one of our few one-handed activities these days) and brought along Nikole (our guest) and our friend Breanna. We opted for a couple of easy hikes to get us warmed up for the season, but were a bit delayed getting out of town because we mistakenly ended up on the same route out of town as a bike race so didn't complete the second one (but it will be excellent for the folks when they make it to town!). The first hike was Hailstone Butte, a 4km round-trip with only 327 m of elevation that ended with a fire look-out. Our guide book was a bit confused on the location of the trailhead and actually sent us route-finding up a bit of a harder hill that tacked on some difficulty and time, although we found the trail on the way out and it was much easier.

... but if we hadn't gone that way we probably wouldn't have noticed this lovely fold!

The fire look-out on top of Hailstone Butte; much newer than the one on Mt. Burke that we visited last year and in much better condition!

View along the butte from the fire look-out:

Eww... Franken-Finger

Just thought I'd share this lovely shot with everyone. A couple of weeks ago some boulders decided to get even with Tom and crushed his hand. He needed 15 stitches in one finger and the rest of his hand was pretty swollen and mangled looking. Needless to say he's being forced to take it easy now, but is recovering.

Visions of Moab

Sorry I've been a little lax on updating the blog lately. These are just a few shots from Moab from my work trip back in May - hopefully there will be many more in the future when Tom & I go ride it!

Pictographs painted by "Archaic people" from Barrier Canyon, Utah

A picturesque fault outside Moab:

S.W. U.S. trip: Climbing Mt. Baldy, Orem, Utah

We got an afternoon of free time on the trip so the Canadian Contingency (minus one who chose to go golfing instead) decided to climb up Mt. Baldy. We started at an elevation around 4400 ft and got up to about 8000 ft ... or for us Canadians an elevation gain of about 1500 km. We ended up taking about 6 hours for the trip. The trail started pleasantly enough with lovely views of Orem and the surrounding mountains.

The view up to Mt. Baldy:

This is where it started to get a bit rough... we lost the trail heading up to Mt. Baldy and started bush-whacking from the base to the summit through some scratchy shrubs.

There was still a good amount of snow near the top so we paused for some scenic shots and a snowball fight.

A little further up we found a ridge that went up to the top. It was covered in a few feet of snow still but firm enough not to sink through... although the summit was still deceptively far away and difficult to run to on the snow.

View from the top of Mt. Baldy:

What else would we do up there except build a snowman?

We named it after the missing Canadian and left him up (minus the cowboy hat) there hoping we could see him from the bottom with our binoculars... never did get a chance to check it out though....

We couldn't see the trail from the top. Mark decided to take a short cut and used his rain jacket as a toboggan and slid down on his bum.

Part way down we came across a sign-post indicating we were on the right track.

There was a little bit of trail at first but we lost it again and ended up picking our way down the gully between the mountains...

When we got close to the bottom we found the trail again and came across this idyllic setting (and sign). Apparently we started the hike from the wrong side of the parking lot. The trail we started on didn't actually go to the summit... but it was an awesome hike anyway!!

S.W. U.S. trip: New Mexico

I got back on Friday from my geo-tour work trip of the S.W. U.S... most of these will just be scenic shots. I've broken the trip up into a few different posts to make it more manageable. We flew into El Paso and pretty quickly headed into New Mexico where it was a bit uncomfortably hot (35 C or so).

This is the El Capitan Reef... a classic carbonate reef facies that you'd see in all the text books. We didn't actually get to see much carbonate facies... pretty much just 15 minutes on the second day.

Just a close-up on this pretty cactus:

One of the trails we took started at this little house. The story is this little house was built by a guy back in the 1900s (ordered pre-fab from Sears or something like that). He advertised for a bride but when she got there and saw the place she turned around and went back home.

View down the trail towards El Paso (roughly):

New Mexico desert:

This is a roll-over fold (the curved beds on the right) that was created by layers collapsing along a fault.

This is White Sands Park. We got to drive by and see the gypsum dunes, but didn't actually get to stop. They also pointed out Carlsbad Caverns as we drove past but we didn't get to stop there either.

Uma's first trips to the dog park

Tom has told me that I've got a ridiculous number of puppy pictures on the blog now, but whatever, they're cute... and here's a few more. Uma is now officially allowed to go to dog parks - all up to date on her vaccines. We took them to Nose Hill park for the first visit because there's not usually too many dogs there so she can work up to larger groups... but that also means she's fair game for Kali. Uma started the wrestling but there wasn't really anywhere to hide so Kali chased her down and rolled her... and Uma came running to us for protection since she's not quite fast enough yet. Kali doesn't hurt her or anything... just pins her to the ground and won't let her up.

Of course after all that playing puppies definitely need some snuggling in the sunbeam time... whether Kali wants the snuggle part or not...

Who knows? Maybe she does... Uma is pretty warm and a perfect pillow size...

This morning we took them to Bowmont Park because there's a combination of fenced in puppy areas and nice walking areas. Here they are sporting the new collars my sister made for them - very styling and we got a few people asking where we got them and saying she should go into business making them...

There were actually quite a few dogs around and Uma started making some friends... although I'm pretty sure she was expecting them all to want to pin her like Kali does. We'll be taking Uma for a few solo trips too... and pretty soon puppy school.

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Puppy shots & new puppy bed!

It was gorgeous yesterday and we knew the snow was coming again so we took Kali & Uma to a nearby, relatively secluded park where we could play and do some training. Tom decided to chill out in the sun for a bit but Uma took it as an invitation to try to jump on him...

Uma's still growing of course... up to 25 lbs now. She still wants to snuggle with Kali but they're running out of room on Kali's bed. I picked up some more upholstery foam so I can make a bigger bed...

Napping in the sun...

Something wrong here... while I've been working on making a cover the two foams were individually covered with old bed covers but whenever the girls wrestle the beds end up flying all over the place. This time the beds somehow ended up stacked with Uma victoriously hanging out on top... probably one of her few victories...

This morning I finally found time to work on the bed cover. The girls were a hassle of course, trying to help with the pinning, climbing under the table where the pedal is (Uma at least), and just generally hanging around.

Here are the girls snuggled up on the new king-sized puppy bed. One of the foams was a bit smaller than the other so I might stuff the bed to make up for it. It's a thick, smooth, soft fleece on one side and the grey side is a fuzzy, woolier fleece.

Mooks has been feeling like a bit of a neglectarino on this site so I thought I'd slip in a cute shot I took of her... She's still ruling the roost of course, but Uma likes to push it.

Yard Work

Last weekend it was so beautiful that Tom and I took advantage of the weather to do some yard work. The previous owners kind of let the trees go, and many of them were planted too close to the house, or fence, or randomly jutting into the yard. We're clearing out most of them so we can put in a vegetable garden and leave room for the dogs to run around.

This is a shot from the backyard towards the door and shed that provides the back of the carport (a bit of a needed sound barrier as well). The sliding doors lead to the bedroom.

A view from the deck towards where the last shot was taken... By this time the trees have been thinned quite a bit from what they were, but they'll be gone completely. We were going to keep the one in the very corner but after trying to clean it up we realized that it's not going to be very salvageable (and I got really frustrated with thinning it) so we're going to put in something like a Japanese maple... something with a nice simple trunk and canopy that develop all kinds of suckers. Both Kali and Uma have been up on the deck and find it pretty nice for sunning... although the stairs are way too narrow and rickety to be safe and Uma fell through them on her first attempt up.

This is the deck and back of the house... no idea why there are no windows out here but that will be changing soon. We're shaving off some of the deck to make it narrower and free up more yard, extending it out to cover most of the back, and adding a single patio door on the right. This crab apple tree is one of the two we are keeping. The deck is actually in rough shape with some rotting boards so we're going to redo it completely and put in some safe stairs that will lead off this corner by the tree.

View of the far corner and Tom working on clearing out a second apple tree... it's still a work in progress. You can see the pile of brush we've already cleaned at this point, and it's still growing. The brush pile is over the area where the garden will be.

View from where Tom was standing showing the width of the yard. It's a good-sized yard but most of it is length rather than depth. The girls spent most of the day outside with us helping to remove branches by chewing them... sooo helpful.

A final backyard shot looking down the far side of the house with the second entrance.

We just got 10+ cm of snow last night so the yard doesn't look like this anymore... so much for the hint of spring...

Another Puppy Update... wow, 12 weeks old already!

It's kind of hard to believe Uma is already 12 weeks old, but she's growing like a week. She's close to 25 lbs now - 10 lbs more than when we got her a month ago! Some days it seems like I go to work and a she's scrawny, and by the time I come home she's visibly grown... Last monday we took her in to get her second round of boosters - only 1 more during the first week of April and then we can finally start taking her to fun places like puppy parks. She's still not quite sleeping through the whole night, usually waking up around 4am. Tom suspects that might be when the buses start going by and wakes them up because it certainly isn't my alarm clock or when they get fed. She had a bit of a relapse with the house-training during a cold snap we had last weekend but seems to be back on track now that it's nice and warm again (+7ish the last couple of days!). Uma's also doing quite well with walking now... we've had her out for a few 1 hour walks around the neighbourhood. Fortunately she loves copying Kali so leash training has been mostly a breeze although if Tom & I walk them together (1 dog each) there's a bit of pulling going on because Uma wants to walk beside Kali or hassle her.

Tom chilling with the girls:

When we had the cold snap I bought some fleece to make Uma a little puppy coat so she'd go out easier/longer... I got a bit lazy (and I needed it fast) so I only threw in a few stitches and ended up making a puppy cape (she'll out-grow it soon anyway). Meet Super-Uma!

I love this picture because it's hilarious. Mookie was sauntering by, considering snuggling Kali and I caught her mid-yawn. I love it because it looks like she's attacking them...

Zoom back to previous posts to check out the comparison of this shot with when we first got Uma to see how much she's grown. I'm sure they're wondering why we're always snapping pictures of them... especially when they're sleeping...

Uma's big enough that she's having trouble fitting onto Kali's bed. I picked up some more upholstery foam and fabric and I'm working on extending Kali's bed into a double-puppy bed so she can sleep without having Uma on top of her...

Tom and Mooks snuggling, also wondering why I keep harassing everyone with the camera...

Puppy Update

We've had Uma for a week now. Uma's been busy getting used to the house and learning all kinds of things. By the second day she had picked up on her name and started getting used to going outside instead of peeing on the floor... although we still had trouble getting the timing and signals down... and she had trouble navigating the steps to the door. This weekend she's big enough to get down the stairs on her own and I think she'll be pretty much house-broken from now on. She also had to get used to being in her happy-fun place (a.k.a. crate). She had trouble sleeping through the night most of the week and often woke up at 4:30 (fortunately Tom was sweet enough to take care of the middle of the night problems). Since about Thursday though she's been sleeping in until 5:30/6ish when I get up for work anyway.

Kali spent the first few days trying to avoid Uma, but Uma's persistence has paid off. They now nap together frequently...

... and they've become great friends play together all the time!

Mookie's been doing well too. Uma has been a bit hesitant about approaching Mooks, but they've had a few encounters where Uma got put in her place. The only problem we've had is that Kali's decided to try to push the pecking order too and has been trying to gang up on Mooks whenever Uma tries to check her out. Overall they're all getting along and Mooks can go wherever she wants mostly un-harassed.

... and sometimes all four of us get to hang out together.

Complete Overhaul

We had a pretty busy weekend... had friends over Friday & Saturday night, helped another one move Saturday morning, and then both Saturday and Sunday afternoon were filled with the last in our series of bike maintenance classes at Bow Cycle. This one was the Complete Overhaul, so we got to dismantle, clean, assemble, and adjust our bikes. It was definitely worth taking because I learned a lot and got to reinforce what I learned from the previous three classes... and best of all my bike hasn't been this clean since I bought it and it's ready for summer! No waiting to get it taken care of at the shop and we can do it ourselves now.

New Car....

Well... we bought a new car. After having our car in and out of the shop all month we were told that our engine was down to 3.5 cylinders and failing. Replacing the engine with a used one (with more km than we had!) would have cost just about as much as the car was worth so we headed out to check out a few used CRVs and ended up buying this pretty one. It's a 2006 with less than 40,000km on it so we're hoping it will last quite a few years... sure put a damper on our reno budget though.

I mostly took this shot for a picture of the front of our house. We're getting some new windows next month and might paint it this summer since neither of us are a big fan of peach.

More puppy pictures

Well, we brought Uma home on Friday. Kali wasn't so sure of her and mostly just ran away from her and growled when Uma got too close. Of course, Uma was fascinated by having another Ridgeback and just wanted to play and cuddle. Uma & Mooks haven't interacted too much yet. Uma's watched Mooks from a distance and wandered after her once, but no face to face. Mooks has been only slightly more scarce than usual.

When we went to pick up puppy stuff we saw a little bunny that matched the one that Kali had so we had to pick it up for Uma... but when Uma got home she ended up romping around with the big one and Kali was checking out the little one... I'm pretty sure in this shot Kali's saying "Why am I stuck with the little one?".

This morning they were on a bit better terms with Kali growling a bit less and letting Uma get closer. Uma keeps trying to crawl into Kali's bed, but she's not having any of that quite yet (although Uma will probably wear her down). Apparently it's okay for them to sleep near each other with a "mom barrier"....

And once they were settled for a while I was able to sneak out and leave them on their own beds next to each other.

Meet Uma

We picked out our puppy this weekend! We decided on the little ridgeless girl. Meet Uma Makena (or just Uma). She was born on Dec. 16, 2008 and gets to come home with us on Feb. 13. She was a lot more active this time, in fact all of the puppies were. When we showed up we were swarmed by 11 litttle puppies all trying to jump up for snuggles and nibbles.

We were initially deciding between the ridgeless male (left) and Uma (right). They're both adorable, but Uma ended up having some traits that we decided we liked better... besides looking exactly like Kali did as an 8 week old puppy.

For example, we got to take both of them out individually from the pack. The little male went right for our shoes and started trying to chew them... Uma on the other hand went off exploring, figured out how to navigate the couple of stairs by herself, and entertained herself by playing with the pillows and an empty plastic water bottle.

The top two puppies are Uma and her ridgeless brother playing outside.

Anyway... should be interesting getting Uma home and introducing her to Mooks and Kali. We've tried telling them that she's coming, but I don't think they believe us yet. We'll post more pictures next weekend!

Birthday Puppy

Tom decided to get me a puppy for my birthday this year now that we've got our own house. It's going to be another Rhodesian Ridgeback of course... ridgeless again even. The breeder is Kariba Ridge and they have two ridgeless puppies for us to choose from (out of a litter of 11) - one boy and one girl, but we're not sure yet which we will choose.

The little puppy on top in the red collar is the female. She's really sweet and shy, but got a bit rambunctious once the other puppies all went back to bed. She reminded us a lot of Kali in her looks and temperament.

Close-up of the girl:

This little guy was a bit more out-going and feisty than the girl... probably will be a bit of a trouble maker, but then he crashed hard and became a cuddler (definitely a big selling point if you know me!). When I tried to put him down to go he crawled right back into my lap.

Any votes on which one we should choose? The girl is very mellow and sweet, just like Kali. The boy is a rambunctious cuddler, and may possibly develop some minor attitude, but nothing we wouldn't be able to handle.

Tour the new house...

Tom and I have now had our house for a week... we've been there every day painting and starting to put in hardwood floors in the upstairs bedrooms. Apparently we forgot to take pictures of the front of the house and the backyard so I'll post those later. The house is 1080 sq.ft, located near the University and a bunch of really big dog parks. It's a 1960s bungalow and some of the features definitely show it... some we like (like vaulted ceilings) and some have already been ripped out... We'll post more shots of the updates as we get various rooms done.

Entryway complete with little milk door under the window:

Kitchen, in need of a make-over for sure. It's a bit cramped and the cabinets aren't super functional. The appliances are fairly new at least!

Kitchen skylight:

This is the divider between the living room and kitchen, totally wired up for power and provides some much needed extra storage.

The living room and other side of the divider .... with the lovely faux fireplace covered in some yellow-green laminate. We've ripped off the laminate and it looks much better already. Eventually we want to replace it with a real gas fireplace.

Upstairs hallway:

Master bedroom with sliding glass doors that open onto the deck:

The ensuite off the bedroom (or pee closet as Tom has named it since it's really about the size of a closet and very ugly).

The two other bedrooms (and one of the closets... all of the closet doors were removed and just had ugly drapes covering them).

We'd like to redo this main bathroom as well... obviously the people who were here before were quite short since the showerhead is about shoulder-height. Down to the basements... with this lovely painted wood panel and un-insulated walls. Behind that door is a downstairs bedroom: Tom's new workshop is in the basement too: View towards the other end of the basement and laundry room door: Laundry room, furnace room (door to the right) and downstairs bathroom: Basement bathroom:

Wasootch Ridge

Tom, Kali & I got a bit of a late start hiking on Sunday, but still managed to enough time to hike Wasootch Ridge. It was an 11km round-trip with 1010m of elevation gain, although the ridge-top was rolling so it felt like more.

This is Mt. Lorette from near the top of the first steep ascent.

The trail at the first leveling-out point: Kali-roo with Barrier Lake and Hwy 40 in the background (looking north): The snowy trail ahead... this crest is still about 4 hills away from the top of Wasootch, but it looked deceptively close from this spot. View from the first cairn looking back towards the trailhead. Views from the summit cairn towards the very top of Wasootch (a bit of a scramble to get there and we were running out of day-light).

Mt. Lady Macdonald

We climbed Mt. Lady Macdonald on Saturday (recommended as a moderate-level shoulder-season hike in our guidebook). The trailhead is right in Canmore, starting at a paved path along Cougar Creek at an elevation of 1383 m.

The hike to the shoulder of the mountain is 6.6 km roundtrip with a total elevation gain of 917 m, or if you go to the top of the summit it's 7.6 km round-trip with 1117 m of elevation gain (top of the mountain is 2500m). The trail rose steadily but wasn't too challenging. The parks web-site said there was snow on the trail so we came prepared with lots of layers - but the weather was unseasonably warm and instead of layering up we were wishing we had shorts and ended up with pretty stuffed packs! The very top of the peak was a bit cool, but still made for a beautiful day of hiking.

A nice perk to this hike is getting to see some more ruined buildings at the top - not quite as nice or as old as the fire look-out on Mt. Burke, but I'm definitely liking the additional points of interest... I guess at some point someone had the brilliant idea of building a teahouse on Mt. Lady Macdonald and then flying tourists up by helicopter - I have no idea how that would have been economically feasible, but the residents of Canmore vetoed it (not before parts of it were built though!). I'm glad that this one is merely a relict now and not a tourist trap!

View of the teahouse:

View of the helicopter landing platform and the summit of Mt. Lady Macdonald.

A little pagoda near the edge of a cliff below the teahouse. It was the perfect spot for lunch and a nap in the sun. This was the only spot where we saw snow, and that was restricted to the areas shaded by trees - but this hike is steep and south-facing so it tends to be fairly free of snow this time of year...

View of the mountains across the valley - lots of snow on the north-facing peaks!

View of the platform (whitish square to the right), teahouse (whitish blob just above and to the left of the platform) and pagoda (whitish dot to the left of these buildings on the edge of the cliff) from near the top of Mt. Lady Macdonald. This part of the trail was a bit more challenging. There was no real defined trail other than where people had come sliding down the scree on the descent. The scree was pretty loose and for every two steps you took you slid down one.

Kali-roo with Mt. Lady Macdonald summit in the background. We hung out at the bottom of the scree slope for a while, just enjoyinging the sun on our faces...

It was a really pleasant day that I didn't want to end, but eventually we decided we should head back down before it got dark and find some dinner. The sun was sinking behind the crest of the mountains as we wandered into the parking lot...

Hang-gliding!

Tom and I took a beginner hang-gliding class this weekend. We had a few hours of ground school on Thursday to show us the basics of how to do it, then we got to do some practical air-time on Saturday and Sunday morning. Saturday was really windy and chilly, but meant we didn't need to run as hard to get in the air. We got a couple hours of practice with the instructor's assistance before it got too windy and we had to call it a day. Today was colder but the wind was calmer, and we got to stay out for the full four hours. We were on our own today for balancing the glider, which was a fair bit more difficult. The glider we were on was actually a bit too big/heavy for me so I was pretty sore by the end of the day... Both Tom and I managed to get some brief lift, but it was a bit difficult to catch it in the photos. I think we've found ourselves a new hobby... just have to wait until spring for more practice time and the intermediate gliding class!

Mt. Burke

On Thanksgiving Sunday we decided to be thankful for a bout of nice weather... +10 C and seemingly sunny (although a bit chilly to start). We chose a "shoulder season day hike" from our trusty guide book and made the 2+ hour drive down through Turner Valley & Longview and then into Highwood Junction. Mt. Burke is a 16km round trip with 935 m elevation gain. The book says it takes 5-7 hours, we did it in just over 5. Lots of long, pleasant switchbacks made for a relatively moderate ascent.

We got a bit of a late start, not leaving until 9;30, but it was still fairly brisk when we first left the trail-head... as this fringe of snow along the river bed attests.

Hiking in the sun we warmed up fairly quickly though... Even with snow still covering the path in shaded sections...

Part way up the mountain we could see a cold weather front starting to move in... there's a mist over the back mountains and clouds starting to move in. We paused at this sunny patch just under the tree-line to enjoy a snack.

Above the tree-line the path got rockier (but still packed enough for Kali not to have trouble). The clouds began to move in a bit more and the wind really picked up. I had to pull out my toque!

First glimpse of our destination: the old fire-lookout on the very tip of Mt. Burke! We could really hear the winds howling at this point, and the sun started to dip behind the clouds. We decided to push on anyway!

... even once we hit this narrow point. The trail was at most 4 m across, although it followed the right side of the ridge-line with large boulders that provided periodic wind-breaks. The trek made us think of hiking to a remote monastery...

Success! The fire-lookout... still clamped down by 1 or 2 of the cables holding it in place... Tom of course popped into it before I had a chance to get up there and remind him he wasn't supposed to because it's unsafe (being perched on a peak, dilapidated, and not secured to the ground). We both couldn't help thinking of Kerouac meditating and writing away in that isolated fire-lookout he manned decades ago... I guess it was just one of those hikes that inspired poetic thoughts...

Hand-stands on the edge... Jumping shots (even Kali's getting in on the action)...

Tom posing as the clouds envelope the top of the mountain, the odd snowflake mixed in with the mist and gentle rain. We decided to boot it down at this point because all three of us were starting to get cold and wet.

Once we got back into the trees the weather at least seemed a lot more mild, although still a slight mist that left the trail slick... and for some reason there seemed to be more snow than I remembered! We paused at this tree because the shape of it reminded me of the snow gums we saw in Tasmania, although of course lacking the beautiful red tones... maybe it was also because the weather was so similar (we ended up hiking in some Yuletide snow on a hike down there too).

Garden Harvest

We pulled out the rest of the garden this week since some killer frosts were on the way (no snow like they were calling for though). This is what we've got still.. a bunch of zucchini (more in the freezer) and bags of tomatoes in various levels of ripeness... lots of delicious yumminess ahead though!

Sweet Husband!

Tom and I had our 2-year anniversary on Wednesday! When I got home for work Tom surprised me with my favourite flower and a white chocolate smiley "sucker". You're awesome Tom! =o)

Jumping Pound Ridge Revisited

Kali & I biked this trail earlier in the season, starting at the north trail-head and heading out on the Summit trail. This time we were with Tom & Susanna and started from the south trail head (I recommend this direction!) with the intention of coasting down the ridge-line to the Jumping Pound Ridge-Cox Hill junction, then turning around and coming out the Summit trail so Kali would have less time on the gravel road. Unfortunately the weather didn't cooperate. It started spitting before we got to the top, but we pushed on anyway. Once we hit the summit it started to rain harder, and combined with a cold wind, so we just turned around from there. My fingers were a bit numb by the time we finished the descent to the road, but we still had a lot of fun... definitely will need to make another attempt with nicer weather!

Here are a couple of pics from a look-out close to the ridge-top. I had planned to take some more scenic shots and pics of all of us together, but the rain kind of put a damper on that... not much view by the time we got to the top.

Road to the north where we'd come out of the trail:

View to the south where we started from:

Little Arethusa

Once again I'm behind in the postings. Tom came home the same day the folks left back in mid-Sept, then I left for a 2 day work field trip, but when I got back home we decided to make an attempt at Little Arethusa Cirque/peak since I did Ptarmigan Cirque (located just up the road from Little Arethusa) with the folks. It was a bit of an aggravating start to the day, we got started a little late, but mostly it was because I apparently did not read the directions very well so we had three starts. On the way to the trailhead we saw these mountain sheep hanging out and licking the road... maybe they were from the same herd I saw with the folks at Ptarmigan Cirque.... The sign for Little Arethusa is right next to the Ptarmigan Cirque parking lot so I assumed (and therefore erroneously read the instructions) that we started from there. We began by following an obvious trail, but one trail that ended up being a rugged portion of Ptarmigan Cirque that I didn't do with the folks...

Once we realized we were heading in the total opposite direction of where we wanted to go (maybe 20 min of hiking) we back-tracked... saw this moose on the way out.

I checked the directions from the parking lot (but didn't check at that point we had the right parking lot!) and we headed off from the southern point. Fortunately we had our GPS with us, thinking we might snag a cache, and realized we actually wanted to be on the other side of the road. At this point I read the directions more carefully, realized the appropriate parking spot was actually a couple of km further down the highway (d'oh!) and we hopped in the car and headed to the right spot.

We finally headed out on the right trail and fairly quickly entered into Little Arethusa Cirque and had a snack next to the talus and a very pleasant little stream.

From there we made the executive decision to keep going even though it meant that I wouldn't make it back to Calgary in time to curl... it was a gorgeous day and it was worth it!

Heading up from the cirque involved a bit of trail finding, but Tom's quite good at that so we didn't have too many problems from this point on...

View down to the cirque: Looking up to the top of Little Arethusa:

The "route" to the top was pretty rubbly and Kali wasn't comfortable with the full ascent so we chilled out on the side of the mountain enjoying the view (we got fairly close to the top) before heading back down.

On the way out we thought about grabbing one of the many geocaches near this spot... dumping tbe "unnecessary bush-whacking" geocoin that I was sure was jinxing our trip, but we didn't have any luck finding the cache near this creek quickly... and we didn't feel like spending much time on it at this point.

Anyway... gorgeous, fun day in the end... and learned an important lesson on reading directions!

Ptarmigan Cirque

My foks were in town last weekend so I decided to take them for a little hike in the mountains to Ptarmigan Cirque. It's a 4.5 km round trip with 214 m elevation gain, rated easy. I think we did it in about 1 1/2 hours at a leisurely pace and with a brief mountain goat delay. It's a bit of a further drive than we originally anticipated - about 1 hr 45 min from Calgary, but it was a gorgeous day... and we still managed to make it back home before my yogurt was done cooking!

Ptarmigan Cirque from HWY 40, Highwood Pass:

Dad after the big climb... the wind was quite cool to start, but right after this point we were all peeling off layers.

Mom ascending: Mom, Dad, and Kali entering the cirque:

A bit of remnant snow. It had snowed in the mountains a few days before, but judging from the compaction and debris on the top of this bit it's probably a remnant from last winter: Not only was there snow, but the vegetation is also beginning to change pretty colours around here:

Kali posing, grumpily. She was being very pouty at this point because she was leashed (removed for the shot) and I wouldn't let her play with the mountain sheep grazing in the cirque:

Yep... these sheep. There were about a dozen of them... at first hanging out next to the trail as we hiked up. At first I thought they were goats because of the straightish horns... but if you see the Little Arethusa (same vicinity) pics you can see they're definitely sheep.

... but as we came down they decided to hang out on the trail instead. It took them a while before they decided to wander off and we could get down without bothering them.

View down the valley with sheep grazing in the meadow (brownish dots centre):

The trail out:

Jumping Pound Loop

Today Kali & I went biking with Shannon at Jumping Pound Loop. Yesterday it rained in town and I guess it was snow in the mountains... not surprising considering it was -1 C in Bragg Creek this morning. Made for rather picturesque mountains anyway!

There was still a bit of snow in the low-lying shaded areas and the trail was pretty sloppy... glad we didn't choose to bike some of the other trails that tend to get even worse! I still slipped out in the mud, but it was a rather gentle slide out and other than a couple of small bruises I'm no worse for wear.... might have been a bit better if my pedal didn't seize up again so I had trouble unclipping my right foot.

Muddy puppy... it's a bit hard to see but she's got mud splattered all over her face from following behind the bike.

Elbow -Tom Snow Trails

This has been a pretty busy week. I joined a Survivor Bootcamp exercise class that started last week (Tuesdays and Thursdays), so I was sore from that... Friday night I had another pre-ride for the mountain bike race, and then Saturday was a softball tournament, the mountain bike race, and a ride in the mountains. During the pre-ride I realized I was too sore and slow to be an effective racer so I suggested the other girl on the team ride the course... Too sore to ride two laps on a 20 min course at race speed, so instead I did a 20ish km ride in the mountains after playing a 9am softball game... who says I need to make sense?

Susanna and I did most of this trail before, but taking the Iron Springs trail instead of the Elbow Trail. Elbow is definitely the way to go - better hills and few cows/cow patties! We didn't stop to take pics on the first half. This shot is approaching the bridge just before the brutal hill (despite it being on a gravel road... the gravel was so soft it was definitely an energy sucker) that led to the Tom Snow Trail.

We stopped at a couple of points to take pictures of ourselves riding down the trail...

Susanna:

Jenny: Me and Kali:

The trail was pretty muddy in places... just muddy enough to be fun but not a depressing slog-fest. There were still one or two spots we chose to bypass rather than ride through though...

More photo ops... Jenny got it on the first try, but I made Susanna ride back up twice to get her shot... and she paid me back by sending me up three times... at least riding down was fun!

Four muddy girls at the Station Flats parking area (although we still had a little over 1 km on the highway to go to get back to the start point). You can't quite see the mud here but we were caked from head to toe.

Muddy bikes on the car:

Calgary Catch and Release Summer Event

Kali and I participated in the Calgary Catch and Release geocaching even on Aug. 30. The even started at 5pm on the 29th and finished at 5pm on the 30th... we got a late start because I was doing a pre-ride for the Corporate Challenge Mountain Bike Race on the night of the 29th, but we still managed to grab 15-16 caches on saturday (although some of those weren't caches posted specifically for the event). One of them was this Earth Cache on Nose Hill. An Earth cache is unique because it's a geologically significant thing (like this glacial erratic) that you visit, record, photograph, and answer a question about rather than having a physical container that you hide.

Pocaterra-Whiskey Jack Pass

I'm slightly behind with the posting... this is from a couple of weekends ago. The day was a bit over-cast by the time Susanna and I got to the Pocaterra Hut parking lot... the peak in the background isn't really snowy. This ride was rated moderate/intermediate, but we thought it really should have been easy/moderate although it was probably the longest distance we rode - just not technical at all. We rode through some pretty, aromatic forests ... gently climbing. We hadn't realized how far we climbed until we reached this view-point... we had started off at river level. I think the whole ride took us 3 to 3-1/2 hours, but mostly because we stopped and laid around in the sun. It had the feeling of a pleasant sunday afternoon spin rather than a challenging ride... fun though! And the only ride of the season without Kali because she was at home recovering from a vet trip.

Part way through the ride the sun came out and it turned into a gorgeous, lazy late summer day. Susanna and I stopped at a picnic area and hung out in the sun... and I managed to grab these butterfly photos.

The fact that part of the trail was paved should have tipped us off to the inappropriateness of the rating... but since Kali wasn't with us we got to fly down here (watching for newbie cyclers and pedestrians of course).

View of Pocaterra Ridge from the information centre we passed on the way back to the parking lot.