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.