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)!