Quick catch-up

Been a bit lazy again with the blog, but the pictures are still going up - it's the writing that takes more time. I don't think I've updated for a couple of months. We've been out doing stuff, (12 ski days so far this season), but I've knackered my knee in a ski crash, so am resting it for 2 weeks in the hope that I can ski again by Christmas. Maybe I need a sit ski? Here's a picture from the opening weekend of CADS, when the volunteers all got to try out the various disciplines - that's me in the mono-ski, which was great fun to drive, with its low centre of gravity. You turn it pretty much just by looking in the firection that you wish to go in, and that's enough to flip your balance between the edges of the ski. I'm sticking with the visiually impaired group for another season, but this would have my activity of choice otherwise - Lou has joined mono-ski. We also have four friends who've joined the program: Tristan, Jane, Nina and Hallam, plus most of the guys from last year are back again - it'll be a good season.
The fall was most notable for the paddling that we got done; we started trying out our boat on whitewater, after a much-needed practice session getting ferries and eddies sorted, on Glenmore Reservoir. We then had some great trips on the Kananaskis River, the Bow between Banff and Canmore, and from Castle Junction almost to Banff. In mid October we had a canoe camp for Lou's 30th birthday party, on Barrier Lake. It was snowy underfoot, and around -8C at bed time. A good fire and plenty of sausages (and alcohol) kept the chill at bay, although the boats were pretty frosty by morning. Hallam and I rounded off the paddling season with a trip through northern Calgary, where Hallam rescued a bike, and we found some small waves to play on.

We also did some hiking. The most memorable day was Cascade Mountain, which is a great, straightforward, ascent of a notable (i.e. near the highway) peak in Banff National Park. We also made an aborted attempt on Mt. Romulus (we missed the drainage required for ascent), and did part of Wasootch Ridge in November.

After the summer activities died off, the skis came out. In addition to CADS, we've been out on the Nordic skis, with a mostly-frozen Fish Creek offering some local fun, and West Bragg Creek also in good condition. We tried slow-shoeing, too, with a trek to Chester Lake. It was OK, but there are better ways to climb and descend a hill, for sure.

So that's me up to date. The linked albums show what we've been up to. More here after the forthcoming trip to Golden - just hope the knee holds up.....

Moose Mountain August Snowstorm

Yet another lesson in what to bring for a summer hiking trip to the Canadian Rockies.

Grotto Canyon Rock

In theory I'm having a bash at the NE face of Ha Ling next weekend. This concept has been swilling around the office for about 15 months, so I'm not too excited about it working out - the weather forecasters have always conspired to stop us previously. Just in case Dave and I do actually make it to Whiteman's Gap next weekend, however I thought I'd better put in a few hours at the crag, to remind myself of what's what.

A new climbing partner of mine, Hallam Payne from South Africa, was up for some action, so we hit Grotto Canyon for a handful of trad and bolted routes between about 5.5 and 10a. I was pretty delighted with finding a sweet little trad corner graded 5.7. In the UK this would probably have been a Severe, but grading on crags where bolts and natural co-mingle seems to flatter the real climber in K Country.

Another find was the Grotto Slab area -40 m high friction slabs whose bolting makes Welsh slate look like the Nanny State. There's 10 m between bolts on the 'classics'. I hate slabs and found that even a 5 m run-out was enough to reduce me to gibbering. Still, the location is both convenient and spectacular, and far enough up the canyon to be clear from inane grockle chatter.

Footnote: The next weekend, Dave and I walked halfway to the start of the route on Ha Ling in the pouring rain. Then we turned around and desended.

A week in Golden

Not long after our family holiday in France chez Lenhams, the other side of the family arrived for a week in Canada. We managed to get a fair few activities in to the week, including hiking, MTB, kayaking, canoeing and paragliding. For the middle part of the week we stayed in a fantastic chalet neat Golden. So good in fact that we are going back again later in the year. I posted a bunch of photos from the trip here.

The highlight of the trip was probably the paragliding, although the sun popped behind a cloud at the wrong moment, and we lost any chance of catching thermals. It was a pleasant ride all the same though.

Biking was fun, and we got a few rides in, although the mosquitos this year were dreadful - every time you slowed down you would get swarmed.

On the last night we were treated to a big thunderstorm that started several small forest fires, all extinguished by the following rain. In the morning, the hills were plastered with fresh snow.

Elbow Loop ride

Lou and I took the opportunity to knock off a circuit of this classic local ride recently. Here are some pictures. It's about 43 km round, with 900 m of height difference between the start and the Tombstone Pass. There's a fair bit of up and down along the way though, and although most of the riding is easy, it can feel like a long day by the time you're on the final stretch.

Canoe trip: Banff to Canmore

Just back from holidays in France, and the canoe was looking rather sad and neglected (we can tell). So to cheer her up, we took off with the Bow Waters club for a lovely short paddle down the Bow River. For us this was an important trip because although we've pottered about on the Ghost-Cochrane, the lower Bow, Columbia and similar reaches, we'd never partnered our boat on a 'proper' stretch of Rockies fast water. This reach is graded maybe 1+ to 2. We found it pretty straightforward, athough the close-together paddle positions in our highly-rockered boat does lead to over-compensation (i.e. random-looking spins usually occurring during moments of high stress before sweepers). We've got a long way to go....

It was a great trip, and has got us excited about taking on numerous other reaches at the 1+ to 2+ grade. Thanks to Tina from BWCC for arranging it. As a bonus, we got to drink Grizzly Paw beer afterwards and enjoy hearing about how our fellow paddlers got flipped off by a fat old lady in the parking lot. Good times! More pictures here.

Cycling in France

Bit of a backlog on the blog, but I doubt anyone will have noticed except me. In July Lou and I joined my family for a couple of weeks in France. I fully recommend cycling in the Dordogne area. There are plenty of ups and downs crossing the limestone country, with spectacular views and quiet lanes all around. Pictured is Lou at Rocamadour. After visiting the tourist tat heaven that is the high street, we descended to the bottom of the gorge and rode back up and out - this was one of many decent climbs on that day's 80 km tour. You can see the road out in the background of the first photo.

For a change from the peace and quiet we took in a stage of the Tour, which was a memorable outing.

We also did a bit of paddling, but the river in this area is so packed with tourists in boats, rubber rings, lilos and cruisers that at times you could have almost crossed the river without getting your feet wet. It's certainly not somewhere to escape the masses, although there are some pleasant vistas.

After two weeks with the family we spent three days in Fontainebleau. I did some bouldering, but Lou didn't enjoy that side of the trip - she said she didn't feel the love for Font like I did. That said, we also put in a couple of decent rides in the forest, and found that road bikes are a good way to get around the place, although a mountain bike would allow you to escape the world entirely, as there are many tracks through large expanses of the ancient forest.

Red Deer River Paddle

My friend Keith (sporting a 'Game Over' T shirt throughout his stag weekend) recently got married. To commiserate, a bunch of us paddled some of the Red Deer River for a couple of days. There are many reaches of this river to explore within a couple of hours of Calgary; we took on a fairly short stretch close to Trocchu.




Here is Keith in celebration mode. Sadly for us, his wife's career prompted a move back to the UK shortly afterwards - we hope he and Gwen will return to Canada in the years to come. In the mean time if you see this man on the streets of Plymouth.....cross the road immediately, and don't look at him directly!

Mt Fullerton

Mt. Fullerton is part of the southwestern Calgary skyline. Despite its modest height (2,728 m / 8,950 ft) it is a fine day out, requiring a round trip of around 26 km (16 miles) via the easier of its two 'popular' ridges: the northeast.

Tristan and I did this as a hike-a-bike. Kane, Williams and others recommend ditching the bike at the Nihahi Creek/Little Elbow junction and walking from there, but one web author suggests riding the entire approach. We tried this, but gave up on the bikes about 1 km after the junction. If we'd persisted for another 10-15 minutes we might have cut 60-90 minutes off the round trip time, as the riding does improve once the valley widens.

The scramble is straightforward. We followed the Kane description up a drainage that was still choked with snow that had an annoying habit of collapsing underfoot. A faint trail was visible here. From the top of the drainage, you gain the ridge to the right, and scramble enjoyably over solid rock for rather further than you expect, direct to the narrow summit. The register showed 11 ascents for the previous year; this is no honeypot peak despite its visibility from Calgary. Our Canada Day ascent was the first of 2010. From the summit ridge we had fine views of the Elbow area, plus further peaks such as Assiniboine. I was intrigued by a narrow side-slope trail that disappears towards Mt. Howard, as there is no sign of a trail in the main valley and this would be a very long approach to Howard, making for something like a 35 km day.

The scramble descent was fun, although the valley walking section did drag somewhat - the narrowing of the valley ahead didn't seem to draw any nearer for a long time. Biking out was awesome, although quite technical, particularly descending the switchbacks. I almost came a cropper above the little gorge that closes the valley when my SPD wouldn't unclip and instead of putting down my upslope foot, I fell headlong downslope, still attached to my bike, stopping a few feet above the cliff edge. The rest of the ride out was way more fun. The trip took 7 hours car-to-car. Recommended for a quiet day out, although my legs have been aching all night!

Goat Creek MTB

Goat Creek is a great, easy MTB ride between Banff and Whiteman's Gap, above Canmore. It's about 19 km long and very popular. A lot of people shuttle and only cycle it from Whiteman's to Banff. Many of them are families trying to get their kids to enjoy mountain biking (which is great to see), but yeah....some of them are lard arses. And some of them carry radios playing f*cking country music at loud volume. Death by bear might be an appropriate reward for that kind of behaviour....

Despite the unwarranted intrusion of slide guitars on the wilderness, it was a great little ride: 38 km round trip and a height gain of 600 m or so, plus all the up-and-down on the trail. Next time we'll do it with the Rundle Riverside trail as the return leg.

I'm feeling guilty

My old friend Chris 'no problem' Freeman came to stay with us months ago and I never blogged pictures from his visit. He really got to experience the frustrations of Calgary in the spring. The week started off OK with sun and fresh snow up at Sunshine Village, but after two days we had heavy rain, then gales, then over a foot of snow dumped in K Country, before finishing the week back in double figures and blue sky.









Chris said he had a great time anyway, and we did manage to get some good stuff done, despite the weather's best efforts - it really was foul at times! We had a good couple of days' skiing, some paddling and an attempt at hiking that never left the car park at Elbow Falls due to some 'interesting' snow depths. Chris - I'm sorry, but please do come back anytime between July and October, and December to April!

Yamnuska Circuit

Yam has been on the list for a while, but by the front route rather than sidling around the back. Given a short, early season day though, it looked like a good objective. Now that I've done it and talked to a Scottish climber hauling himself over the top of Red Shirt and looking like he'd done 15 pitches of Green Light at the Mother G (Gogarth)....I think I'll pass on the rock climbing.

We did the hike the long way - taking a detour path up to what I think is called Ravens' End. We saw a pair of courting ptarmigans on this path....and we also saw a lot of people. The ascent is straightorward until you pass the 'crux' - a fairly unnecessary wire strung along a traverse. Beyond that, we saw a guy stuck above what appeared to be a small cliff, so we took a gully option below. Unfortunately, we descended wrongly, trying to avoid a rubbly gully, and this cost us time. I saw people return directly up the short cliff later - maybe we shouldn't have trusted that guy's opinion.

The summit is a pleasant place so long as you don't roll the wrong way after lying down in the sun. The scree 500 m below makes for an awesome descent - and we saw some very fat-looking marmots. A good, hot, half-day hike.

Another Golden Weekend

The forecast for the weekend was utter poo, and as usual, when the forecast turns to crap, you can bet I’ve got a long weekend booked off work. So we sat out most of Friday at home in Calgary before somewhat reluctantly loading the canoe and mountain bikes onto the truck and heading for Golden. No wildlife stirred on the Kicking Horse Pass, and we had the feeling this just wasn’t going to be our best weekend.

Arrival in Golden was brightened by meeting Vicky and Lucy, and a bottle of wine or two. Crawling from bed the next morning, the sun was almost daring to join us outside the covers, although an unrelenting wind was already cutting up the Columbia River. It was lunch time before we summoned the energy to shuttle up to Parson and launch the boat for the 40 km meandering run back to Nicholson. Passing through these world-class wetlands in a boat is slightly strange, since unless you take the narrow side channels, you never get to see the wetlands and lakes, which hide stubbornly behind high levee walls and portcullis beaver dams. The bird life was spectacular at times though; we lost count of the bald eagles and ospreys sitting aloof on their wooden pedestals. At one point three large, pink, flamingo/goose-cross-like waterfowl cruised overhead, making new sounds – I still haven’t found out what they were. It was a long run against the wind, and we were glad to land at the bridge, although I think a two-day leisurely spin would have been more rewarding.

Sunday was MTB day, and Lou got her first taste of Moonraker, which is a great cross-country riding area adjacent to Kicking Horse ski resort. I love the trails here, with their swooping, contouring runs, and lakeside sections. Mark was pleased to hear that we had run into a bear on the exit trail, preserving the Moonraker reputation (this one was rather too close to grab the camera for, but didn’t seem too concerned by us cycling past).

The long weekend raced by, and soon we were in Yoho National Park, enjoying a mirror-calm Emerald Lake, where the exorbitant canoe hire rates limit all but the rich or feckless to the '$32 for 30 minutes' range of the hotel and tat shop landing, leaving us the rest , and the best, of the cirque to explore. It had turned into a great little weekend, and the next trip is already booked.

Mountain Biking in Calgary

I'm no expert on mountain biking, but I do feel very lucky to have some great riding so close to home. Our local spot is Fish Creek, about 7 minutes' ride from our house. This area has been undergoing changes as biking has made the change from illegal to merely tolerated and controlled. Not exactly perfect, but it is nice to not be considered a criminal whenever you turn off the tarmac! Although some trails have been closed as a result of the negotiations, what's left and what's been created by the Calgary Mountain Bike Alliance is pretty darn good. If this urban park was in Britain, it'd be an area of national acclaim - and no doubt full of broken bottles and scary yoofs.

Fish Creek is a great place to ride, and I never seem to run out of trails to follow. A second area that's dead popular with Calgary MTB fans is Bowness Park, home to numerous pleasant trails that thread alongside the river, including the slightly infamous Sideshow Bob (below). It's a nice area to ride in, with views of the mountains, and the Bow River running through, although for my money Fish Creek beats it.