My friend Rob Kinsey was staying with us again, at the end of his family holiday. Sofie and daughter Sennen headed to the zoo with Lou, so the boys were free to play, for one day only. We opted for a combination day - a hike up Prairie Mountain followed by a kayak trip on Glenmore Reservoir, then a barbeque and beers on the porch. How Canadian, eh?If the bears don't kill you, the air probably will.
Our route up Prairie Mountain was a new one to me - I'd recently seen a couple of hikers take a ridge that branches off the Prairie Creek Trail about 1.5 km from the winter gate. This turned out to be an excellent way of reaching the summit ridge of Prairie Mountain. It's still pretty steep, but you get a view all the way up, and are unlikely to cross paths with anyone. I noticed a bad smell a few times - I put it down to Rob's guts and said nothing.
The summit ridge was covered in fresh snow, and low cloud made Moose Mountain look broody. On the last few steps I mentioned an alternative ridge that I'd noticed, which looked like a good scramble. Rob was up for descending it, so we headed down. To get to this ridge, you reverse the first 100 m or so of the summit path, then head left until you can see scree below you, and head for it. It gives a good view of the cornice on the summit ridge, which is actually quite a bit bigger than it appears from the normal route.
The rib turned out to be OK in descent, but wouldn't be much fun to climb up as there was a lot of scree. After a few minutes I could smell rotten eggs again. Rob was nowhere near me - so the other obvious conclusion (for an Albertan) was drawn - we were walking through an area of Hydrogen Sulphide (sour gas) seeps. There wasn't much we could do about it, and a decent breeze was blowing, so we tried to stick to the high ground, and got out of there, fast. The ridge eventually joins a pleasant creekside trail, which brings you to a junction with a well-worn trail after 15 minutes. The left fork then lands you on the road at the winter gate parking area. This made a nice variation on the usual Prairie Mountain routes, and took 2 hours 45 mins round trip.
Shopping By Kayak
I wanted to show Rob the beaver colony that we'd found on the Elbow River, but after an entertaining paddle through small waves and rain, we found that the water level on Glenmore Reservoir had dropped, and we couldn't get to the river channel. We spent 30 minutes trying, and at one point Rob even braved the cold to try to drag his boat to deeper water, but eventually we gave up. Seeing a flock of pelicans on the lake was a good compromise and so we continued, p
addling right around the reservoir. While we were near Heritage Park, Lou called me asking us to go to Safeway.....well, it's only a short walk if you beach the kayaks in the right spot, so I wandered around the supermarket in my kayak gear, getting funny looks and leaving a muddy trail behind me. At the checkout I was offered 'carry out assistance' - unfortunately it transpired that they didn't include loading shopping into kayaks in the service, so I had to decline..... It's funny how a poor forecast will give you the hills and lakes to yourself out here: we saw three people on the summit ridge of Prairie Mountain, and two kayakers on the reservoir, right at the end. Definitely a good day out!
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