Category Archives: Canada

bikes, Canada, friends, MTB, national park

Being Lake touristy

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Exhausted from Sunday’s big ride, we had a late start before I took Brent & Emma up to see Lake Louise & Moraine Lake. We blew past the park gates at the busiest I’ve seen them for a long time (twas Monday too) & of course when we got to the lake it was insanely busy. But never mind, we found a sneaky parking spot & went to gaze at the beautiful lake for a while, feeling wonderfully lazy. There was considerably less ice than early May in the lake – in fact, there was actually water in the liquid phase, brilliant.

If we hadn’t have been so sore & tired, I would have been pushing for the nice little ride to Moraine Lake – you actually earn the view, instead of just driving there. As it was, we drove & there were less people there than at Lake Louise. The lake was a lot higher than last time I visited in the fall – all the logs at the outlet were floating. Brent tried valiantly for quite a while to cross them, but in the end he was too big to not sink. Emma managed to get a very wet foot trapped under a log or two for a while. The frivolity over we wandered up the lookout point.

A cruisy drive back down the parkway home – we saw a couple of huge-antlered elk.

Tuesday morning we were in a fit state to ride, but as Emma & Brent had to hit the road south I opted to show them the rocky & rooty technatality of the Nordic Center. With a bit of the Yellow Loop, a little bit of “Brendan getting slightly lost” & then some of the Orange Loop across the meadows & down we came to the Coal Chutes intersection. Brent persuaded us to go down the black run. I’d forgotten just how much fun it is – a little steep, but on the smooth & non-grippy coal surface I was just on the right side of the edge of control & it was a blast. With the nice Georgetown climb, a bit more of the Orange Loop (Orchid) & a little more toiling up hill we were back at the day-lodge after watching little kids with guns (not something you want to come across on your MTB ride) at the biathlon range. The usual fun down the berms, table-tops & doubles on Soft Yoghurt & then down Devonian Drop & along the loose gravel beside the hydro facility & our nice little jaunt was over. Sad to see my Kiwi accented visitors leave, but I’m sure I’ll hear some Kiwis in whatever is left of London next week.

bikes, Canada, friends, GPS, MTB

Lusk Pass – Jumpingpound – Cox Hill – Lusk Pass epic

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I was surprised to learn earlier in the week that Emma & Brent were going to be up around Canmore so soon in their big American roadtrip (we saw them mid-June in San Luis Obispo, CA) as this weekend just gone. But they managed to get up here just in time before I go back to London next week (which I’m not looking forward to so much after the last few days’ news) & I was very pleased to have my first Kiwi visitors to Canmore. A lot of Saturday evening was spent sharing roadtrip & mountain-biking stories – I hope we didn’t bore Megan & Alex too much. A small period of time was given over to discussing the ride we were to take them on the next day. My favourite ride from last summer was Jumpingpound Ridge & Cox Hill, so I was keen to show off some good backcountry riding in Kananaskis Country. I think Alex has been missing big rides this summer – he wanted to go over Lusk Pass to start & finish the loop (making more of a lasso). We, perhaps naively, were up for this.

Parking at the University of Calgary Barrier Lake Field Station, we were soon climbing up towards the top of Lusk Pass. It was mostly double-track (we followed the Trans-Canada Trail for a while towards Baldy Pass) & steady climbing. However, near the top of the pass it got really quite steep & so loose in parts that we were all walking. I was beginning to think that we were spending a lot of energy that we would want later in the day. Nonetheless, we had a little descent from the pass to the road, Powderface Trail, where we turned south & headed ten kilometres or so to the trailhead. We were fortunate to have a thin layer of cloud keeping the sun off us & not much wind to contend with.

I covered most of the trail last year, but that climb up to Jumpingpound Ridge is still brutal. Looking back on my last trip report, I think I was able to ride the same as last year – but the big wheels made it a bit easier & less energy sapping. We all kept a good pace up – well three of us kept a good pace & Brent was noticeably ahead of us as he cleared everything. That hardtail with a single (30T) chainring obviously works for him. The rocky part along the ridge was definitely easier for me on a 29er; soon we were out of the trees & at the summit as the clouds cleared & we got the views we deserved.

Before long we were snaking along the ridge – the lack of wind compared to last year was great.

After the ridge-riding, the trail drops nicely through a couple of hundred vertical metres & is great fun. There’s a few rocky bits & small periods of unobstructed panoramas.

Can you tell I was enjoying myself?

It’s more steep climbing to regain most of the altitude just lost to summit Cox Hill. That first Lusk Pass bit must have had me tired, because I feel that I didn’t ride quite as much as I did last year & this time there were no insane gusts to contend with. We all rejoiced (well, three of us) when Brent’s climbing ability was finally defeated by a lack of traction less than fifty metres from the end – he is human after all.

Once again, the huge downhill off Cox Hill made the 1800m of climbing we did in the day worthwhile. Starting with those big open traversing switchbacks on loose rock before diving in to the trees & the trail changing to roots, to rocks & frequently back again it was a blast all the way down. I was pleased to mostly be keeping pace with Brent – I’m still not completely used to having the brake levers on the opposite side, so I’ll stick to that as some sort of lame excuse.

We had a steady climb along the road for seven or eight kilometres & after being out for six hours & climbing so much, we were all starting to feel rather exhausted. But we kept a good pace along the road & were eventually back at the Lusk Pass trail – which, naturally, had more of a climb to the top than we remembered going down earlier in the day. But those steep bits we had to walk up were a complete blast on the way down as we blew through many loose rocks. Brent & I got a nice little surprise to come around a corner at speed & see a bear cub running off down the trail – we started making a lot more noise after that. The last part of the old fireroad had a lot of logged trees across it, which was a bit of drag.

We persevered & were back at the car 56 km & almost seven and a half hours after leaving it. Truly the longest, most epic & best ride that I’ve done all summer – which is great, as I’ve been looking forward to it for many months. We all hurt, but were pretty happy with the riding & that we’d achieved it. Joel & Kristy had us all (Megan & Finn included) around for barbecued beer-can chicken dinner, all that meat was much needed & deserved!

– Some photos taken shamelessly from Alex & Emma.

Canada, friends, hiking

Mt Indefatigable – Fatty

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More short rides around my favourite trails in town ensued for the rest of the week. Prospector with Lafarge workmates was good & I’m slowly getting used to this 29er thing – I was very pleased to clear the entire G8 the other day while out riding Megan. I’ve been able to ride everything in the past, but not string it all together – there was one particular creek exit that would always trip me up.

On Saturday, after a late start we drove up to the Kananaskis Lakes to ascend Mt Indefatigable. This appeals by just having a great naval name (too much time spent studying Nelsonian history & watching Hornblower). With many variations possible of the name – popular ones being Indefatigue-able & Indefeatable – we settled on calling it Fatty. It was supposed to be two to three hours to the southern summit (the less travelled route apparently, although it didn’t seem so on the day) & we got off to a late start just before one o’clock. After less than a few minutes walking & just about to start climbing away from the lake we came across a woman with a freshly (obviously) broken ankle being carried down the slope by her father & son. She didn’t seem in huge amounts of pain most of the time, but those carrying her were rather tired. Alex & I spent some time tag-teaming some others to carry her back to the parking lot.

We walked up through the usual variety of terrain – damp forest, exposed rocky ridges, some small meadows with nice flowers out & then a little more scrambling as the soft dirt trail gave way to rocks, rocks & some more rocks before reaching the final ridgeline & the weather station near the top. The view off the back wasn’t nearly as exciting the one we’d been looking at on the way up. Looking across Upper Kananaskis Lake we could easily see (not so) Hidden Lake, the falls & across to Aster Lake & Warrior – the site of a ski-tour a few months ago that I found particularly gruelling. The descent was one of those that we were feeling in our quads the day after, but we were quickly down & driving home via Spray Lakes (saw a moose shortly after departing).

Finn taking it easy while Megan picks a route – Lower Kananaskis Lake down below

Upper Kananaskis Lake in front of Hidden Lake & Warrior

bikes, Canada, city, family, friends, hiking, MTB, national park, roadtrip, travel, USA, vehicles

Back to Canmore – Roadtrip Complete

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To finish off the three months of driving I decided to drive all the way back from Vancouver to Canmore in the middle of the long weekend. The logic there being that Jasper would be a zoo on a sunny holiday weekend & I’d be better off checking it out a little later when there were less people around.

So Saturday morning I set off on a wonderfully sunny drive east across BC. The traffic was pretty good & BC was beautifully forested – it really is a large province when you drive across the bottom in one day. After Kamloops I was back on roads I’d driven before & there was a half-hour wait near Shuswap – but I had the Kindle out so I wasn’t too fussed. Over Rogers Pass & coming into Golden there was an ominous big cloud of black smoke billowing into the sky. I was near the front of a queue for almost an hour as some poor family watched their RV incinerate. The rest of the drive was uneventful & I was soon driving below familiar peaks – just they had a lot less snow (almost none) on them than I remember. It was a little odd getting closer to Canmore – being away for three months & doing so many other things must have lessened the blow of leaving such a great place as I wasn’t too concerned that I’ll be gone in three weeks.

So that was it really, just under 22000 km, 87 days, 13 states, two provinces, 45 MTB rides totalling a thousand kilometres, at least 15 National Parks & 5 National Monuments, only 2600 photos & 435 gallons of gas. What a great trip! We were blessed by the weather – notably it never got really hot, as it did the last time I visited Utah, Nevada, Arizona & California in 2009.  Highlights are hard to list as there were so many. But I’ll try anyway:

A separate list for the riding highlights, which is even harder as I rode so much quality singletrack.

That’s that – thanks again Valerie for coming along for the ride & sharing the experience (& financing a lot of it too!).  I’m in Canmore until mid-August before flying back to London to catch the last of the English summer.  Mum’s coming across to England for the last few months of the year, so it’ll be great to see her & plenty of other friends & family in the UK.  From then on, I only have vague ideas as to what I’m going to do with myself… But riding better figure in there somehow.