Johnston Canyon

4 October 2010 bpheasant Leave a comment

The forecasted overcast day turned out to be a lot better than expected & started off well with another free Pancake Breakfast at the fire-house just down the street. It was the end of fire safety week & there were kids all over the place climbing on the big red engines – I missed my best opportunity yet to have a photo taken in the cab of one of these nice shiny appliances. The pancakes weren’t too bad either – sausages were the meat this time, they go surprisingly well with maple syrup.

Alex & Megan had a Melbourne friend, Jackie, staying with them so about six of us headed west to Johnston Canyon (just west of Banff) to check out the falls. Becca brought Adele & I here in January – it is now much different with no snow & ice around. The two and a half kilometre trail was concreted pretty much the whole way – with bits of it being tacked on to the side of the canyon. It’s a popular spot – the parking lot was full – & we passed many people on the trail (highway).

It was another one of those places around here that I can’t work out whether it’s more spectacular in summer or winter.

Here a few pictures from January for comparison purposes (it turns out that these didn’t make my blog at that time, for some reason).

Sunday prevening was spent learning a new game (Bananagrams) that was basically everyone playing their own little game of Scrabble simultaneously in a race to use one’s tiles up first, before heading downtown (a whole block away) to get yummy ice cream & heading down to the river for no particular reason to finish said ice cream. I think we went straight from there to a Japanese restaurant – perhaps I just don’t get Japanese food, but I was slightly disappointed; my disappointment was mostly due to the fact that my spicy Teriyaki was not at all spicy (they forgot the extra sauce) & the cabbage & other vegetables were pretty bland. Back to Alex & Megan’s for more Bananagrams, which was OK for a while – but as much as I like words & being a geek, the lack of interaction between players (as in what others do has minimal impact on your own little game-world) got me a little bored after a few hands. I miss evenings of Settlers, Articulate, Cranium & many more.

around home, bikes, Canada, friends, MTB

Moraine Lake

3 October 2010 bpheasant Leave a comment

The run of beautiful fall weather continued, & perhaps climaxed (hopefully not, but that will be hard to beat) with a gloriously sunny & warm day yesterday. For the second week in a row I was sans-Alex my big weekend ride as other things called. I was keen to head out to the Lake Louise area as I haven’t seen it snow- & ice-less & it apparently is beautiful all thawed out. It didn’t take much persuading to get Gerry to come along & check out the Moraine Lake trail – reputed to be a great ride with awesome scenery. Parking on the shoulder of the road, we were straight in to a steep, rooty climb – this was a quite the wake-up call. After about a kilometre, things slackened off a bit & we were riding up beside a small river.

Gerry shamelessly trying to plug mexicomtb.com – he failed, so I’m doing it.

After crossing the river, there was another steepish climb that once again mellowed out. Gerry & I took turns leading as we were a similar pace. My stubbornness at staying the middle-ring wasn’t always helping & my much worn rear tyre was starting slip on a few of the roots on tricky step-ups. I’m looking forward to getting a Crossmark back on the bike when I get around to the big end of season parts buy-up.

We joined on to the Highline part of the trail & rode along the side of the ridge above the road for the rest of the way to the lake. This part of the trail had good variety, in some parts it flowed really nicely both up & downhill. While in other parts, mostly across avalanche paths, it got rocky & much more technically demanding – all the more satisfying when you manage to weave through, & sometimes over, big rocks. It was a nice mellow downhill that spat us out at the rather packed parking lot at the end of the lake.

We climbed what was effectively a big pile of rocks to get a better vantage point:

Proof I was actually there

Here are a few shots of the ride back. I led most of the way as the climb was gentler & the middle-ring is always good for a bit more pace when climbing – also perhaps Gerry was a little worn out from the Ha Ling hide-a-bike the previous day.

Gerry conquering the corner where he’d just had a good go at emasculating himself a few minutes before (it’s steeper than it looks).

On returning to the car, I chalked up a first. After opening the car, I hit the central locking button & threw the keys on the seat before shutting the door to prevent it being swiped off. On going around to the passenger side I found that I had managed to lock all the doors & the keys were, of course, now sitting on the front seat mocking me. Why lock is pressing the button up & unlock pressing the button down on this particular car is something that I have never understood or intuitively remembered – this time I was well & proper caught out. Also, I’ve never really seen the point here in having buttons on each of the front doors to operate the central locks – it’s much simpler just to have all the locks operate when you move the actual door lock. Never mind, it turns out that tyre levers & an assortment of sticks, along with a lot of patience is all that it takes to get back in to the car – eventually.

With the best part of an hour wasted, we weren’t particularly keen to ride another, shorter, trail to Ross Lake – so just went & walked around with all the tourists at Lake Louise. Which is much different to how I remember it in January. Unfortunately, by the late afternoon the sun was at the end of the lake thus making the photos a little less spectacular – but it was still very beautiful.

around home, bikes, Canada, friends, hiking, MTB

Gusty Ha Ling & shuttles at Moose Mountain

27 September 2010 bpheasant Leave a comment

More great weather on Saturday with clear skies; however a Chinook came to town & it was super windy. Here are some of many yellow leaves around town – this taken from our driveway.

Straight after lunch it was time for Finnian’s first ex utero hike up Ha Ling. The road up to the Goat Creek parking lot seemed markedly better than the previous week & we were hiking by five to one. All the snow that I hiked through last week was all gone & there were heaps of people & dogs on the trail. As we got above the tree line the wind started to get up a bit.

Megan, Finn hiding, Gill & Alex – looking down Goat Creek (Banff is around the corner to the right)

We started the last zag of all the zig-zags up to the summit as we layered up a bit. The wind kept getting stronger & stronger. About a hundred metres from the top there were some really big gusts that came close to blowing some of us over. The biggest of all the gusts ripped my sunnies off my face & I last saw them disappearing towards the edge of the cliff. None of us valued getting to the top over not-being blown a few hundred metres down to Canmore, so we decided to turn around.

Playing Crouching Tiger, Hidden Finn – isn’t the summit close?

A short photo stop on the edge of the ridge – the wind had great fun messing up the girls’ hair.

As was the case last Saturday, after getting home after the hike/stroll I was still itching for a ride in the sun. This time I went up to the Nordic Center & was pleased to get all around the Orange Trail, Coal Chutes & the exit trails without unclipping. The trails were in sublime condition & being early evening there was no-one around – the only life I had to share the trail with was a curious deer.

Alex bailed on our planned Sunday epic to do a Jumpingpound loop, claiming sickness. Thankfully I had a back up plan – free shuttles at Moose Mountain. The drive down was fantastic – there are even more yellow trees down beside the highway near the Cochrane turnoff & around Bragg Creek. Arriving around eleven, I got on the first shuttle up the hill with five or six others – I definitely had the most puny bike. I followed them all down Race of Spades – it wasn’t too steep & I could easily ride all of the trail & keep up with the group. There were some pretty big structures & I didn’t hit any of the gaps, but could ride most of the rest – there was a neat bridge up two metres in the trees that wound its way around for a while. Halfway down there was a really steep climb that had all in front off & pushing straight away – I waited for quite some time at the top. Moving off, the second half back to the parking lot was just as fun – if not quite as rocky & rooty. I decided to do one more run to see if I could go any faster – we had a smaller group & it was faster. I rode a few more structures than the first time – one I was told was rollable, it sort of was – but a lot steeper & taller than I was expecting. It was the first time I remember bottoming out my forks so conclusively – quite a loud thunk.

I was too busy having fun riding down to take many photos – here is some typical trail.

Back at the car, it was time for lunch before heading out to do a XC loop. The shuttle driver gave me some good tips on how to find the new Ridgeback trail. Once I found the trailhead, it wasn’t too difficult as the signage was superb.

This was a one-trail, ridden there & back mostly climbing out. The first section, being so new was really muddy & I met a couple of younger guys riding up. One was on a rather large Scott Ransom while the other was on a hardtail with a broken derailleur (enforced singlespeeding) – this guy was rather strangely riding in white socks & sandals. They showed me the way & half way up we ditched the Ridgeback for the older Tom Snow trail – it turned out that there were some massive mud bogs in. The only consolation of having an almost bald XC tyre on the rear was that I got very little mud up my back – mud seemed to go almost everywhere else. The other guys had to turn around at three o’clock to get back to Calgary to work – so I continued up to the end of the trail to get a bit more climbing in & of course more downhill.

Riding through the beech trees

Looking out from the top of the ride

On the way down I chose the parts of the two trails that I hadn’t already been on. For the first half this was the Ridgeback – & it was fantastic (& mostly dry) & flowy. There was a nice big climb for a while, before riding along the ridge & more great down. I was, & still am, quite tired after such a great day’s riding.

around home, bikes, Canada, MTB

Prospector pics

26 September 2010 bpheasant Leave a comment

First ride since Saturday – always nice after work on a Friday. With two clear days, the snow is gone from all but the peaks & the trails are pretty dry. I threw the bike in the back of the car & went & hit the Prospector Trail after knocking off work – how great is it having sublime riding one minute’s ride from work? The nice blue skies had gone & with them my hopes of getting great photos of all the brilliant fall colours that have sprung up in the last week.

It is three weeks since Alex & I rode this little gem of a trail & this time I remembered to pack my camera to get a few pictures to go with my previous trail description. Unfortunately as I was by myself, there aren’t too many action shots. The climb up the valley was harder than two weeks ago – my riding diary tells me I’ve only been on three rides in the last fortnight. It’s amazing how quickly one can feel the effects of less riding & fifty-five hour working weeks. So I pushed a bit more than usual up some of the steepest parts of the climbs & started to look around for photo opportunities in the gloom. Unfortunately, being by myself, there are not many (rather, no) action photos – so you’ll have to imagine me riding over the features.

Riding up beside the Exshaw Creek – that slickrock on the left is where the trail ends

The first of many trail features – this one has a nasty gap at the end that you can’t see from here, thankfully there is a chicken route down to the right.