This is my 50th post of 2013, which is halfway of my goal to write 100 posts this year! And what a fitting post this will be. It’s all about the birthday hike! The birthday hike tradition began when I was turning 30. While many people may want to party for their birthdays, all I wanted to do was get a bunch of people together and go hike a mountain with lots of great food and wine. We ended up making it a group birthday event to celebrate a few of the July/August birthdays. And thus began the tradition. Oh what fun!
Fast forward to this past Sunday for the 3rd anniversary of the glorious day. And it was quite a large group too! We all met at the McD’s before exiting the city and once the troops were gathered, we headed out to Kananaskis to hike Baldy Pass. In reading about the hike online, it seemed like a nice one to do that wasn’t overly strenuous and offered a great place for lunch. It is also a pretty popular trail to do, and although it was affected by the flooding, it was open and accessible. The morning was beautiful and sunny, and the wonderful weather would continue throughout the day.
At around 10:30, we left the trailhead for the pass. We were quite the merry group, chatting along the way and enjoying each other’s company. The beginning of the hike was quite rocky and there was definitely evidence that things had changed post-flood. Then it was into the forest for a short but steady ascent to the pass. The views from the pass were quite nice. On the one side, grey rocky mountains; on the other, quite the view of Kananaskis forests (I’m not sure what the area is called :S). Then it was time for lunch.
This was the best food spread yet! We had bread, cheese, pasta, prosciutto, turkey slices, strawberries, hummus, veggies, samosas, potato salad, gluten-free brownies, some other things, and of course, wine. Actually we had two great tasting wines this time, which were both polished off by the end of the lunch. Great job everyone- I definitely think we all ate well and enjoyed it! And of course, lunch culminated with someone (Laura, ahem, and Robin) seemingly drinking wine from the bottle. It’s not a birthday hike until that happens! Another year gone, another birthday hike completed. Until next year… 🙂
Stats:
Distance: 8 km roundtrip
Start: 10:30 am
End: 2:45, including our long celebratory lunch!
Elevation gain: 575 m or so
HIKES & HAMSTRINGS 