Kananaskis – Page 5 – HIKES & HAMSTRINGS

Prairie Mountain: Hiking Season Begins!

View from Prairie Mountain. Always a wonderful sight :) — View from Prairie Mountain. Always a wonderful sight 🙂

It may only be the end of March, but I have now declared the start of hiking season! The weather has been so gorgeous lately that it’s hard not to drop everything and get out to the mountains. After Thursday’s attempt at Tunnel Mountain with Sony (only to encounter sheets of ice on the trail), I headed out to Prairie Mountain on Friday, which always makes a good shoulder season hike. Thankfully, all the squats from Shaun T’s Insanity have truly been doing wonders, and my legs did well to get to me to the summit. My XTR ice spikes also helped with all the snow on the mountain. Prairie continues to be a grind each and every time. I started the trail around 1:40 pm, reached the summit at 3:10 pm, and then was back at the car for 4:10 pm. This will be my initial metric to compare future times, as this will not be the last time I do Prairie Mountain this season!

Tunnel Mountain- We’ll get you next time! *shakes fist!*

Hiking Fullerton Loop

FullertonLoop2013-2 It’s been almost a month since my last blog post, yikes! It’s easy to say that life and stresses got in the way (which would be true), but that shouldn’t be an excuse. The first quarter of the year has been interesting, but I’m ready to put that behind me and start anew. What better way to get back into the groove than with a hike!

FullertonLoop2013-1

Today was a gorgeous day, so when my friend Lauren asked if I wanted to join her, her husband and their dog/small horse on a short hike, I couldn’t resist. Destination: Fullerton Loop in the Bragg Creek area. I’ve never hiked it before so I was very much looking forward to it. And since I haven’t done a lot of winter hiking, I was eager to get out and hike!

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Fullerton Loop is not overly strenuous: at an elevation gain of 364 metres and a distance of 6.5 km, it’s not too bad. The interesting thing about the hike was the crazy amount of ice beneath the snow, which made for a slippery couple of hours. And since I hadn’t hiked in quite some time, my body was not used to the elevation gain and incline. What should have been an easy hike ended up giving me quite the workout! It sure felt good, and I can’t wait until the summer hiking season begins. There are many epic mountains on my list and lots to be conquered, but hiking Fullerton Loop reminded me that the hikes don’t always need to be extravagant. Today’s hike was a short one close to the city, but offered a great escape to the mountains. And when there’s awesome company, it’s an outing that’s absolutely worth the time.

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I Saw A Moose!

Originally, this post was going to be about trying cross-country skiing for the first time. I was going to write about UofC’s Intro to XC skiing program, the beauty of the Mount Shark area in the winter, learning the proper diagonal stride technique, and having a great day in the mountains.

But that story has been trumped by this:

I SAW A MOOSE!!

Why is this so important? Well, I guess it’s not that important. However, I’ve always wanted to see a moose in Alberta. I’ve been to the mountains so many times, and finally it happened. As we were driving back from cross-country skiing along Spray Lakes road, I spotted it in the distance. It was just standing there, on another road, just minding its business. “It’s a moose!”, I proclaimed. we circled back and admired it. Moose (or meese, as they are sometimes called) are amazing looking creatures, and they’re huge! It seemed aware that we were watching, and decided to walk in our direction. I think it was just curious. Although its proximity to the car was a bit alarming at times, we were able to snap some nice photos. I was so excited that I saw a moose. If it’s been unclear… I SAW A MOOSE!

To summarize, I loved cross country skiing, and can’t wait to go again :).

Trying to get back up :/ — Trying to get back up

XC Skiing is definitely something I'll try again :) — XC Skiing is definitely something I’ll try again 🙂

Snowboarding Attempt #2

About 4 years ago, before I moved to Calgary, I tried snowboarding at Glen Eden in Milton, Ontario. My brother was teaching my mum and I, and though we fell a few times, it was lots of fun. Since then, I’ve been wanting to attempt it again, and though I had ambitious plans to do so once I moved to Calgary, it never happened. Fast forward to yesterday. I can finally say that I’ve tried snowboarding… twice.

My friend Divya from work is learning to snowboard and asked if I wanted to join for a lesson at Nakiska. I figured it was good motivation to get out to the slopes! And by slopes, I mean bunny hill, since falling was pretty much expected. Robbie was interested in trying it out as well since he had never been on a snowboard before, so we woke up early Sunday morning and headed to Kananaskis. The weather wasn’t too bad- a bit windy at times, but pretty decent conditions for learning!

We met Divya for the lesson, and before we knew it, we were strapping the bindings, learning about heel and toe edges, and attempting to change directions while descending the slopes. Our instructor, whose name I think was Leo, was awesome and very encouraging! We felt great about our progress!

But once the lesson was up and we were left to practice the skills we learned, it was downhill from there… both literally, and figuratively. Robbie and I had some good runs, but equally, some great and painful falls. And boy was it ever exhausting!! All in all, though, it was a fantastic day, and so much fun. I guess more progress was made than not, since practice makes perfect. My goal is to actually snowboard a few times this winter… as well as ski once or twice. With winter being 8 months long, it’s time to start taking advantage of this whole snow business!

Snowshoeing in West Bragg

Robbie and I had Monday off, so we decided to head to West Bragg Creek. I recently learned about this gem of a place. It’s very close to Calgary with great cross-country skiing and a nice snowshoeing trail. It was sunny and it seemed like a good day for a quick snowshoe outing. In fact, I was testing out some new winter boots, as well as the MSR Lightning Ascent snowshoes that I purchased.

Like I realized last year when I went snowshoeing for the first time, I really enjoy it! This was definitely a beginner trail, but you can certainly progress and hit some mountain peaks on snowshoes. Unfortunately, this usually involves backcountry terrain, avalanche safety know-how, and use of other technical gear. One day. One day. But until then, it was an enjoyable afternoon, and a super easy way to enjoy a nice wintery day :).