A couple of weeks ago I mentioned to Shari: would you be up for a morning hike to see the sunrise? Of course, being the awesome person she is, she said “yes”. So we decided to get a few people together for a Sunrise Hike over the Alberta Prairies. It would be an early morning hike where we would leave the city around 4:30 am and head out to the mountains, climb to a vantage point, and enjoy breakfast and hot tea and coffee while watching the sunrise in the horizon. It sounded wonderful!
So on Saturday morning, Robbie, Tushna, Shari and I headed out to Mount Yamnuska with the intention of hiking to the east ridge. There’s a lovely spot there to set up shop and watch the sunrise. As we pulled into the parking lot we realized how dark it was. Super dark. We strapped on our hiking bags, layered warm clothing, and switched on our headlamps. We were off!
Things would not go as planned. Within 5 minutes, Robbie stopped and flashed a light: “Did you see that??” He had seen two eyes, staring at him. We didn’t want to jump to conclusions at that point, so we cautiously proceeded. Then another few minutes later, he proclaimed: “Over there! Do you see it?” And lo’ and behold, something was watching us- this was clear. Not only was it watching us, it was silent and following us. As we walked along the trail, it had walked in parallel. Then we all heard the rustling. There was most definitely something moving over there… and it wasn’t that far away. The sounds weren’t loud enough to be a bear walking through the forest, so we think it was a cougar… and that’s not an animal we wanted to go up against!
That was that- we high-tailed it out of there, looking back cautiously. Of course, we were choked that the hike did not go as planned, but we were thrilled that we left unscathed! That is the most important thing. Safety first.
But this certainly did not deter us from watching the sunrise. We had lots of goodies- bagels, cream cheese, muffins, coffee, tea, and strawberries. We headed to Canmore and drove up the Spray Lakes road and stopped near the top of the Grassi Lakes trail. We ate, chatted, and then bundled up just in time to watch the sunrise over the mountains, casting a wonderful orange and purple colour on the clouds. The surrounding mountains were all dusted with a fresh snowfall, which made the scenery pretty amazing. I reminded myself that I feel so lucky and blessed to have such great people in my life and to live in a place where I can experience a sunrise over the Canadian Rockies, whenever I choose to. It was a pretty incredible morning :).
HIKES & HAMSTRINGS 