Fullerton Loop - August 7, 2011 (from the archives)

Elbow Valley - Fullerton Loop - The Particulars: Trailhead is located at the East side of the Allen Bill Pond parking lot (off Highway 66). Take the path under the overpass along the river to the gate. Loop is about 6.1km including the hike back to the trailhead (loop actually starts a good 1km into the hike). Trailhead elevation is about 1430m. High point is about 1585m. Loop takes about 1.5-2 hrs depending on conditions. 

The first hike I took after having the boys. Fullerton Loop is my old standby, my go to trail when the legs are weak, but I just gotta get out there and see the views:

That's Moose Mountain as seen from Fullerton Loop. I haven't been back yet, but one day....

Fullerton Loop Trail -- Nov 16, 2009 - From the archives

Every year I forget how late the snow comes to the mountains. Fall hiking is probably my favorite time of year. Once the snow hits, I'm barely able to wait until there's enough for snowshoeing, but it's always nice to sneak a late fall hike in a familiar spot and see the brown and yellow fall colouring for the last time that year...

Fullerton Loop -- May 16, 2009

Spring is not necessarily the prettiest time of the year in the mountains. Everything that has been hibernating under the snow is not yet rejuvenated, the melting snow makes everything slushy, muddy, and generally wet, and pretty much everything is stuck at some shade of brown.








But you don't care. You don't care because you're so happy to see those signs of spring, even a muddy creek is a thing of beauty.

Fullerton Loop -- April 27, 2008

After three weeks of mostly snow (yes, in April! Snow. In. April. Ok, that's the last of the complaining), N and I had passed on a few of our usual weekends. The snow is fun to hike in and a big change when it happens in November or December. By April, it's just a pain in the butt. Especially since the weather had been alternately warming and freezing, you just never knew what was under your feet.

So for only our second hike of April, we stuck to the tried and true: Fullerton Loop. Familiar, yes. But safe. We thought.

The hike started with a bang. The snow was frozen and the tracks of hikers and their four-legged friends were plentiful. Clearly this had been a popular hike over the past few days. So I'm not quite sure how N spotted this among the other tracks:



All I know is that ain't canine and that ain't feline, which leaves one other option for that area. I was a little surprised since it's such a popular path, but the track looked older (there's snow gathered in the print), and there were no more to be found, so we carefully continued on. We're a pretty loud duo on the trail. We've likely scared off more beasts than we care to admit to.

At least now we know what to look for. And it was a lot different from seeing cougar tracks last November.

While I'm hoping this is the end of the snow, the foothills got the moist heavy snow, not the dry stuff we saw in the city. Maybe it's because the temperature was on the way up to about 20C that day, but everything looked clean and fresh and inviting. No, I won't be sorry to see it gone for the summer, but there's something refreshing about a snowy walk in the woods, and this might be the last of it for a while:



I took some time at the trailhead after the hike was over to take a look around Allen Bill pond (or what used to be Allen Bill pond). I hadn't really spent any time looking around since the floods tore up the area in 2005, and there were plenty of birds around to keep me company:



I knew going in that Allen Bill Pond was named for a Calgary Herald outdoors writer in about 1983 (I believe). I didn't know that prior to being a pond, the area had been a gravel pit. Talk about mind boggling!

The pond had been part of the gravel pit, created by diverting part of the Elbow River. When the area opened as a recreational area in 1983, the diversion was sealed off and the pond was created, with the Elbow River running alongside the pond. In 1995 flooding changed the path of the Elbow River, and in 2005 even worse flooding moved the path right into the pond (in fact, the Elbow tore up a good part of the parking lot!). Now the pond has rejoined the river.

This is from one of the signs on the opposite side of what remains of the pond (not my best work, click for a better view):



Nature is amazing sometimes.

(Funny too, it comes right on the heels of reading a discussion about gravel pits over at Sierra Nevada Ramblings -- Geese and Gravel).

All of my wandering and research was conducted under the watchful eye of a lone goose on the far west side of what remains of the pond. He never let me get too close, which makes me suspect his partner was hiding somewhere nearby. The first time I walked by he jumped into the cold cold water, breaking the very thin layer of ice on top:



If you look really closely, you can see the super-thin ice right beside him. The white and grey ice is much thicker.

The rest of the time, he just ran out into the frozen water and walked away from me, leaving perfect little goose prints in his wake:



I wanted a photo of the prints themselves, but I figured I'd antagonized the poor goose enough (plus ice that holds a goose likely doesn't hold a human!), so I let him be and headed back into the city.....

Fullerton Loop - February 24, 2008

It was a gray day, with just the smallest amount of snow falling, but as always, a wonderful morning to be by the water....

Fullerton Loop - February 17, 2008

A friend we encountered along the trail:

(Not bad for a cell phone photo, hey?)

Hiking was glorious this weekend. It was a long weekend here in Alberta and the warm weather had blown in, making this more like an early spring hike than a mid-February one.

If there's a greater weather phenomenon than the Chinook, I don't know what it is...

Question for the masses: Is "Chinook" (as a weather term) commonly known outside the Alberta region, or am I just speaking in tongues?

Fullerton Loop - November 25, 2007

On this particular Sunday, N and I just did a quick hike through Fullerton Loop, probably our first winter hike on that trail where we actually felt the need to use Yak-Traks.

The third bridge was still out from the wind storm some time back, and I doubt it will be cleared before the Spring.

Fullerton Loop - Sept 30, 2007

We'd taken a couple of weeks off from hiking -- vacations, birthdays, so many other things going on. When we returned to this old favorite, fall had hit and made this hike a whole new experience.

I think fall is my favorite time of year.



Soon enough, snow on the trail won't be such a novelty:


The viewpoint was spectacular:


After the hike I drove down the highway toward Elbow Falls. I wound up stopping on the hill just before Canyon Creek road to take this shot:

Fullerton Loop - August 15, 2007

(Fullertop Loop trail details here)

Maybe it was the heat of July, but by mid-August, I could already feel summer slipping away. There's still plenty of hiking left in the year, but I have the feeling it won't be long before we see snow on these mountains again....



We'd picked Fullerton for a casual evening hike. I think N and I could do Fullerton in our sleep by now, but it doesn't matter -- it's a chance to get outside. Today we had new company on the path, but only one was brave enough to stick around for the photo...

Another Fullerton evening hike - July 13, 2007

During the heat wave, sometimes the evening hikes were the only way to go....

Fullerton Loop - June 26, 2007

A couple of days after the Diamond T hike, J and I hit Fullerton Loop for an evening hike, and finished not a second too soon as the mosquitoes became absolutely vicious after about 8 pm.

Fullerton Loop details are here, and it's also been done to death, so I won't go into too much detail here. This hike is a little more shady than Diamond T, so a lot of the moisture was still evident along the creeks and forest portions of the hike. And the flowers were everywhere!

Near the beginning of the trail, on the opposite side of the river. Everything was in bloom as far as we could see.

Right before the trail turns uphill, this little creek runs along the trail. In the early spring months it actually flooded over the trail. Now it looks like a nice, mossy hideaway... until you see the mosquitoes!


Pretty look at the western view of Elbow Valley in the evening.

The wind was hitting the south side of the viewpoint pretty hard. This is another spot where wildflowers just abound, but with the wind blowing the way it was, this was the best I could manage.

Fullerton Loop - again - March 31, 2007

See: Fullerton Loop for Trail Details.

N. and I found ourselves back at Fullerton Loop about 6 days later. The weather mayhem continued. This was the trailhead as we parked. I'd like to point out that Calgary saw barely a flake that morning. Whatever. Like the previous weekend's hike, the snow meant we had the trail to ourselves, and everything was going to be frozen and misty. Cool.

The fog was even worse this time around and I wasn't really feeling the camera love that day, but after the amazing spider web experience the previous trip out, I remembered the close up feature on my camera. This was my first attempt out on the trail and I have to say I was pretty happy with the results.

We kept the hike short that day -- too much going on in our respective households -- but it was nice to get out and away and have the whole place to ourselves (in our minds anyway).

Fullerton Loop - March 25, 2007

Elbow Valley - Fullerton Loop - The Particulars: Trailhead is located at the East side of the Allen Bill Pond parking lot (off Highway 66). Take the path under the overpass along the river to the gate. Loop is about 6.1km including the hike back to the trailhead (loop actually starts a good 1km into the hike). Trailhead elevation is about 1430m. High point is about 1585m. Loop takes about 1.5-2 hrs depending on conditions.

Yeah, so I was kind of a dolt and forgot my camera for the next few hikes, so sadly the next interesting one is Fullerton Loop. Despite the lovely spring-like conditions seen in Calgary and area for the first half of the month, late March seemed to be the neverending snowfall, especially in the foothills. Meanwhile, in between snow, it would warm up enough to start the mass melting. The crazy weather led to some interesting trail conditions.

Fullerton Loop is a great hike to see lots of forest life (N. usually spots it before I do), and to work your legs a little. It feels cold as you start out along the river, but warms up as the trail twists deeper into the forest. It's a great trail to walk year round, as long as you have proper footwear and accessories (Yaktraks or cleats for the bottom of your boots, even then some parts are too icy and may not be safely passable). I cannot stress that enough. It merges with a cross-country trail, so it's worth keeping an eye out for skiers until the trails split.

After passing through the gate, the trail runs alongside the river for a short walk before turning into the forest. At the top of the first real incline, there is a fork in the path. Hikers want to go left.. to the right is the cross country trail.

After the split, the trail meanders along a creek that is crossed many times via bridges such as this one. At this point in late March the water had melted and frozen so much it was actually overtaking the bridge! It's tough to the tell, but the little bit of the stream that is actually flowing, is flowing across the footpath in front of the bridge.

Soon after there is a fork in the path -- this is where the loop starts. The best bet is to go counter-clockwise and take the right fork (the bridge as opposed to the stairs), as it saves the best payoff for the end of the hike.

The trail continues in this fashion for sometimes -- steady incline, lodgepole pines, bridge crossings. The trail dips once in a while, but you can expect a bigger incline almost right away.

Keep your eyes open! It's quiet enough in early spring (the trail gets much more popular in the summer) to hear anything that might be burrowing nearby, such as the little guy we ran into here:


Can't see him? Look closer:



This little guy turned toward us just as I snapped the photo. I think we need to make him our mascot. Check out those whiskers.. and that little mouth! (Click the photo for a better look)

It was snowing by this point... but that doesn't matter. It made everthing on the trail seem that much newer and fresher. It did unfortunately mute the lookout a tad though.




The cutline view is actually much nicer live, even on a snowy foggy day like this one.

The nice bonus on this hike is that the viewpoint payoff is not just one spot. The trail leads to a high point and then turns South so it covers most of the Western view from the view point. The above shots are looking North-West and West.

The trail was absolutely deserted this day. The fog sort of muffled the sound and keep it closed in, so it was tough to gauge what we were hearing and how far away it was. We saw deer, but they ran away before we even got close. Everything had that post-snow frozen sheen to it. When you're hiking it's easy to miss the little things, and without thinking N. and I nearly walked right through this:



It was tough to see and nearly impossible to photograph, but it was a perfect snow covered spider's thread, stretching from one side of the path to the other. There was the gentlest wind blowing at the time and the string was beaded with snow drops. No sign of Ms. Spider (or Mr. I suppose). I'm sure it was only there for a moment in time and we felt lucky to have been able to see it (and not walk through it!).

The southern part of the view is by far the best, and I won't ruin it by posting the foggy picture here. From here one can see a huge section of Elbow Valley, not to mention the Allen Bill Pond parking lot and maybe even your car. It's somewhat satisfying to see how far you've come. If you've done the Diamond T hike, you can see that lookout from this lookout as well.

From here it's a steep downhill along the ledge of the hill. There's plenty to see, but pay special attention to the fallen trees to the left of you as you start downhill. It's tough to imagine the wind that must have felled these beasts.... you can tell from the stumps that remain these were strong healthy trees blown over. Intimidating.