Highway 66 (near Elbow Falls) - April 1, 2013

This is what it looks like when you take your two year old twins on their first "hike". No child carriers, no wagon, just their little feet. And a highway closed until mid-May....

One day I hope the surroundings will be more interesting than the stuff painted on the road....

West Bragg Creek Snowshoe Loop - January 22, 2012 (from the archives)

It's coming....

15 cm of snow and counting....

Chester Lake - Snowshoeing - February 7, 2010 - From the Archives

With 10-20 cm dumping in the city, and so much more white stuff falling in the mountains (Burstall Pass had over 25 cm base before this most recent storm even hit!), it's time to start dreaming about snowshoeing! While there's still not enough of a base in the mountains for winter recreation yet (and it's still expected to be a snowless Halloween in the city -- with temperatures back up to 9C by the weekend), something about that first real snow fall always seems to get the winter enthusiasts drooling.

So to get through this transition, I thought we'd look back on a snowshoeing favorite... Chester Lake...

Even at the trailhead... deep snow goodness!

Heavy, wet, sloppy late winter/spring snow. It was still hanging in the trees, rounded off and thick.

Pure sunlight and blue sky in Peter Lougheed Provincial Park. Perfect day!

 It wasn't quite hoar frost, but something else...spiky, well defined ice crystals clung to the trees...

Damn.

And it was all over our poor frozen snowshoer too.

More ice. More crystals.

At Chester Lake. I'm not even sure the walking stick hit bottom.

Mushroom tree!

Bow Valley dreaming....

There's still too much of a taste of fall in my mind. Maybe it's because hiking has suddenly opened itself up to us again, maybe it's because fall can be such a fleeting season in the rockies, summer one day, snow the next, or maybe it's because there still seems to be so many trails left unhiked and life moves so quickly now.

Normally the first look of snow has me thinking about snowshoeing, and counting the days until our favorite winter haunts have enough snow to break out the gear and travel a winter wonderland like no other. Instead, I'm looking at the places in the mountains where snow is only a brief visitor in the winter months.

It was always interesting to read the winter trail reports and see the Bow Valley area was simply left unreported after the other areas started listing snow conditions and grooming, with just a small note mentioning the frequency of chinooks through the Bow Valley area made any snow accumulation spotty at best. Winter hike at your own risk, the report seemed to hint, but it's not much fun.

I think I'm going to check it out. On a recent mountain drive I was able to quickly drive through the Bow Valley campground and scope out the available trailheads. I found:

Bow River Interpretive
Bow Valley Bike Path Trail
Many Springs Trail
Middle Lake Interpretive
Montane Interpretive
Moraine Interpretive

Altogether these trails barely cover 15km one way and only one isn't rated as "easy" (Moraine Interpretive is listed as "intermediate" but only covers 1.5 km one way). But it'll be different. And I bet you it will be quiet.

Middle Lake trail head.

Middle Lake.

More Middle Lake, with amazing scenery in background. Yeah, I think Bow Valley might be a good place to be.

Grassi Lakes - From the Archives - November 13, 2011

There's snow on Centennial Trail. It won't be long before our hikes and trails and looking more like this...

Ink Pots - June 30, 2012

Ink Pots - take the Bow Valley Parkway turnoff from Highway 1, west of Banff. The Ink Pots can be accessed via the very popular Johnston Canyon trail, but if it's summer and you want a little peace and quiet, the Moose Meadows trailhead is usually much quieter and doesn't add much distance to your hike. The parking lot for Moose Meadows is about 2-3 minutes past Johnston Canyon.

There should be a million photos from this hike. It was a hike we'll never forget, for all the wrong reasons. The rain, the swamp-like conditions of the trail, the bugs.... oh the bugs. And that feeling that I was hiking just to get through it. So I didn't think to take the camera out until we'd arrived at our destination. Wet, bitten, muddy, and generally in need of some therapy for our therapy.
 
But it wasn't a total loss. It is true, the cloudy days do make the colours seem impossibly bright.

Rae Glacier - September 18, 2011

Rae Glacier trail details: Take Highway 40 to the Elbow Lake Day Use Area. First 1.5 km or so of the trail is to the Elbow Lake campground. Go through the campground along the south side for the trail to Rae Glacier. Trail is about 3km with an incline of about 425m.. not for the faint of heart!

Usually Nat leaves the trail selection to me. I'm a bit of a trail geek, I like figuring out the places to go and find stuff we haven't seen. But when Nat picks, it's always something off my radar, and something so damn good!

 She outdid herself with Rae Glacier. After breaking myself in post-twins with a familiar and comfortable workout, I wanted something to push me. And I wanted something we hadn't seen before.

The first part of Rae Glacier is simply the trail to Elbow Lake. Even this was new to us!

 We crossed a rock glacier a few minute in. I've seen something similar along the highway near Highwood Pass and since we were so close, this wasn't terribly surprising, but still pretty cool to look at. Didn't see any picas though.

 Ah, beautiful trail, mountains ahead, perfect hike as far as I can see...

 Approaching the lake. The hike-in campground was pretty full, and it's really easy to see why.

But we were on our way to a glacier! Somewhere over there! But first, we had to go up. Way up. Love this terrain... always reminds me I'm somewhere so few people get to be.

I have to admit it... we nearly packed it in around here. We'd been hiking on rock and shale for a good 30 minutes, and the payoff didn't seem to be much. But the people passing us and going over that little hill.... yeah, we'd come too far to turn back now.

So we made it! We got to see what remained of the glacier... which has been receding for many years now. In all my excitement, I forgot to actually take a photo of said glacier. But that's ok. It's really worth seeing for yourself. But we do have a photo of our feet. On a glacier.

Nat did take a photo, you just have to ignore the goofy looking hiker in the middle of it...

Awesome hike Nat! Keep them coming!