As the title says this really was a long day hike, I'd set out to explore Upper Kananaskis Falls as we haven't been there and something new is always interesting. Though the falls were beautiful, the hike to the falls was so easy that I felt I needed to do more and enjoy the day, so I continued on to Three Isle Lake making a 25.2km round trip with 876m of ascent. The main shot below is Three Isle Lake and the gallery has captions but to enjoy the day with me in full you can see a full hike report and all the pics here, as always there will be a permanent link on the hiking Canada page.
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I set out today intending to make a much longer bike ride than I ended up making. I had hoped to ride the 'Elbow Loop' which takes in both the 'big' and 'little elbow' trails for a wonderful 43km (26 miles) circuit through spectacular scenery. The reason I didn't make it was the temperature as I rode the first 15 km, at 30 degrees without a breath of wind it was stifling, so much so that I found myself stopping in shaded areas repeatedly just to cool off a bit. The freezing cold water of the Elbow River did provide cooling too but overall it was just too hot for me, so after 15 km I turned around and returned to the truck. I still got a nice ride of 30 km (18.6 miles) and an ascent of 438 m (1437 feet) which was enough on a day like today. The gallery below shows steps along the way including the new bridge over the Elbow river (at the 5km mark) where previously, paddling was the only course of action.
I made our usual 25km circuit on the bike this afternoon under beautiful blue skies. The strong head wind made the outward journey tough going but the return was as easy going as you would expect. The locals took a great interest in me as I stopped to make a few shots of 'Muskrat Lake' where I stopped for a drink before returning home.
We've had a few nice sunsets since getting home from the UK, storms blowing through always bring with them the potential for spectacular illumination of the clouds from below as the sun dips beneath the horizon. I watched some beautiful sunsets without capturing them lately so tonight I got the camera out and waited. Everything looked promising with some wonderful scattered cloud billowing overhead, unfortunately it fizzled out to nothing as is sometimes the case. I did make a shot of the sun peeking through the gap between the mountains and the clouds before it set, so I'm posting that as it's the only shot I made.
I made the very short journey from home to the Elbow Valley today for an unplanned hike to wherever I ended up. I parked close to the Harold Chapman suspension bridge that makes crossing the cyan blue Elbow River a simple task. After crossing I headed upstream for 4.5km before scaling a minor 488m ridge there. I say minor, but the ascent through tight packed forest without a trail on a punishing gradient still left me knowing I'd done it. I did get a nice view of Nihahi Ridge (an excellent hike which you can find details for here) and enjoyed complete solitude for a little over 4 hours. The main image is of Nihahi Ridge from the small ridge I ascended, the gallery below has captions.
It was almost a year ago when I made a hike along a 'no name' ridge that ran adjacent to North Canyon Creek. It was clear then that there was more to this area and I would need to return for a look around. So, still suffering a bit of jet lag and chronically out of shape I thought I would explore the area today, what better than a nice level creek bed to ease me back into the mountains. As you can see from the image below the low level stuff was left behind for the joys of another beautiful ridge walk in this hidden gem of an area. There's a small selection of shots in the gallery below or you can click here to see the full write up and more images. There's also a link provided to this and over 100 other hikes from the main Canada Hiking page.
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AuthorWe arrived in Calgary, Canada on 29th December 2011 to continue our journey. This blog is intended to keep our family and friends informed whilst we explore Canada.You can use the RSS feed below to stay updated. Categories
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January 2024
The Shaman, West Texas
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