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Jumping Pound Mountain

Connie, Dougie No Comments

It’s a sunny weekend in Calgary, so you know we are off hiking. This weekend, we decided to tackle Jumping Pound Mountain. When we first started hiking around Calgary, we laughed at the idea of climbing a mountain. That was for people much more athletic. There were three mountains at the time that were brought to our attention that we said we would never climb. Prairie Mountain was the first, which we climbed on Father’s Day. Jumping Pound Mountain was the second.

It was a cold day for climbing. Fall is definitely here! We didn’t take a lot of pictures on the way up. It was mostly trees and forest so there wasn’t much to take a picture of. When we got to the top, it was SO windy! Dougie was cold and not in the mood for pictures so we just took a quick one to remember the summit and then moved on.

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Scott and Dougie headed down from the summit

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Dougie was pretty ready to head home at this point but we had planned to walk out along the ridge for a while. Fortunately, we saw a helicopter parked on the ridge. Dougie was so excited to see Harold the helicopter. We watched it for a while before it took off. That improved Dougie’s mood enough that we could continue.

Helicopter in front of Tiara Mountain
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Fortunately, this mountain wasn’t too high and the ridge went right along the treeline so we decided to go back down so we could get out of the wind and have our lunch.

Dougie is happy again eating his “ham crackers”
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Daddy and Connie post lunch
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Only one more mountain to do on our “mountains we’ll never climb list.” Hopefully, we can hit Moose Mountain next summer.

Little Beehive

Dougie No Comments

Another weekend, another hike! You can tell that we’re trying to get as much outdoor time in as possible before the cold weather really sets in. This weekend, we decided on a rather long hike that went up Mt. St. Piran, one of the mountains that surrounded Lake Louise. By all accounts, it’s an exceptional time so we were very excited to go. Unfortunately, as is often the case, having the kids with us really slowed us down, so we had to change our plans.

Mt. St. Piran is the second peak from the right. It is almost a 10 hour walk there and back though so when it took almost 3 hours to do what should have only taken 1, we decided to climb Little Beehive instead (right most peak).

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We decided to stop by the Lake Agnes Teahouse to eat our lunch. We had packed sandwiches so we just ate those by the lake rather than going in for tea. The lake was spectacular. We had passed mirror lake earlier which was a bit disappointing but this one made up for it.

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From the teahouse we continued on up to the top of Little Beehive. The view from the top was fantastic.

Scott and Dougie looking down on Chateau Lake Louise.

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Making the last bit of the climb

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Coming back down

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Back at the lake

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We’re still hoping to make it up to the top of Mt. St. Piran, maybe next year – without the kids.

Stanley Glacier

Connie, Dougie No Comments

A while ago, we went to my sister’s cottage in BC. One the way there, we passed a sign for Stanley Glacier. We’ve been wanting to go there since. I admit, I’ve become quite enthralled with glaciers since moving to Calgary. So today, we decided to drive back out there to go for a hike.

What was most interesting about this hike is the lower part of the mountain has been badly burned by two major forest fires and is still recovering. Though it means there aren’t as many nice trees, it substantially improves the view of the surrounding mountains.

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This is near the end of the official trail. You can walk up the scree from here but we didn’t think the kids could handle that.

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Dougie doing a bit of posing

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Mummy and the kids

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Connie did some posing too

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No no, don’t look at me, look at the camera

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Truly a beautiful hike! This was my favourite one we did all year.

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Wilcox Pass

Connie, Dougie No Comments

One of the best things about living in Calgary is how close we are to the mountains. So, when we’re trying to find a hike for the weekend – there are lots of beautiful places to go. Wilcox Pass has to be one of the most picturesque though. We had read about this hike for a while and had wanted to try it. So, after a busy August, we packed up our crew and headed up there.

We took the Bow Valley Parkway again because it increases our chance of seeing some wildlife on the way. We weren’t on the road 5 minutes before we saw several elk.

This guy was right beside the road (no idea what is on his head)
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We were glad to see that there weren’t too many cars in the parking lot when we got to the trail. One of the main complaints we had heard about this trail was that it can be very crowded. We got the gang out of the car and started up. The first part of the walk was nondescript just going through the woods but after about 30 minutes, we could start to see the glacier.

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Unfortunately, one of the downsides of hiking near a glacier is that it is COLD. We didn’t expect it to be as cold as it was because it was pretty warm in Calgary but the wind coming off the icefield and glacier. We had dressed as warmly as we thought was necessary but we could have done better. Dougie decided he wanted to go in the backpack for a lot of the walk which meant he wasn’t as active as we had planned and so he was a lot colder than any of us wanted.

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Regardless, we did make it to the pass. It was a fantastic hike and we will definitely try it again in the middle of the summer when it’s more likely to be a bit warmer.

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Troll Falls Hike

Connie, Dougie No Comments

My parents came out for a visit. We were very excited to show them the Alberta that we are starting to love so we took them out to Kananaskis for a small hike. Troll Falls is a lovely short hike without too much elevation gain so we figured it would be good for everyone. The scenery is quite nice too so it made for a nice day.

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You don’t stay on this path for long before you head off into the woods and on a bit rougher path. That mountain ahead is a ski hill called Nakiska.

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Dougie walked quite a bit of this himself. We’ve learned that if we give him a stick to hold, he’s happy to walk on his own for quite a while. It didn’t take too long for us to make it to the falls. There was another family there having a picnic so we got them to take our picture.

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Mom and I hiked a bit up the falls so I could show her why it was called Troll Falls.

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Look, a troll!

We headed back to the car and went into Canmore for lunch. Then, since we were so close, we decided to take my parents up to see some nice mountain views. This location also happens to be the site of our Mountain nemesis, Ha Ling Peak (more on that another time). There is a spectacular lake at the bottom of the mountain where we stopped for a few pictures.

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Daddy and Dougie stopped to skip a few stones.

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It was a great day in one of our favourite parts of Alberta.