September was epic! Our Albert BC Adventures through the mountains started mid-September and ended right before the end of the month.
Here is a recap of the hikes we planned, attempted and accomplished!
Day 1: Grotto Canyon Trail & Grassi Lakes Trail
Grotto was a quick and easy 3.6km round trip that took us around 50 mins to hike, including a picnic near the waterfall (which was barely there due to the dry summer).
Wore: Solomon SpeedCross
Grassi Lakes was a fun 3.7km round trip. We took the “easy” way up and the “more difficult” way down for a total hiking trip of around 45 mins with lots of stops for photos. These two hikes were a perfect way to get our bodies moving before tackling a mountain summit. If we hadn’t taken the “more difficult” way down we would’ve missed the waterfall!
Day 2: We attempted Lady Mac on our second day. Needless to say, we only reached the false summit but it was still an epic hike. We were on our feet for a total of 5.5 hours but I didn’t take a look at the kms on my app. I used AllTrails to plan out our hikes this year!
We met a woman on the trail who had a golden retriever which Mike immediately went to cuddle. We hiked and chatted with her the rest of the way. Once we got to the false summit, hung around a bit for a snack I wanted to attempt the scramble (it would be my first). She said she’d keep climbing with us. While she was sure of foot, she was only wearing runners and when we got to the scramble she got a little freaked out and voiced her freak out, this in turn didn’t help with my fear. Mike did not want to deal with 2 scared women on the mountain so he made the decision to turn back. I’m still a little bummed we didn’t summit but that just gives me a reason to go back!
Wore: Scarpa Hiking Boots
Day 3: It rained so we spent the day in Calgary at the Science Centre and indoor climbing. This also allowed us to recover a bit from the day before which was a bit of a sludge on our bodies. I kept using the term sludge to describe a hard long hike and Mike kept making fun of me. It’s not a great word choice but it’ll do.
Day 4: We packed up our things and headed out to Canmore for lunch with one of my high school friends who lives out in Banff, then headed out on the epic hike with Annicia, her boyfriend Patryck & Burt the Pitbull! That hike has already been documented on the blog complete with a proposal from Mike but here are some shots I took before and after 🙂 It was awesome to do a sunset hike and pretty easy to descend in the dark with headlamps but just a tad scary, thinking of what animals could’ve been out there.
Wore: Scarpa Hiking Boots
Day 5 (6 & 7): We headed out to the Yamnuska Wolfdog Sanctuary before spending the weekend at Camp Chief Hector for Camp Yoga AB. Mike has been following the Sanctuary on Facebook for a while now so we were really excited to do the Interactive Tour. For this tour you get taken into 2 pens, one with dogs with high content (more wolf) and one with dogs with low content (less wolf). I was surprised to learn that the high content wolfdogs are very fearful of humans. In the photo below you can see they barely come close to us. With a few treats they came a little closer but due to nature they are fearful of humans (their biggest predator).
The low content pen was really fun. These guys act like big dogs! With a few treats, and even a few commands, they were willingly handing us paws. All 3 dogs in this pen came right up to me for some love including the female who is usually a bit more aloof than the guys.
Just look at that face!
This was our second year at Camp Yoga AB. Being back on the camp grounds was lovely and amazing! This time I was manning my doTERRA vendor booth, teaching workshops and chatting oils so I didn’t get to partake in any yoga classes but it was so amazing to see old friends, make new friends and to honestly take a rest before more mountains were attempted 🙂
Day 8: We attempted to do Tent Ridge right after Camp Yoga ended on Sunday but didn’t account for the 1.5-hour drive down into the provincial park. After starting out on the trail and realizing how late in the day it was we simply didn’t want to hustle so we ran down the 2.5 km we had hiked up so far and decided to start again on Monday. Tent Ridge was amazing. It was a really cool horseshoe loop which we started on the left trailhead. It was my first ridge walk and while at times I was a bit fearful just from doing something for the first time it was super cool and the views were spectacular.
Wore: Solomon Speedcross
Day 9 & 10: 11 years ago Mike spent some time up at Bow Hut so we re-enacted the trip and booked a reservation at the hut for one night. We parked at Num-ti-jah Lodge, carried our big packs with us (containing: sleeping bags, 1 set of dry clothes, dinner, breakfast & maybe some wine!) The hut is simply glamping on the top of a mountain. There are 2 rooms (one for cooking & hanging out) and one for sleeping. Both can be heated with a woodstove. The sleeping room is basically 2 massive bunk beds. The mattresses were super comfy and it was great to pass out the first night. There were a group of cadets up at the hut and then we were joined by 2 couples and another gent who were great to chat with and play cards with into the evening! The next day the weather wasn’t the greatest (we’re talking snow) so we headed back down to drive into Golden for our last AirBnB stay. We really wanted to do the Onion hike from the hut but it was white out conditions so we wouldn’t have been able to see anything.
Wore: Scarpa Hiking Boots
Day 11: After a great relaxing night at our AirBnB in Golden we opted to finish up our mountain portion of the trip with an easy hike to Wapta Falls. This hike is relatively flat and easy to do with families. There are tons of different views of the Falls which make it even more cooler.
Wore: Solomon SpeedCross
Day 12: It was a perfect trip out in the Rockies! We finished up day 12 by a really exciting 8 hour travel day driving all the way down into BC, dropping our rental car off in Vancouver and high tailing it to the Ferry to get to Victoria. I was really excited to introduce Mike to my best friend Kyla and spend 3 days in Tofino!
Day 13 – 15:
The theme of our beach walks was Kyla and Mike handstanding and Corey (Kyla’s man) and I attempting to keep up.
We just don’t have the skills 🙂
It was an amazing trip! A long time away from home and the puppies, but necessary for us to get away from some stresses. I feel at home in the mountains. Definitely a west coast girl at heart 🙂
