It's Ski Season - Please Kindly Send Us Some Snow.

It's ski season. With the late arrival of winter and the snow that accompanies it, I've been slow to get out skiing this year. Here in Banff, we're still waiting for the snow to fly. I was excited just to be getting out for the first ski tour of the year and was stoked to wake up and see a perfect bluebird sky out the front window. Yeah!

For our first ski day of the season, we decided to go for a long walk on the skis to Sunshine Meadows. For our first foray into the backcountry, we just wanted to see how much snow is actually out there and what kind of shape the snow is in. Despite appearances of glorious meadows of white snow, the snow has got no depth to it. We are desperately in need of more snow.

Into the Abyss

The early morning cloud left us to reveal a rather magnificent, perfect blue-sky day. It took a few hours to wake up those rusty ski touring muscles - but we ended up touring for about 5 hours with a short lunch break. I forgot that ski touring is hard work! I frequently find myself breathing a lot heavier and working harder than I would on any run. The other thing I noticed is that your body is constantly struggling to find it's centre of balance when you're making your way through deep, untracked snow. My back and core were getting worked. As well as my butt And my legs. Oh yeah and my shoulders. :)

Either way, it was a beautiful day to be working out all of the creaks and we broke a trail all of the way to Howard Douglas Lake. The snowpack is shallow, there's no base and what snow is out there is full of layers, wind-blown and treacherous. What we discovered was that there really isn't enough snow out there for good turns, but there's certainly enough to go on a long, safe tour and enjoy some awesome scenery. Keith and I had a great day in the sun.

The next day I followed it up with a long run, shockingly - a road run. In the winter months, there's always lots of time spent on my feet on the trails, but a whole bunch of it is spent walking up hills and through snow. I'm always running on soft, uneven terrain. I thought it might be prudent to throw in the occasional road run, just to remind my body what it feels like to run consistantly. Here's the verdict: it hurts. Despite my fitness level and amount of time that I spend running on the trails - trail running is not road running. Fortunately, the scenery was awesome and I had myself a great run from Johnson Canyon to Banff.

C-c-cold at Johnson Canyon

Upper Falls

Keith dropped me off at Johnson Canyon and I ran the 6km round-trip up to the Upper Falls as a warm-up. Well, it was supposed to be a "warm-up" but instead I was frozen by the time I was done. Go figure. A trail run up a dark canyon to a beautiful frozen waterfall - cold? Ha! The 25km run in the sunshine warmed me up plenty and with literally no traffic on the Bow Valley Parkway, it was a pleasure cruise. Awesome.

Views from the road - the Bow Valley Parkway, Highway 1A

J.R.A - Just runnin' along....

I had seen this massive bull elk, when Keith and I drove by earlier. Sure enough, he was still sitting in the exact same spot when I came running by a few hours later. I gave him lots of space.

As always, the magnificent and well photographed Mount Rundle welcomed me home. I love this view any time of year, but even more in the winter months. As well, Keith welcomed me home - he ran out on the Vermillion Lakes Road to join me for my last few kilometres. It was an awesome "solar-powered" weekend.

Hey, Girlfriend!

Historically, I've spent a large amount of time in the company of men. In life, in work and in sport - in seems I've been a wee bit of a tomboy my whole life. These years and more recently, these days I seem to be amassing a rather fine collection of cool women who like to Giv'r. Having Nicola in town, was just the right motivation I needed to send off a few e-mails and before I knew it - BAM! There were 7 women who wanted to run on Saturday. Yahoo!

The weekend started early and went non-stop. On Thursday night, Nicola rolled into Banff and the first thing we did is go for a run. Now, I don't know Nicola that well, but in the first hour I determined a few things: she thinks farts are funny and she doesn't have an ounce of self consciousness. Our Mountain Bender started with an evening run around town and a trip up Tunnel Mountain:


It continued, with a ridiculously fun day which featured no less than 2 runs, a bike ride and a canoe trip. We started the day with the tandem ride to the trail head:

I've noticed that my face gets sore from smiling so much when I ride the tandem. Incidently, the tandem finally found a name last year: her name is Jill, named after this girl.

Nicola, in her happy place.

We ran for a couple of hours around Bankhead, taking in my favorite view of Lake Minnewanka and making it back to town just in time for a trip with my co-workers down the Bow River.

After that, we blast out to Johnson Canyon and the Inkpots for another hour and a half of cruisin' the canyon. I had forgotten that this run climbs the entire way! It was work than I was anticipating, in a good way. :)




I was excited for our run on Saturday because it was my first trip out to Emerald Lake of the season AND because I had the company of 6 amazing ladies. I love Yoho and the Emerald Lake area!

It's still early in the season and June is all about going out there and poking around and seeing how much snow is still out there. That's pretty much what we did on Saturday. We ran up to 3 different destinations from the lake: Yoho Pass, Emerald Basin and Hamilton Lake. The plan was to turn around wherever we hit the snow-line.

Starting out on Emerald Lake, the Chick train: Nicki Rehn, Iris Priebe, Monica Hardy, Nicola Gildersleeve, Ellie Greenwood and Angela Pierotti

Nicola cruisin'

Monica - she's strong on the climbs!

Ellie and Iris checking out the avalanche

Emerald Basin

We made it in to Emerald Basin, but Yoho Pass and Hamilton Lake were still snow bound. I can't wait to come back! It was my first time to Emerald Basin and we got to watch an avalanche of wet cement-like snow flow into the basin. At first glance, I thought it was a water fall - it looked like liquid instead of snow. And it just kept flowin'....

Avalanche!

It was incredibly humid and we were all dripping sweat as we climbed up Yoho Pass. It's funny, this place is always like this: green, lush and moist. It's the only place in the whole park that we see cedars growing in the rainshadow of Mount Wapta. The Glacier Lilies were out, exploding from earth and snow any where they could. On the shoreline of the lake, there were lots of other flowers making their first appearance of the year.

Iris - rare mountain flower!

Hello, Emerald Lake. I love you.

To wrap up a great day of running, I had everyone over for BBQ at the house. There's no worries when you invite a house full of women over for dinner, things just take care of themselves. Everyone brought food, pitched in and made me look like a super star. The crowd grew larger, with Brenda, friend Jen Silverthorn and her baby Ellie and friend Miles joining in for the fun.

Girls of Lake Louise:
Ellie Greenwood, Nicola Gildersleeve, Nicki Rehn, Leslie Gerein

For a grand finalee of the Mountain Bender, I thought a visit to one of the Most Beautiful Places on Earth was in order. I was pleased that it looked a whole lot different than it did 2 weeks ago when the lake was still frozen! We started our run in the village of Lake Louise, ran the Tramline up to the lake and then hit the Little Beehive, Lake Agnes, Mirror Lake, the Highline, Plains of Six Glaciers and the shoreline of Lake Louise. Phew.

It was great to get to know Ellie and Nicola a little bit better as well - these ladies are talented and fast, fast, fast. And fun, fun, fun!

(Climbing to Mirror Lake)

(Gong Show - Part 1)

(Gong Show- Part 2)

(Gong Show - Part 3)

(Gong Show - Part 4)

(Lake Agnes)

(Plains of Six Glacier)

(Moraine)

(Avalanche debris)

The outrageous scenery and great company left me feeling giddy and free. It was just what I needed to wrap up my training for Bighorn and leave me feeling relaxed, confident and inspired to just run and enjoy. Does that sound corny? Yup, but it was the perfect day.

(Ellie, feelin' the love)

So that wraps up the weekend mountain bender - thanks to all who participated and got me all fired up for the upcoming season. I'm thinking it was the "unofficial" start to my summer trail running season - I sat in glacier fed Pipestone creek post-run and the weather was warm enough to almost make it enjoyable! :)