Trail to Peak: The Adventurous Path
Hiking, Exploring, Travel & Adventure
A Snowshoeing Birthday Adventure
You know how much I complained about the weather (a truly Canadian thing to do, by the way!) in my last post? Well, there’s an expression in the mountains here: “If you don’t like the weather, just wait 5 minutes.” We experienced the reality of that hyperbole Sunday.
It was Bill’s birthday, and he was craving an adventure: a good ridge walk that we’d never done before would fit the bill, so to speak. Something up in the Spray. Something that felt really backcountry… so no trail with hoards on it. Something spectacular. But not avalanche-y. So we looked through the guide-book to find a snowshoe trek that would push our abilities, and meet the birthday criteria.
We set our sights on Conmonwealth Ridge, a favourite of local backcountry skiers who earn their thrills trudging up steep slopes with skins on their skis for the whoop and holler of a great ride down, zigging through the slalom course of the forest trees, plowing through amazing powder. It was a steep 650m ascent through thick forest with no avalanche danger, so we were set.
Here’s the interesting part: we left at -15C in Canmore; by the time we drove 300m up the pass (Whiteman’s Gap… yup, that’s its unfortunate name, though there IS, admittedly, a steady stream of white men that head up into the Spray to hike, ski, fish, scramble & mountaineer… the gentrified white-man adventurers, of which I am unabashedly one) on the road that accesses the back country, it had warmed UP to -9C; by the time we parked at the roadside point to snowshoe across the marshy flats at the base of the ridge, it had warmed up to -1C! Go figure!
We had lucked out and snagged ourselves an inversion (where the temps are warmer at far higher elevations than they are down low)! Bill figured it was the best birthday surprise, ever. There might be cloud cover up here, but it was WARM!
The route took us up through a beautiful, thick pine & larch forest. The snow fell gently from above, enshrouding the landscape in new white clothes and cloaking it with a sound deadening hush. It was gorgeous. It was strenuous and challenging at times. But the snow was deep, the forest ever so peaceful, and the views, once we got there at the top of the ridge, were powerful. Come along and see….
There were obstacles to get up and over as we made our way up through the forest and onto the ridge line. Snowshoes are a blessing in deep snow, but bushwhacking through the forest over deadfall, they add a certain element of laughable challenge. Let’s just say that it was a good thing I had the camera…. I did a lovely tumble here that involved my snowshoe getting stuck under this log!
Sometimes you get caught, falling off the snowshoe track and go into deep snow! (I fell in there, Bill saw me… and he still got caught! Ha ha!) Even Seamus got caught a few times, and sort of swam his way back up onto the track.
Back at the trailhead, the temp had reached +3C! (And I’d been so whiny in my last post about the cold spell we’d been surviving lately). As we headed back down into town, the temps gradually dropped…. though only to -4C now that the Bow Valley (what the locals call the valley that contains Canmore & Banff) was getting some of the warming from above.
Should you want to find out more about this trail, check out the guide book that we use, called Snowshoeing in the Canadian Rockies, by Andrew Nugara.
And on a sad, parting note, my heart goes out to the families and friends of the two American tourists (from Boston), fatally caught in an avalanche, Tuesday, snowshoeing outside Lake Louise. No matter how prepared you are, no matter how trained in avalanche safety, you do take risks going into the backcountry of our spectacular mountains. Do be careful. Do get trained. Do carry the gear. It may not be enough… but please, just do it.
Click here for more terrific hikes in Kananaskis Country (Canmore Area). And check out more hikes from Canada and our adventures around the world here.
9 Comments on “A Snowshoeing Birthday Adventure”
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Trail to Peak: The Adventurous Path 
What a spectacular adventure for you and for Bill on his birthday. I bet it’ll be one he’ll remember for a long time. He looked like he was having a ball (so did you for that matter!) Wonderful post and photos. 🙂
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Thanks, Miriam. It was a super fun day. We missed having our kids with us, so it was his first birthday without them around (they’re both in university), so that felt weird. But this was a fun distraction.
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Life changes doesn’t it when the kids go off doing their own thing. It would have felt strange no doubt but, like you said, a fun distraction. Always a good thing.
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I’ve always felt that life, and friendships even, come in phases. We’re entering the empty nest stage, and navigating our way through decades of parenting (and even homeschooling!). It’s a strange stage to be at. But overall, I have to say it’s going well so far.
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Glad to hear. We’ve still got our youngest (16yo) son at home but feel like we’re teetering on being empty nesters with our eldest daughter hardly home these days. Yes, it’s definitely a different phase. Enjoy.
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Sheri, thanks so much for including us on this fresh-tracks jaunt through the backcountry. Hope you’ll forgive me for chuckling as you snagged your snowshoe on a tree. For some reason, I have yet to go snowshoeing without force-feeding myself a few mouthfuls of snow at least once. Still fun though, and I can see that you 3 had a great time too.
I really want to meet Seamus now 😉 Seems like many of my favorite pets are “cat-dogs” too. I’m not a cat person, but do you think it’s something they’re learning from us anyway? My wife insists that it’s a subconscious cat craving that I’m too stubborn to acknowledge.
Glad Bill’s birthday turned out so well, and that you got a reprieve from the frigid temps!
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CATS are strange aloof creatures who are in their own world. We had two (rescue litter mates) and they lived to be 22 years old, an exceptionally long time for cats. We got them when I was ready to have kids, and Bill wasn’t. He came to regret that decision!
We’ve had 2 dogs now… one was very dog like, all alpha and I always felt safe on the trails when I was alone with him at my side. He lived for fetch and loved to herd things.
Seamus, well, he’s more like a loyal companion. He’s quiet and curls up like a cat indoors, sleeping curled up in a ball most of the time unless he’s following me from room to room. Like a cat, hell often leave his food untouched for the whole day, eating it when it suits him (and we’ve tried many different kinds). He doesn’t bark. He’s exceptionally timid and usually hides from other people and from anyone with a stick (walking stick, cane, hiking pole, etc.). For the first two years we had him, he’d parallel me in the underbrush if anyone approached us on the trail, and he’d disappear if they had a stick, only to reappear, silently, at my side once they were gone. I think we can guess what his life was like before coming to us.
Outside he has tons of energy but won’t stray more than 30′ away or so. And he couldn’t catch a ball or fetch a stick to save his life. He’s a strange guy. A rescue dog that we’re still figuring out, 6 years in. But I love having him around. And I love his odd behaviours and his very, very subtle forms of communication.
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Seamus is very lucky to have adopted you all. And these traits (particularly the cat-ish ones you’ve described above) remind me so much of a Shiba Inu we had several years ago. She was an amazing member of the family.
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