High Tea and Old Baldy

Now, you may be wondering what high tea and Old Baldy have in common.  Actually, not a dadgum thing, but I haven't blogged in a couple of weeks and I needed to combine posts.  (So sue me). :)

Part One:  High Tea
Two weeks ago our Aussie friends, from Houston, Peter Waller and Bronwyn Kahl, were in town.  They invited us to High Tea at the beautiful Palliser Fairmont Hotel in down town Calgary.  The Palliser has a wonderful  High Tea, which Peter and Bronwyn graciously treated us to (thank you, P and B). We had a wonderful afternoon of sipping and nibbling, and that evening we met their friends Murray and Christina, (also recently relocated from Houston to Calgary) for dinner.  We may have found some skiing buddies in Murray and Christina.  They are snow enthusiasts like us.  Funny thing is...we haven't found any Calgarians who are interested in snow shoeing or skiing.  They just kind of look at us like, "Uh huh, sure thing, you must be from Texas if you want to pay good money to freeze your arse off."




Peter, Bronwyn, Christina, Murray,  yours truly, and Sugar Daddy

Part Two: Old Baldy
Our hike this week was to the summit of Mt. Baldy, unofficially named "Old Baldy" by the locals.  There were a few tricky bits, such as the four steep and narrow banks we had to traverse, before getting to the straightforward plod up to the ridge.  The distance from the trail head to the summit is 3.5 miles and the height gain is 2,830 feet.  The height gain kicked our butts.  It took us seven hours to complete including stops for lunch and pictures, but oh so worth it!  I have wanted to do a ridge hike since we arrived in Calgary, and this one was awesome!  As you ascend the ridge, the mountain tops rise up one by one until finally a 360 degree, breathtaking panorama is revealed.  My mouth must have been hanging open in the "OMG" position.  I rotated in a circle with my arms out and my head thrown back, taking in all of the peaks you could see from the ridge.  I must have looked like Julie Andrews in that opening scene of "Sound of Music" (except I wasn't wearing a "Heidi" dress with an apron).  I know, it's called a Dirndl, but I like to call it a "Heidi" dress. :)

I'm going to digress here (big surprise).  On our way up, we stopped to rest under a spruce tree so that we could reread the trail guide, which we had loaded onto Jim's phone.  The trail had kind of petered out and we weren't sure we were still headed the right way.  Anyhoo, Jim laid his phone down, and for some reason walked off and left it there......under that spruce tree..... the only one on the mountain. (Sugar Daddy speaking here....in my own defense, I was a bit excited after seeing my first black bear in the wild. Candy didn't see him....so she's not believing my story!)

At some point on the summit, Jim missed his phone.  Of course, chaos ensued.  A salesman without a phone!  Unheard of!  Preposterous!  We had to retrace our steps immediately!  Well, I wasn't having any of it.  We had worked long and hard to get there, and I was going to enjoy the views for a while.  So after we had hiked across the ridge line, and Jim took all of the fantastic pictures to follow, we headed down the mountain to try and find the lost phone.......under the only spruce tree on the mountain.  Needless to say, we never found it.  :(   Oh, well.  The day was awesome and Jim took some of his best pics yet.  I hope you like them.

Evan Thomas Creek, the climb begins!



Somewhere, in that valley, lies a perfectly good Blackberry!! 



Ridge line summit of Old Baldy looking west across the Kananaskis Range



Baldy summit looking southwest. From left to right, The Fortress, Mt Galatea, & Mt Kidd. Kananaskis Golf Course, lower right. Foreground: Sugar Daddy



What a view from 7,830 feet!

South end of summit ridge looking toward The Wedge and the Opal Range

Mt Allan and the Nakiska Ski Area

The tarn, west base of Mt. McDougall

Candy enjoying the view. Mt. McDougall top left

South end of ridge line, looking east northeast to Mt. McDougall



Crest of Mt Baldy summit, looking northeast

Jim smiling because he didn't die on the way up!

Baldy summit with west ridge line of Mt. McDougall in the background

View to the north from Mt Baldy, avalanche damage on near face

The Fisher Range

Candy at highest point of summit

View of the entire Mt Baldy summit, Kananaskis Range in the background

Glacier pond (tarn) along the col between Mt. McDougall and Peak 356417

Peak 356417

Highland plateau along the Fisher Range

Time to head back down, down, down!

Fowl play! Did this Alberta grouse take Jim's cell phone?

3.5 miles of steep grade and narrow traverses above McDougall creek



Best way to end a great hike......soaking your sore feet in the COLD water!

Edmonton Trip and Banff - C Level Cirque Hike

Here's a quick Synopsis of our first week in August:

• Drove to Edmonton last Wednesday
• While Jim slaved away, I toured the city on Thursday (University of Alberta, Legislature Building, Art Gallery of Alberta, La Ronde)
• Drove back to Calgary late Friday but stopped in Red Deer to play golf at River Bend GC.
• Saturday was errand and laundry day
• Sunday, played golf at a links course called the Canal at Delacour (I know, I know, twice in one week!)
• Monday was Heritage Day, a provincial holiday, so we hiked the C Level Cirque trail outside of Banff

Okay, where to begin?  Our trip to Edmonton was pretty uneventful.  The city is nice, but not as nice as Calgary.  Canadians make the comparison between Edmonton and Calgary like Texans do between Dallas and Houston.  Supposedly, Edmonton, the provincial capital of Alberta, is like Houston, blue collar and industrial.  Edmonton is a major staging point for large scale oil sands projects occurring in northern Alberta, and there are lots of "mod yards" that Jim solicits.  There are also quite a few refineries just like in Houston.  Calgary is supposed to be more like Dallas with corporate and white collar workers.  I like them both just fine.  Don't want to raise anybody's ire on either side!  

The golf this past week was awesome.  Red Deer is a smallish town half way between Calgary and Alberta.  It kind of reminded Jim of Tucumcari!  Imagine that!  :)  The River Bend GC was one of the nicest municipal courses I have ever played (in my humble opinion and long golf life).  The links course we played on Sunday, with our friend John, was just east of Calgary.  It was very different from all of the courses I have played, lots of tall grass and reeds just off the fairway.  You'd better hit that little ball straight, or you ain't gonna find it!  There are no trees on the course either, so it gets hot (for Calgary).   

The first Monday in August is a civic holiday known as Heritage Day in Alberta.  It's known by a variety of names in other provinces, such as British Columbia Day in British Columbia, New Brunswick Day in New Brunswick, and Saskatchewan Day in Saskatchewan.  Sounds like somebody could've used a little help when they were trying to come up with a catchy name.  

We decided that a nice hike was in order for the holiday, but different than our past Kananaskis treks!    Sooo….we packed our peanut butter and jelly sammys, filled the water bottles and headed out to Banff National Park in search of the C-Cirque Trail.  We had no idea what the name of the trail meant but the description sounded interesting.  The uphill climb is steady and steep.  I'd like to tell you it was no big deal, but I can't lie.  It was a tough, relentless slog uphill, and we had to stop to rest... a lot.   The trail climbs past artifacts of the long-defunct Bankhead coal mining operation.  Old mine shafts and buildings along the trail were a part of the “C Level” operation—the highest coal seams worked within the eastern slope of Cascade Mountain.  The trail starts a steep climb right away and doesn’t let up until you are above the tree line, where you find the cirque, about an hour into the hike.  “Cirque” is a French word you're not going find in your English dictionary.  It’s a term used by geologists to describe a semicircular, bowl-shaped depression created by an alpine glacier.  Supposedly you can hear an echo in the amphitheatre created by the cirque, but we were just too darned tired to do any yodeling.  An hour above the cirque is where the magic happens.  Our long slow haul was rewarded with a sweeping view of Lake Minnewanka (pronounced “mini wonka”) and the valley back to Canmore.

After our hike, we made our way over to beautiful Lake Minnewanka and soaked our poor tired dogs in the cool blue glacier water.  What a treat!   

Our friends Peter and Bronwyn, from Houston, will be in town this week, and we plan to join them for “High Tea” at the Fairmont Palliser.  Stay tuned for pictures of Jim’s pinkie.

Down town Edmonton

C-Cirque Trail....STEEP!

Found the "Cirque"

A short rest at the cirque, then onto the top of the tree line....top right!

Worth the long hike.....Lake Minnewanka!

We deserved NEEDED a rest!

Tranquil shores of Lake Minnewanka

View of Mt Rundle from north side of Banff