Hike #5: The Bugaboos

FInally, I ahve seen one of those 'must-sees' of the Columbia Valley! The Bugaboos... what a crazy straight-up climb, but what an amazing place to be. I can see how it's a climbers paradise...

Went with Morgan and Spring. IT was a chilly day, but the perfect hiking temperature. And we timed it ALMOST perfectly for rain... got dumped on about 15 minutes from the truck!

Hike #4: Floe Lake to Numa Falls

This hike was insane. Herman and I did 26 km with over 900 m elevation gain and loss in 8 hours. We rock! THen we made the foolish (or crazy?) choice to walk the 8.3 km back ot the car. That hurt. We hiked up to FLoe lake. The trail is lovely, and it was really intensely burned in 2003 so the landscape is really young and fresh, with loads and loads of fireweed. BEautiful! Then we continued up to Numa Pass, over Numa Pass, adn down the Numa Creek trail. Numa Pass was beautiful - we could see MOunt Assiniboine from up there! and gorgeous alpine meadows.

Hike #3: the Iceline, Little Yoho Valley and Twin Falls

Hike #3 was with my friend Heather, who I've pretty much totally lost touch with since high school, but who I happily bumped into this summer, and joined for a fantastic overnight hike in Yoho National Park with Heather and her boyfriend, John. The hike began and ended at Takkaka Falls, the 2nd highest waterfall in Canada. It climbed up above the treeline to meander beside, I think it was Emerald Glacier, then descended down into Little Yoho Valley, where the Stanley Mitchell ACC hut is located. One of the bridges was out on the other side of the hut, and Heather and I had a little adventure that evening helping a couple of lady hikers cross the river. They were loaded down with gear for four nights, and scrabling across logs was pretty daunting with huge packs on their backs, so we helped them find a way across. We spent the night in the Warden's cabin there, then climbed down a much gentler hike than climbing up the iceline (I think we did it backwards!). The most spectacular parts of the second day were definitely the approach to Twin Falls. I think they are even more impressive than Tak falls, just because the approach is so cool.

Pic1 - Tak Falls from across the valley. 2 - next to the glacier. 3 - descending back down into the trees. 4 - the view from the cabin - what a sight to wake up to! 5 - Twin Falls 6 - Tak falls at the end of the hike

Hike #2: Top of the World Provincial Park

(Herman and Mom at Sparkle Lake)

So Mom and Herman and I went to Fish Lake in Top of the World Provincial Park. It was a really nice hike, nice and gentle, easy sort of walk to the lake, beautiful campground. Easy walk in to camp there, and do lots of hikes based out of there, because there are lots of nice hikes extending from there. We did one of them, walked on to Sparkle Lake, which was truly exquisite. A climb up, more or less straight up an avalanche chute, and we encountered snow on the way, which made things interesting! We had some fun skiing in our shoes, and way too much fun having snowball fights! The lake, as I said, was exquisite, adn the way down was good, except the snow became a bit of a hazard, as some of us (ahem, yours truly not included) fell on our butts numerous times in the snow. All in all it was a laugh, and a joy to spend the day hiking with Mom.

(flowers growing the ice on the hike to Sparkle Lake)

(Mom and I on the hike)

Hike #1: Castle Rock

(Alexis, Natalie, Ray adn Dennis on top of Castle Rock)

So I've decided to talk about the hikes I've done this year, because it's been pretty amazing, and I've done more this year than I've ever done before. SO the first hike, as I already mentioned, was with Natalie and her bf Ray, as well as my dear friend Alexis and my little bro Dennis. We went up Castle Rock, which has one of my favourite views of the valley, but which is a ridiculous straight up climb and a pretty boring one at that, totally through the trees. Anyway, despite almost hyperventilating adn giving up on the way up, and much grumbling from some, we all made it to the top. Alexis, who had been in training to be a forest fire fighter for the summer, left us all totally in her dust, and stopped to wait for us periodically whenever we could no longer hear ourselves shouting "Marco! Polo!" to each other! Anyway, here's a few pics of that hike.

(Me and Alexis on top of Castle Rock)

testing testing 1,2,3

this is my cousin hayley who is coming to live in Invermere soon! She's a Camerican. :-)

I was just testing to see if I could add a photo directly to blogger... this seemed like a good photo to test with. Welcome home to Wilmer Hayley!!!

its funny how friendships form sometimes.
shared experience, shared interests, one wild crazy thing done together.
someone you've known for years suddenly becomes someone new in your eyes.
new perspective, new friend.