Cesar's Blog

End of the 30kms single track  Epic day deserves a proper write up ! I have been wanting to do this loop for a long time, and after seen Craig Stappler's report of the trail a few weeks ago decided to give it a go. I tried to convince him and few others to tag along, but with negative responses from them, decided to do a solo ride, no compromising a bail out and reducing mechanical break downs... after all less bikes less chances of things going wrong.. I put on fresh new tires on my Orbea Terra, 40C tubeless. I put on new brake pads and made sure everything was good to go.  Woke up at 5:30am on Sunday and after a quick coffee and oatmeal I hit the road. Craig sent me his GPX file to follow the trail, specially the single track connection along Lake Minnewanka which gets very tricky after the most popular section which ends at the cabin at around 16k. After the cabin the trail is less marked, but has some cairns in the places were the trail has been washout to allow connecting...

Looking at Mount Joffre (3,450mts)   Epic touring trip to say the least early in May as the season is almost over.  With temperatures raisin quick we needed an early start. So we met at Upper Lake by 5:00am and with headlamps we started the almost 40k traverse.  Crossing the late was easy, but boring. We soon enough found the trailhead and started our way up towards Hidden Lake. After that, the next waypoint was Aster Lake. Once there and with only 500mts of gain, we crossed the lake and had a great view to our right of Mount Northover, amazing view. To the left would be our objective of the day Mount Joffre (3,450 Mts peak, the highest in Peter Lougheed), but with a glacier to cross and an icy north face to climb we could only had very low expectations.  The climb to the base of Joffre was nice and smooth. Once with Joffre in front of us we targeted the first ice band visible, with the idea of going to the far right and conquer the summit with little boot pack./...

Before Mount Yamnuska closes for the season I decided to take the kids up to the top ! Well, almost to the top.... We went pass the Chimney which is quite a challenge.. Maria came with us and was terrified!  We had a really nice weather for the challenge and without hesitation they were all very keen on going. One thing I have to mention is that, from all the things we do as a family, I think that hiking is one of those things that the kids don't put a fight with.. ever... like, as soon as we start talking about the plans, the mountain we are going, or trail, they all are like ok let's go. I am super happy and proud that they love the nature as much as I do, they love each challenge. This year hiking season hasn't even started and we have already done 7 hikes (Trolls Fall, Suspension Bridge, Taylor Lake, White Buddha, Yamnuska, Drumheller, Fairview Lookout) !! Anyway, Saturday we all slept in, had a nice breakfast as left to Yam at around 10am. We started at 11 with very ni...