Cesar's Blog

  After 5 years without racing a 24 hours mountain bike event I decided to go back to Canmore Nordic Center and do it one more time !! This time, as the kids are older they made a big difference in the pits, lots of help, extra hands and motivation to go hard to not disappoint them :--) Canadian Rockies 24 is an event organized by Cory Wallace (5 times world champ in 24 hours), it was a small crowd but fairly competitive, with 56 solo riders and 34 teams. We pulled the trailer and camp at the CNC  Friday afternoon , took the kids for a pre-ride of the upper loop and they really enjoyed that. Spent the night hearing bear bangers and rangers going out all night as there were a few bears on the trails and the campsite.   Woke up  at around 9am , and after dropping off everything on the tent (food, water, clothing, etc) went back to the trailer and had a nice breakfast to start the day!   The race stated right  at 12:00pm on Saturday  and you will need to ...

  Our annual backpacking trip of 2024. Every year Nic and I go on a backpacking trip, searching for adventures and creating memories. This year we wanted to go Northover Ridge, however snow conditions this year didn’t let us go through the pass, so we went up and down to Aster Lake the same way. We started   at noon , and the first 5kms are flat around the Upper Lake in Kananaskis. After that we sat by the lake and have lunch. We started climbing and the following 6+ kms are steep and with lots of loose gravel and water falls crossing though snow. The crux was a bit of scramble mixed with rock climbing, but to some extend it was doable even with large packs on our backs.. After that the trail goes down and up to Aster Lake (our final destination). We have to reserve months in advance since this is a popular destination and only has 6 tent pads.. We made it to the Lake in 4 ½ hours with only one stop. After setting up our tent we had supper, rested a bit longer and went out for...