Kananaskis Country: Prairie Mountain

Calgary is such a great city, I think often us Calgarians really take it for granted. It is clean, beautiful, vibrant, and best of all so close to the mountains. Often when people think of Calgary’s hiking scene, Banff National Park is the first thing that comes to mind. But Kananaskis Country is so awesome, especially if you live in the south end of town. Just half an hour down the 22X and you’re where the Foothills meet the Rockies (to be fair K-Country is close to most of Calgary, I have just explored the Highway 66 portion much more than the Highway 40 part). Even if you aren’t into hiking, there are ATV trails at McLean Creek, numerous day use areas including Elbow Falls, and provincial campgrounds like Little Elbow. Sure, it gets pretty busy on a sunny Saturday, but I really think Calgarians don’t take full advantage of our proximity to such amazing terrain. I know didn’t in the past! Just a few years ago I was a full-fledged MAC girl and would much rather be perfecting my smoky eye than getting sweaty on a mountain. Maybe it’s just a function of growing up?

Exhibit A: View from halfway up Prairie Mountain.

So while living south of Calgary made for a tedious commute into my Beltline office everyday this summer, being in such close vicinity to K-Country made it more bearable. So one Saturday, at about 4pm, we decided to head west and climb a mountain. This was one of my favorite hikes of the summer. Potentially my favorite hike ever. It was cold, it was rainy, it was difficult, it was snowy, but the feeling of standing with your partner, alone, on the top of a mountain is so peaceful. Screw dinner and the movies, the best dates are on mountain summits.

Exhibit B: Jon at the summit of Prairie. My favourite photo of the entire summer, just a candid of him enjoying the view.

The trailhead for Prairie Mountain is a little tough to find. It is just on the north side of the Highway 66 just after the winter closure gates west of the Elbow Falls parking lot. The trailhead is unmarked, so you’ll just see a little path going up the hill. The hike is only 3km to the top, but has a really steep elevation gain. Jon and I were the only people we saw on the hike that day without poles. So if you have any knee problems or don’t trust your balance, bring poles. The summit was snow covered, so some poles might have been nice up there too even if you have no issues. You will start to gain elevation immediately and that will continue for the whole 3km.

Exhibit C: Another view from the top.

Because we seem to have terrible luck, it started raining when we were part way up the mountain, making some of the hike dicey, especially (seeing a theme here?) because we were fairly ill-prepared. You would think as born and raised Calgarian I would realize that the weather can turn on a dime, and sunny at the base of the mountain does not mean sunny at the summit. Oh well, I guess that’s why this is “Athyna’s Adventures”. And I must say, this is one of those hikes where it is harder going down than up because of the steep grade.

Exhibit D: Jon down the trail from me. 

The views from the top are amazing. I feel like there is only so much I can say about this hike except for: short and steep. The rest I’ll leave to the phone pictures!

Kananaskis Country: Prairie Mountain

Distance: 3.5 (ish) km to summit

Difficulty: 8/10

Scenery: 10/10

Great for: Beautiful views of K-Country, the Rockies, and Calgary. If you’re looking to climb a mountain in a few hours (we were home by 8pm despite leaving in the late afternoon), this gives you great bang for your proverbial buck.

Wildlife spotted: A duck-toller. Not wild of course, but a rare dog breed nonetheless.

Banff National Park: Johnston Canyon to Inkpots

Jon and Justin are constantly pushing one another to their limits. So when we came down from Borgeau that day, while I would have been content driving back to Banff to enjoy a latte and cookie (or five), it would have been blasphemous for me to suggest that. It was cold, rainy, and Jon’s legs were bleeding from breaking the ice over the avalanche paths and falling through (Justin and I were spared, too bad Jon is so heavy), but 11k? That’s nothing! So we had to go find another hike.

Which brought us to Johnston Canyon. Tourist destination extraordinaire about 15-20K down the Bow Valley Parkway (Highway 1A), the trail is paved all the way up to the upper falls. It is beautiful, with numerous falls along the path. I can see why this is so popular, as it is a high pay-off for a very short hike (just a few kilometres to the upper falls). There are catwalks and interpretive signs, and the place was FULL of families, tourists, and casual hikers.

Exhibit A: One of the lower falls

The upper falls are very neat, as there is a metal platform you can stand on very close to the falls. There is something so awesome about feeling the mist from cold mountain waterfalls!

Exhibit B: Standing on the platform over the upper falls

Upon getting to the upper falls, we (OK, maybe just the boys…) still wanted to go further. We decided to continue on the 4(ish) kilometres one-way to the Ink Pots. The journey to the Ink Pots had a few hills, and despite being described as a more rough, back-country hike, the trail was gravel and very well maintained. I was pretty tired, as we had hiked almost 15k at that point, but I trudged up the hills behind my companions. To be honest, this is probably a very easy hike. But because I was cold, soggy, and had already climbed most of a mountain that day it felt tough. But it was all worth it once we got to the Ink Pots, because the sun had come out and the pools were beautiful.

Exhibit C: The inkpots

The Ink Pots were gorgeous colors and crystal clear, if I had a towel I would have been so tempted to strip down and jump in (but I bet they are deceptively cold). It is also really neat that the pools are in a little valley in between a bunch of mountains, making the area surprisingly flat. No doubt the area has been a gathering place for a long, long time.

Exhibit D: View from the inkpots

I don’t quite remember why the pools are the amazing colors, but I believe it is something to do with the minerals in the water. I’m so informative, I know.

Exhibit E: The awesome colours of the inkpots!

Banff National Park: Johnston Canyon to Ink Pots

Distance: 11.5km (return)

Difficulty: 5/10

Scenery: 7/10 (might be higher if there were less people at Johnston Canyon)

Great for: Well, Johnston Canyon is great for a touristy, paved walk, with some beautiful views.

The hike to Ink Pots is great for if you want something less busy than Johnston Canyon and would like to break a sweat. The pools are very pretty, but be warned you may be taken over by an overwhelming urge to jump in.

Banff National Park: Borgeau

Sometimes life just takes over. You may not realize just how busy you’ve been until you plop down on your bed and pick up the laptop to do anything but your Family Law readings (OK, maybe this doesn’t happen to everyone). Since my last post, I’ve gone to Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Medicine Hat (X2), and BC. Also, I’ve started 2L (WTF?!) and school has already tightened it’s grip on me. AND I not only moved up to Edmonton again, but I’ve moved again since being in Edmonton to a new apartment.

Which brings me to the present. I should be doing my Family readings for tomorrow morning, but one of my friends that I’d barely seen this summer told me today that she loved my blog. And that got me thinking about how I’m a friggin’ terrible blogger and still haven’t posted about hikes I did in JUNE! And, I am a master procrastinator, perfect combo.

So rewind, all the way back to June. Imagine a crisp morning in the mountains and the snow hasn’t melted yet. In the car I have Jon and Justin, probably my fave hiking partners, and we are on our way to Borgeau for a quick jaunt up the mountain. This is the hike that inspired my blogging, the hike after which I wrote “Why blog? Why now?”. It was the crisp air, the snow in June, the chats with the boys that got me thinking, “this is good enough to share!”.

Exhibit A: Justin trudging along the trail.

The trailhead for Borgeau is a few kilometres past Banff heading West on the TransCanada from Calgary. The parking lot is on the South side of the highway, and pretty well marked. It is a decent grade, nothing too extreme but not a walk in the park either. It is a 7.5km hike one way, with some very very minor scrambles (real hikers, please don’t judge me for calling them scrambles).  The biggest hurdle on this hike was a) when it started to rain, b) making the snow covered avalanche paths hard and icy. This being said, June was so not the best time to do this hike. In hindsight, if you’re a casual hiker like me, wait until the snow melts.

Exhibit B: The snowed out trail. Well, not so much snowed out as avalanched out.

Nonetheless, it was a good hike. We got about 5.5km up the mountain when we realized that it wasn’t going to work with the rain and the snow. We weren’t prepared for the weather, and trudging through icy snow banks lost its allure the higher we got on the mountain. Being that we got well over halfway up, we still got some great views of the area.

Exhibit C: View from Borgeau

Also, being that I went with crazy boys we also stopped for lunch in the rain. There is a cute bridge over a little creek about halfway up so we sat for a snack and admired the view, and our sweet shoes.

Exhibit D: Some serious Vibram love going on here.

Exhibit F: The creek going down the mountain where we stopped for lunch.

Banff National Park: Borgeau

Distance: 7.5km to the top (one-way)

Difficulty: 7/10

Scenery: 8/10

Great for: climbing a mountain without extreme scrambles or extreme elevation gain. It is a little bit of a longer climb, but with a relatively small grade so your bum won’t hurt too much when you’re done.