Family Adventures in the Canadian Rockies: 2011

2011 was an adventurous year for our family filled with cross country skiing, hiking, scrambling, mountaineering, camping, backpacking and traveling. We made many new friends throughout the year and tried to spend lots of time on the trails with existing friends as well. September was a big month where I not only formed my Calgary Family Adventure Community on Face Book but created this blog. I hope you'll enjoy looking back on 2011 with me.

January
The year started off with a bang when I got the opportunity to ski into Skoki Lodge with my husband for a night. I love Skoki and I really didn't know if I'd ever get to visit the lodge again, having had my right hip replaced in 2009 due to a complication when my son was born. It is on my top five list of favorite places in Banff National Park and in winter is accessible only by a fairly difficult ski tour. I'm pretty sure that ski touring isn't on my list of approved activities I am allowed to pursue with my new hip but the smile on my face in this photo below says, I really don't care.


Skiing to Skoki Lodge, Banff National Park

February

My cross-country ski goal for the winter was to get out 20 times. It was a very ambitious goal, this being my first year back on skis since before my son was born. Fortunately for us, it was an above average snow year and Noah loved to ride in his Chariot while we skied. He often fell asleep for hours. We were also blessed to have Grandma handy to babysit on days where we wanted to do ski trips of a more difficult nature.


Skogan Pass, Kananaskis


Noah sleeping in his Chariot

March
In many places, March welcomes in Spring but that wasn't the case this year in the Rockies. We were still out every weekend skiing and we did some of our more challenging ski tours this month. We skied into Lake O'Hara for a day, I did the Goat Creek traverse from Canmore to Banff and we tried to pull Noah into Chester Lake in Kananaskis. Skiing into Chester Lake was perhaps a little too difficult this year with the amount of snow the area received. We met another family on the trail pulling children in pulks but it didn't seem to make a difference whether you had a pulk or a Chariot. They were both tipping over in the deep snow. I never got a photo of the Chariot on its side because I was too busy trying to get it turned over again. We also never got a photo of us at the actual lake because we couldn't get that far. I did push on another 20 min. to reach the viewpoint in the second photo below.

Pulling the Chariot up to Chester Lake, Kananaskis

Chester Lake, Kananaskis

April
I finished my 20th ski at the Canmore Nordic Centre in April and I felt very triumphant! Spring was also slowly making its way to the Rockies and we transitioned to snowshoeing. We did a few enjoyable winter hikes and snowshoe trips as a family and basked in the warm sun on our faces.


Ski day number 20 at the Canmore Nordic Centre

Noah sleeps anywhere!

Snowshoeing in Peter Lougheed Provincial Park, Kananaskis

May

We took our annual trip to Jasper on the May long weekend and though many of the trails were still under snow, we did find a few places to explore. We took a day trip from Jasper up North to visit family and then drove back to Calgary via Banff. We stopped in Banff several times both on the way up and back to do some new toddler hikes. We discovered several new trails this year that we had always overlooked in the past but that are perfect for little kids learning to hike.

Noah and I hiking in Jasper at the Old Fort Point

First hike on the Fenland Trail, Banff

June
The highlight in June was our multi-family camping trip we took to Cypress Hills, Saskatchewan. We camped with four other families and there were six children for Noah to play with; all similar in age. The kids had fun chasing each other around the campsite, picking flowers, swimming in a very cold pool, playing with a friendly Chocolate Lab. named Java, and hiking through the hills.

Noah and Makenna chasing each other

Playing in the flower meadows

Family Hike

July
I could write a whole story on July itself. I set a lot of crazy goals for the month:

One Chariot or toddler hike per week
Complete my first mountaineering trip since 2007 (definitely not on my approved list of things to do with the new hip)
A couple scrambles or difficult hikes
A back-packing trip
At least one car camping trip
Stay in a back-country hut
Do a girl's trip
Hike lots with Noah
Two-three zumba classes per week (I'm not supposed to jump, do fast direction changes, do high impact activity, do modern dance or the twist. Therefore I thought Zumba would be a suitable activity to take up this year)
Lots of summer fun in the city (wading pools, parks, city hikes, playgrounds...)

We hit these goals out of the ball park! It was an epic month!

Noah sound asleep on top of Mt. Piran, Lake Louise

Toddler hike on the Fullerton Loop, Bragg Creek

Toddler hike in Bow Valley Provincial Park

Noah hiked close to 4km through Heart Creek - his favorite trail ever!

Scrambling Nihahi Ridge

My new friend Patricia and I climbing Mt. Thompson on the Wapta Icefield

Mark and I on the summit ridge of North Rhondda, Wapta Icefield

August
We started out the month by backpacking into Laughing Falls in Yoho National Park with two other families. It was a highlight of my summer because I've always wanted to be "that" group on the trail with three Chariots and a gaggle of toddlers all over the place. Nobody fell in the river beside the campsite and we completed a huge day hike from the campsite so it was a successful trip.

The following weekend we left for a two week vacation South of the border through Idaho into Washington. We camped in Mount Rainier National Park, did lots of hiking, and made our way to Seattle. After a couple nights in Seattle we headed to Olympic National Park to look for vampires, explore beaches and do more camping. We came home through the Okanagan and decided we really need to move someplace warmer. We loved the beaches and playing in the sand for hours.

On our way into our campsite at Laughing Falls

Our family beside the river at our campground

Noah and I beside one of the many waterfalls in Yoho National Park

Hiking in Paradise, Mount Rainier National Park

Viewpoint of Mt. Rainier

Rest stop and last moment of easy hiking. We got horribly lost after this in all the snow and our hike turned into a back-country adventure to reach our vehicle again. (it wasn't summer yet in Rainier)

Hiking in Sunrise, Mt. Rainier before the mountaineering began (again, too much winter snow still lingering)

La Push Beach, Olympic Peninsula


Noah at La Push

Kalaloch Beach, Olympic Peninsula - Noah loved the Star fish!

Hiking across Kalaloch Beach

Noah loved Kalaloch!

Water-logged in the Okanagan, British Columbia

One of the many awesome beaches in the Okanagan

This little truck was the best toy we could have brought on our vacation

September
The highlight of September was our fall weekend at Lake O'Hara in Yoho National Park. We stayed at the Elizabeth Parker Hut with our friends, the Duncans. The larch trees were spectacular and it was an awesome back-country destination for a family trip. To read the full story, go to the September, 2011 file on my blog.

Lake O'Hara in September

Hiking in the Opabin Basin at Lake O'Hara

Noah in the Opabin Basin

Daddy and Noah hiking through the golden larch trees

Sometimes it's warm at the end of September in the Rockies but it was cool this weekend

Hiking in Larch Valley, Lake Louise on our way home from Lake O'Hara

October
Summer was officially over by October and we started our shoulder-season hiking season. Our favorite hikes this month were to Sunshine Meadows and Sundance Canyon, both in Banff National Park. Detailed stories were written on my Blog already in the months of October and November about our shoulder season hikes and how we truly fell in love with Banff this year.

Noah at Sunshine Meadows, Banff

Hiking in Sundance Canyon, Banff

Noah on one of the many bridges of Sundance Canyon

November
Our shoulder season adventures continued with a lot of fabulous adventures in Banff. We truly rocked the "relaxed start" by leaving around noon for many of our day trips. We put on skates, skis and snowshoes for the first time this winter as we skated around Johnston Lake in Banff, skied the Moraine Lake road at Lake Louise and did a snow shoe trip at Highwood Pass in Kananaskis. It was a multi-sport month and we loved every moment of it!

Skating on Johnston Lake, Banff

On top of Tunnel Mountain, Banff

Skiing the Moraine Lake Road with our new ski pulk

Snowshoeing at Highwood Pass, Kananaskis

December
This month was all about Christmas; lights, horse drawn wagon rides, visits with Santa, parties and celebrating Advent. We still managed to fit in some outdoor fun too of course. We went cross country skiing a number of times and just finished our sixth ski trip of the season. That is definitely a record for the end of December. We also worked hard to turn our child into a Polar Bear Cub. We went sledding, skating, and played in the snow with great diligence to show Noah that winter is fun, fun, fun!