More Bears means More Beer.

So I imagine you can see how easily our hike was curtailed on Saturday!! We'd headed into Banff and just fancied a wee hike before mosying down into town for a celebration pint (seeing as though it was a year since we tied the knot - woo hoo!!). The Grizzly sow and her two cubs that were gorging themselves on this years ever so bountiful berry crop did not seem to understand our hiking desires, and thus remained sat on the trails, inconsiderately chewing away at the undergrowth. We only discovered this half way down the trail - much to Brina's distress, which was captured so;
So with terrified wife (admitedly Brina doesn't look terrified in the photo, more terrifying), a closed trail and the baking hot sun burning down on our shoulders, there was only one thing for it. Make a sharp u turn (as there was no other turn to make unless we wanted to become Grizzly fodder), and head straight for the nearset beer garden to start the celebrations a little earlier than anticipated.
Although it was still a good trek away, the nearest beer garden was the Waldhous, a wee Bavarian pub sat beneath the Banff Springs Hotel on the Bow River and next to the golf course. With views of Rundle, tunnel and the Goat Range, it made for a bonny place to sit back and toast our year together. However, since we were early, we had to get big pints. A pitcher of Alexander Keiths Pale Ale made us both a little dizzy, but the rest of the day was good fun as we realised that we were actually looking down the valley to the spot where we got married at the Hoodoos.


Well that's about all for now. Sunday will no doubt entail a bike ride of sorts, and then work is trying to take all of our time away again (yep, back in the classroom on Monday). Hopefully all is well with each and everyone one of you. I thought that I'd finish today with the shot of last night's sunset taken from our front deck. That's Devil's Head in the centre (the thumb, or tombstone mt, with BlackRock Mt to the left - in the Ghost Wilderness Area).
S&S.
Take care,
S&S.

Crammin' it all in.

How swiftly the summer passes by. It is mid August and I start work at school next week (a week early for the newbies, to learn the ropes; such as where the coffee machine is and what buttons to press on the photo copier). In our angst at watching the lovely sunny days slip us by, we packed a fair few things into this week. Monday was the Cancer hospital check up, all looking good, although my Oncologist commented I was looking a little skinny - "not a medical issue" I assured her after some very thorough back tapping, ball squeezing, blood taking fun. "It's just that I am biking like a fool at the moment and can't get enough of it". That seemed to satisfy the health concerns she may of had and she tipped her hat bidding me a good day until the next time - in two months (maybe I'll over indulge at the next bbq just to lose the anaemic look).
Then we've had a day in BC hiking up to the Stanley Glacier;

Contrary to popular opinion, as suggested by the photo, I am not attempting to strangle Brina (although some days I don't know!!! only joking chuck), I just had a loss of balance as the camera was clicking away.
Although we were over at this glacier in BC, it is still only about an hour and a half from home, so made the ideal spot for a late start (having the long school summer hols is not condusive to early rising). There are photos of the glacier from the past 20 years which show it was so much further down the valley - this is a great testament to the living proof that we, the great westernised world, are well and truly buggering up our planet for good. "But it's just a naturla cycle" I hear you yell, "there have always been fluctations in the global temps making glaciers advance and retreat".... But not at this rate though, I imagine that within the next 40 years (and that is an optimist's very generous number) that well over 50% of these glaciers in the Canadian Rockies will have disappeared. In Glacier National Park, just on the US, Canadian border, there were over 100 glaciers at the turn of the century (hence the name of the Park), now I believe that there are less than 25!!!! Anyway, away from this doom and gloom, those of you who are keen to get even more depressed about how we are screwing up the planet should have a look at Al Gore's book "An Inconvenient Truth" - you can't fail but to be shocked by it.
At least there's still some ice left up there (glass is half full philosophy - and when it's empty, at least we still have a glass). Earl's in Banff fed us for the evening, courtesy of Brina's students.
Fortunately it was a fine day, as Wednesday had me trapped in the basement tiling, flooring etc... Brina seemed to enjoy the DIY a little more than me (I still need to grow that beard to genuinely become excited about trips to Home Hardware) - Once I got over the sulking about not going out to play the DIY wasn't too painful... as a hike up Cascade Mt in Banff was planned for Thursday.
This stripey mountain rat (not the true naturalist's terminology I admit) was attracted to the scent of my loins as we sat atop Cascade Mt

attempting to eat our well earned peanut butter and jam butties. Just before he was about to have a good suck of my lens here he got a swift clip round his chubby rodent cheeks. Completely undaunted he scurried back, before we disuaded him, and his umpteen brothers and sisters, with the odd rock and wood debris (Brina nealry squished the little feller beneath a boulder about the size of his house).
The rest of the spare time this week has been spent a la velo, and I got the scare of my life cycling down the road out of Cochrane as a Golden Eagle the size of something which could have lifted Gandalf from the tower of Isengard, rose out of the grass on the verge as I peddled by. I thought for a moment that it was a bear with wings, it was a really incredible sight to see, having spooked it from feeding on something (probably an earlier cyclist).
Anyway, hope all is well, and I should end this post with a piccie of th' wife with a vist of the Fairholme Range in the distance (good bear country);

Livestrong, stay healthy and eat yer greens.

S&S.

White caps in August

So the weather went from being like this (hot enough for a pleasant row across Lake St Mary in Glacier NP), to being grimmer than grim. I did have some photos but none warrant posting on the blog - you all know what really crappy weather looks like. There've been huge thunder and lightning storms causing havoc in the evenings, 100kmph winds, and rain.. lots of it. The mountains out front are all topped with snow and we're thinking about getting the winter wardrobe back into action.
The summer holidays are closing in too. I am due to start teaching next week (urrgghh), but I keep reminding myself of the road bike and the season pass which are compensation for classroom work. We've been hanging around the locality of Cochrane the past few days which is a welcome break to dashing all over the show. Brina is well into Yoga which goes on most days down in Cochrane, and I've been out on the bike more times than I care to remember - and am still pondering over road bike purchases - was tempted with a full carbon Norco yesterday - but am still thinking.
Nothing much else to report - apart from Happy birthday Nana!

Be Happy,

S&S.

Slickrock to Cirque du Soleil

Carrying on from the last post... I got to ride Slickrock in Moab. We had raced through Denver, Vail and the Rockies the previous evening to get to the awesome sandstone desert of Utah. The one thing I neglected to consider was the unbearable heat. (I know, I know, it's a bloody desert, but this was something else, and certainly not bike riding temperature). By 10.30am I was way out on the trail and melting. I began to get that weird brain turns to mush, onset of heat stroke stuff and wished that I had set off at 5.30am. I got back rather sweaty, but it was well worth it! The rock just sucks in your tires (a bit like Yorkshire Gritstone when cragging), and your bike ends up being at angles you are only used to on roller coasters at Disneyland. It is without question a place to return to for a good few days of biking.
The trails are actually painted onto the rock, you follow painted white dots on the rock. At first it sounded a bit lame, but when you get there, you realise that there is no way you could navigate the trail well without them.

You can just make out the dots on this photo.

After Moab we headed to Vegas, and it seems surreal that in the morning you can be in this wonder desertland wilderness, and by mid afternoon you can be crusing the strip in Vegas and going to a Cirque du Soleil show in the evening. (The show by the way was incredible - not Slickrock incredible, but incredible none the less).
A couple of days R&R in Vegas (we'd been driving for three days and fancied a break), and we headed off to the Grand Canyon, and then tootled home through Yellowstone. And any trip to Yellowstone isn't complete without a photo of this;


Old Faithful was up to its usual tricks and Yellowstone didn't disappoint. There wasn't much wildlife spotted though - only a mighty buffalo (bison - call it what you like) lumbering up the road to our car .
We tripped home to Cochrane via Glacier National Park in Montana, another super place we've not explored - there's just so much to do and see, we've not even started.
Right now we are back in Cochrane enjoying the rest of the summer. The bbq is sizzling most nights and all is good.

Hope everybody is having a great summer (or winter),

S & S.

Keep on rollin'

I have a little bit of catch up to play here. The previous post rambled on about a long drive to Sault Ste Marie, and I haven't decided where this rambling post will end up but it should cover;
1. Our Time in the Soo.
It was great to be relaxing over in the Soo and a fun time was had by all. Our wedding party was great, there was much eating of fine food and much more drinking of fine beer and wine. The sun shone for us, and fortunately we had a big top like marquee to escape from the heat under. There were pleny of family members there who I hadn't me before, and they didn't seem too disappointed that Brina's married a Brit!
As the evening rolled on, the dancing got faster, music louder and around 2am a pair of hair clippers appeared. I was adamant I wanted a skin head (fortunately Brina intervened and I only got buzzed number 2), Marcel woke up the next morning with AL shaved into the back of his head, and I dread to think what else would have happened, had the Feds not turned up at around 3am to close the hullabulloo down. The Police were invited in to join us for a haircut, but they surprising refused (maybe you aren't allowed to get your head shaved when on duty).

2. Our Road Trip: Having taken out the bike and been on a few nice rides around Ontario, our plan was to drive further East and enter a 100km mountain bike race in Mattawa. However, on second thoughts (and after the race was cancelled due to a storm flattening Mattawa), we shifted our return route to a more South Westerly course and aimed for Moab, Utah. Two days of crusing through Michigan, Iowa, Nebraska and Colorado, we made it to the fine old mining town of Moab (Uranium mining I think). On the way through Iowa we passed Des Moines, the home town of Bill Bryson. It seems somewhat ironic that one of the most popular travel writers of the 20th century comes from a place where nobody in their right mind would think of travelling to. I can see why he wanted to get out and escape to live in the Yorkshire Dales instead.

It is at this stage where I show off photos of the Slickrock trail in Moab - that is if this blogger host thing can download them (I do struggle with technology). It looks like the photos aren't forthcoming in this post, so they will have to go on the next post, where I shall bring everything up to date, from Vegas, the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone and home - must dash now, off to hike up to Stanley Glacier this afternoon.

Have Fun.

On the open road

Nearly 10,000kms rolled around on the Ford since we left out for the Soo a few weeks ago, but the road trip was well worth it! I got through the Prairies without much of a struggle, and, despite popular Canadian opinion, I would certainly cruise through the flatlands of Eastern Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba again. It's pretty incredible driving through the Prairies. As the photo shows, there is a serious amount of MAMBA (miles and miles of bugger all - for the less educated). With all that sky, and no gradients to hold you in, you feel like you are driving off the edge of the world (for days). I see now why people only every say that they are driving through the Prairies - there is nothing to stop for, the land just keeps on pushing you along, until eventually you hit Ontario where the trees, lakes and hills begin again; and you feel like stopping the car to look at something. The drive to the Soo took three days, and keeping motel costs down; my accomodation was more cosy than luxury;

Northern Ontario was well worth the drive. It is somewhat spectacular with desolate beaches hugging Lake Superior, rolling hills, and the bear sat watching traffic that made my day! The only snag is that if you are in a hurry to get anywhere, Northern Ontario is the last place you want to be. With all the twists and turns on the narrow roads and a 90km max limit (yes I do adhere to the limit after getting stung for $248 for speeding prior to leaving), the journey is definietly one that has to be savoured.

There were lots of places like this, with no-one there. Breakfast on the beach was a must in Ontario and a dip in the chilly waters of Superior was also much needed having neglected to wash or change my icebreaker since Cochrane.

Once in the Soo, we all had a great time - although that is coming on the next posting (as I'm playing catch up with all this at the moment - the party and the road trip will be up here next).