Chaff and bran, chaff and bran, porridge after meat. The only quote from Troilus and Cressida (bloody awful play if you ask me) I am able to remember. Real hiking, the kind we did on Saturday, separates the wannabes from the real thing. I am not sure which we are, I am moving toward the mighty title of real hiker, but anyone who listened to my weary laments on the down climb, might conclude differently.

Darren's note: Pictures can be seen here, if you haven't already seen them

I just came home from BC on Wednesday and was jonesing to go hiking. I couldn't not go, resistance was not an option, so I called my goodly friend Aida, informed her we were claiming squatting rights in her house and after packing (and an exhausting rush-hour trip downtown, I met D at MEC to buy a guidebook. We ended up with Where Locals Hike in the Canadian Rockies: the Premier trail in Kananaskis Country by Kathy and Craig Copeland. Leaving Edmonton at 6:15, we arrived in Calgary, at 9ish and ill prepared for our hike.

We left Calgary at 8 am, had to make it down to Canmore (lovely place, I'd like to live there), buy gas, get new socks, and find lunch (my big-sugar daddy got us a six inch sub each. whoopee) We made it to the Nordic Center 3 times before we actually moved ever onward and forward. Darren’s note: I was responsible for our poor preparedness, having not read over the directions to get to the hike.

I had picked Sparrowhawk Tarns as our day hike, a 5-6 hour hike with a nice elevation gain (2230 feet all told) and what I assumed would be shade. The trail starts out steep, but nice, climbing up a foresty region, complemented by speckled light filtering through the trees. When we entered the sub-alpine region, we were still following sporadic cairns and a passable trail. Then it all ended. We came onto the edge of the cirque. There was supposed to be a boulder on a nub that was our landscape marker, but since we never did find that damn boulder, we decide to climb up the scramble and talus, right through the middle of the two walls of cliffs. At noon. In the sun. Beating relentlessly on my head. Argh. Cool thing was that as we mounted ridge after ridge, each one promising to take us to the top and foiling our plans with the next, we found fossils. They are little; bits of a fin, slices of shells, inches of plant life, but they are ours damn it, and we wouldn't have found them if we actually kept top the trail.

We finally got to the top and saw the tarn, a green glacial pound with icebergs lazily floating in it. Collapse. Much happiness ensuing. We couldn't really go further, we were snowed out of more exploration. But we had made it. Or so we thought.

It wasn't until later that we realized that might have been a reservoir that we were supposed to use as a landmark. Alas.

The descent home was a little more precarious. We took a different descent and ran into some ptarmigans (pronounced with the P please), and I fell down some rocks and like a six year old, D stopped and turned over ever-10th rock, looking for more fossils. Darren’s note: it was then that I found my bestest fossils – the plants. We managed to find our way back into the woods at the exact place we left them (go our team) and start stumbling back down. (Here is where I get wimpy and want to sit for a ruddy five mins and let my blisters breathe and Darren wont let me). We took 5 liters of water and drank them all by the time we go to the car, saving only a little for our trip back to Canmore.

Our feet hurt. But we were happy and winnowed down to the essence. It was nice.

So we get back to Calgary where goodly Aida is making us dinner and introduces us to the new kitten, Cloe. Cutest kitten ever. Nice evening, good talk and wine, we, weary from the hike, decide it would be fun to let Cloe sleep with us. Big mistake. I fell asleep with her laying curled up in a ball over my heart. D tells me she slept for 10 mins, then spent the night playing with his beard and dancing on his head.

Next morning

We decided to take a nice relaxing hike; an easy one, Ptarmigan Cirque, so we ate, played with cat, and somehow managed to get all-hike-and-no-sleep-make-Darren-a-grumpy-bastard-Darren into the car, off to highway 40, which is paved! A real treat considering that highway 742, the one used to get to Sparrowhawk, was not. So tra-la, off we go, young and in love, to take an easy hike, and bam! The highway is closed. Quick thinking, D goes into Kananaskis Park and we find the info center and the nice lady there sends us out on an easy hike. Now, despite the whining, I have my pride, and it was hurt by the old people and babies we saw taking our hike :). After scrambling up talus the previous day, the informational placards at the "hard" part of the hike, the Mount Everest Expedition Trail (40 mins around 400 feet elevation) was a bit hard on the ego. So we extended it a 1/6 or an 1/8th around the other side of the upper lake trail to a waterfall I'd seen.

Back tracking, D starts whining about his: knees, ankles, shoulders, back etc, as I Alpha hiker (hoping that you've forgotten my whimpiness of the past day by now), forged on. The trail was lovely, and woodsy, which I like, nice view, I am told, if it isn't cloudy, and so on. We got back to the car, I fell asleep and after gassing up in Calgary, and Mc Nugget-ing up in Red Deer, we came home to two angry cats, who shunned us and ran outside to eat grass and ignore us when we called them in.

First weekend out. It was goodness. Hoping to hike ever second weekend all season long until we reach the penultimate hikes: Mount Allen and Mist Ridge. Darren’s note: Hopefully, upon which you will not find my weary body. :)

Good day and good hiking

K

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