#bow valley

[sitting-on-me-bum]

A black wolf in Bow Valley, Banff National Park, Canada

© Vince O'Sullivan / Flickr

[rabbitcruiser]

Gap Lake, AB (No. 1)

Mount McGillivray is a 2,451-metre (8,041-foot) mountain summit located in the Bow Valley of Kananaskis Country in the Canadian Rockies of Alberta, Canada. Its nearest higher peak is Skogan Peak, 3.0 km (1.9 mi) to the southeast. Mount McGillivray is a landmark that can be seen from Highway 1, the Trans-Canada Highway in the Exshaw area.

Mount McGillivray is composed of sedimentary rock laid down during the Precambrian to Jurassic periods. Formed in shallow seas, this sedimentary rock was pushed east and over the top of younger rock during the Laramide orogeny.

Source: Wikipedia

[cedarboughs]

Hiking Journal

November 11 — Raven’s End

Yamnuska — Îyâmnathka, “flat-faced mountain” in Nakoda — has got to be one of the most iconic mountains in the Rockies. It’s known as a sacred mountain which watches over a rich medicine foraging plain. Heading into the Bow Valley it’s basically the first rock of the Rockies, watching over the wide valley through which the river, railway, new highway, and old road wind in parallel.

It was grey and overcast in that November way on this Remembrance Day, but pleasantly warm for the season, rising to a high of 11° if I remember. The plan had been at some point to do a hike with work friends but they called it in so I drove out on my own, listening to The Apache Relay and a podcast about Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha as I left the city and rolled over the foothills (I’d just finished reading it, was pretty good.) Speaking of books, that’s why Raven’s End, the eastern buttress of Yamnuska’s great cliff, lives rent-free in my head.

See, Ben Gadd is a legend. Most of the times in the last thirty years that anyone has looked up an animal, plant, mushroom, or geological formation in the Rockies, it’s probably been in Gadd’s practically biblical Handbook of the Canadian Rockies. In his full page entry on corvus corax he makes it pretty clear what his favourite clever local bird species is. If there was any further question, he also wrote Raven’s End, sort of the Albertan answer to Watership Down. I don’t know if the novel is named after the buttress or if the book named the buttress. The book was published in 2001, and I haven’t figured out if the name was used to refer to the spot on the mountain before then or if Gadd named it.

Anyway, I read this book a half-dozen times growing up. In the story, a raven wakes up with from a fall into a bush at the base of Yamnuska’s cliff with no memory aside from his name, Colin. He falls in with Zack and Molly and all the other ravens of the Raven’s End flock. He speaks with the animals of the valley, wonders about the strange two-legged visitors, and hears the voice of the wind, leading to an adventure rooted equally in spirituality and magic and in the ecology of the mountains. I can’t spoil what he does discover about his history. Go pick up a copy and find out.

Most of the trail up to Raven’s End is pretty gradual and easy. Being a public holiday, it was super busy as well. Families with a half-dozen young children, couples with two or three dogs. I had bear spray and layers and food, as if I was ready for a proper backcountry walk, but it was more bustling than most downtown streets. Little grew in the late autumn, but plenty of red wild rose hips stood out at the tips of thorny shrubs. I did chew one. Don’t tell Parks. A couple sat on the bluffs overlooking the wide reserve land in the rolling hills below and eastward, performing a ceremony with a tobacco pipe and shakers. I heard their singing washing over the woods before I actually saw them as I walked past and shared a nod.

Treeless montane aspen gave way to subalpine firs. The ground changed from dissolving brown leaves to red needle duff. A little bit of snow stuck to the ground at the elevation of Raven’s End itself, very thin and packed down, no obstacle of any sort, just a reminder that winter was near. Arguably here, but I don’t feel like arguing. More importantly: I did, in fact, see the ravens!

The start of the cliff is the usual and my planned turnaround point, but as i ate my human sandwich sitting on a rock, a group of church ladies chatting with me said that it was as worth at least going through the first slim crack of the scrambly section for the view beyond. I love climbing through cracks and dramatic rocks like this, so they were totally right.

Beyond the chimney you can look down to CMC Valley (I don’t know what this stands for, but it’s the valley behind Yamnuska; I may do that loop sometime) and, right to left, the twin peaks of Mount Wendell and the more westerly Morrowmount. Yes I switched the usual reading direction to end with MORROWMOUNT, because it sounds like something out of a fantasy novel.

Looking up at the backside of Yamnuska it look easy enough to scramble the route, it’s popular to scramble, and I do really want to do that, but not in the snow, not alone, not with a warm but forceful Chinook wind blasting from the west, and not with the last interpretive sign mentioning risk of death three times on the one sign. I turned around and descended, plunge-running past the kids and dogs back to the car and home.

Colin the Raven – Ben Gadd

Raven’s End Audio Book – Ben Gadd

[gentlemanpixelator]

Bow Valley. Canadian Rockies. The Canadian.

[fitnessgeekandcoffeefreak]

8.14.2023.

Grotto Canyon Trail:

6 miles and 1,000ft elevation gain

The views of Ha Ling were amazing, but today's hike is my favorite so far! The beginning was underwhelming, but All-Trails mentioned that. Once we got to the canyon it was AMAZING! I love rock hopping so much. You weave back and forth across the stream all the way up the canyon for the entire 2nd half of the hike. The waterfall was gorgeous, and the cairn garden is pretty cool too. There were a few groups of climbers that we were able to watch, as well. It's much warmer here today, so the shade in the canyon was nice!

[disengaged]

Fort Chiniki Gas Station - Morley, Alberta

April 12, 2021

[just-wanna-travel]

Norquay Lookout, Canada

[dariomarcollection]

Mount Lougheed Wind Tower edit por John Andersen Por Flickr: a sunset on the way home