Folk Festival Pre-Gaming in Inglewood with Tanya Tagaq

(not sure who to attribute the photo to. obviously it's not mine.)

Chris and I had a big night out last Tuesday in the up-and-coming burg of Inglewood, which is currently experiencing the venerable urban tradition of becoming slightly more up-and-coming than it was before, having gathered for itself a sleek collection of sweet local retail outlets and one or two trendy restaurants. (Read: you should go down and have yourselves a nice walk around! But expect to pay for parking. If you can find any.) Chris and I ate at Without Papers, which is arguably the second-best pizza in town and, for two pizza-deprived northeasterners, a special treat.

Peter Lougheed Park

Another hiking post! Beautiful day last Saturday. We hit Peter Lougheed Park, which has a bunch of snowshoeing trails and cross country ski trails, and probably is lovely car camping in the summer. I enjoyed a day of sunshine and not going up a mountain, and Chris was able to scout ski trails, though they were at the time occupied by a class full of five-year-old cross country skiers. They start them early around here, I guess.

Ink Pots and Johnson Canyon

Last weekend, we managed to smooth-talk a few new friends into joining us in a hike out to the Ink Pots (so named for the deep blue-green color of the tiny pools around the springs in this particular valley). Courtesy of our new snowshoes (thanks Mom and Dad) and a convenient dump of snow the previous day, we had a lovely afternoon. On the way back, we went through Johnson Canyon, where the picturesque falls had turned into an icy cliff, and the boardwalks that are crowded in the summer were icy and deserted.

Nose Hill

So, the snow has started falling and I've been a bit nervous to drive out to Banff without our snow tires, which we really only got a week ago, so the past couple of weekends we've done our exploring closer to home, some of it in Nose Hill Park, which is within walking distance of our apartment.

Headed West (Road trip, day 4)

After the heat died down from our day in the Badlands, we took one last hike, on which was the following ladder (Chris was disappointed I didn't put these up).

 

After a big day, we went back to camp for refreshment (we were so hot, and so sweaty, I will remember this particular glass of pineapple juice for the rest of my life, probably):

Moose Mountain

I'm sorry, did I say we hiked up a mountain in the snow last weekend? I was joking. This weekend, we hiked up a mountain in the snow. For real. All the way up the mountain. In some real honest to god snow. Moose Mountain is also in Kananaskis Country - a closer drive from Calgary - and one of the trails that was not washed out by the recent floods (flood damage has limited our choice of trails a bit thus far).

Badlands

So, I'm going to do the roadtrip all backwards because I can't find the photos from the first two days. They weren't very exciting anyway - we slept outside of Chicago, bought cheese in Wisconsin, and camped in southern Minnesota where it was very pretty but kiiiiinda buggy, and then drove through South Dakota. I had insisted we stop at the Badlands because why not? When are you ever going to be in South Dakota again?