Touristy bike ride

We've been having a very wet and rainy summer (if you can call it that yet) here and it's been hard to get motivated to get outside to do anything. We decided to take our chances this weekend with a road ride in the mountains. A friend of Vince's little brother is staying with us while he is in town for a bit and we thought we should show him some of the famous lakes around here. We started the ride at Castle Junction, halfway between Banff and Lake Louise, and rode west on the old highway. It's a 25km ride to the town of Lake Louise and from there we headed up towards Moraine Lake first, and then came zipping back down the road and went up to the lake part of Lake Louise. Here we are standing in front of Lake Louise. Our bike gear was getting lots of funny looks from the tourists!
In total I rode 86km and the boys did 100km. They went that much further just looping back for me since I'm a bit slower. We had just a tiny bit of spitting rain as we were starting the ride but after that the sun kept trying to peek through. It was a great day! Of course as we headed back towards Calgary there was a huge lightening storm, but I think we learned our weather lesson: just head for the mountains!

Bow Summit Backcountry

Vince and I haven't done any backcountry skiing all winter. We decided to take advantage of the unusually large snowpack this spring and headed out to Bow Summit (about 20 minutes north of Lake Louise) to meet up with our friends Lindsay and Dan from Revelstoke. It was an amazing day. We were all skiing in t-shirts and were still really hot (hiking up is hard work!) Lindsay had some sunscreen with her that promised a "honey-glow" but I think by the end of the day we all were a bit more honey-crisped. We got 4 runs in, with a stop for lunch. It was a great day!

Unfortunately we left our camera in the truck, but took a few quick photos when we got back to the road.

If you look closely you can see our tracks in this picture. They are on the left side just above the trees. We were the only ones out there and had fresh tracks all day!

Linds and Dan with Sasha. The dogs had a great day running all over and playing with each other. They don't quite understand why we don't go straight down the hill though...

Old Pics

I was cleaning out old emails yesterday and came across some pictures from last August. We spent a weekend in and around Lake Louise with our friends Laurie and Paul. Thanks to Laurie for the photos. She is a great photographer and had a new camera to play with that weekend. Its a special treat for us to stay at the Post Hotel. We were enjoying a glass of wine on the balcony after biking and hiking on Saturday and this guy decided to meander through town. Luckily we were 3 stories up and he was across the river. Sunday we had intended to go hiking at Lake O'Hara but hadn't realized that we should have booked the bus into the lake 6 months in advance. Instead we hiked to Skoki Lodge, which is a rustic backcounty lodge owned by the Lake Louise resort.

Vince will swim in anything in the summer...especially glacier fed alpine lakes.

The tea and desserts that we had at Skoki lodge were so amazing (what a concept...homemade chocolate cake at the turn around point of a hike!) that we decided to go back for New Years . The ski in wasn't as plesant as hiking (-30 and windy!) but staying at the lodge was great and we would all go back again. We're looking forward to more summer adventures with Laurie and Paul: we'll be heading to both the Wasa triathlon and the Penticton Gran Fondo with them.

Gab's Visit

Vince's sister Gabrielle came out for a quick visit last weekend. We finally had a break from the very cold weather that we've been having and got to enjoy a bit of sun in the mountains. We had a great day of downhill skiing at Lake Louise on Saturday and Sunday went to Mt Shark in Kananaskis provincial park to cross country ski. It was a tiring weekend but worth it!

Vince and I were in Revelstoke, BC for a wedding this weekend. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures, but we had a good time! We drove there Thursday evening and Vince took some clients cat skiing on Friday. I had the day to myself and went xc skiing with Riley in the morning and then enjoyed just hanging around town in the afternoon. Revelstoke is a sleepy little town but has a really good coffee shop! We had planned to downhill ski on Saturday but I have a cold so we decided to have another mellow day and went to the hot springs. Lindsay and Dan's wedding was fun. They had a mountain top ceremony in the morning just for family and then a second (quick) ceremony and reception in the evening. It was great to share the moment with them!

Marcialonga

Vince and I just got back from doing the 70km Marcialonga (xc ski race) in northern Italy. You may have already read it, but I'm posting an email that I had my mom distribute about the race.

The race went really well. The first 15 km up to Canazei was a mess of people. There was no point in yelling "track" for people to get out of the way, so there was a lot of weaving around and going right through the middle of the tracks (a tight squeeze!) I passed a lot of people in the first hour and a half! There were a few short steep uphills where things would jam up with people herringbone-ing up and you just had to wait it out or look for an opening to slip through. There were a few big downhills as well, which were very icy by the time I got through from people snowplowing. I actually ran down two of the hills on the side because it looked safer and probably faster. Most of the people doing the race were older masters skiers and they were very tentative on the downhills! The course itself was very neat. A lot of the towns we went through we literally went right through the middle of the town on roads that they had dumped snow on. I laughed in one town to see padding on the side of the fire station as I was coming down the hill. Many towns had the church bells ringing while the race was happening, which made for a cool atmosphere. In between the towns the course mostly went along a river. Overall it was pretty flat, slightly uphill to Canazei and then slightly downhill most of the rest of the way. Apparently the elite group does sometimes go without wax, because they can double pole or herringbone the whole way. Vince and I opted for kick wax. The tracks were incredibly icy so we used green klister as a base and then covered it with extra blue hard wax. It lasted most of the race, but by the time I got to the 3 km uphill at the end it was warm enough that I used a wax station for some yellow klister. Toko was sponsoring the race and they had three stations at the bottom of the big hill with klister machines that just rolled the wax on. They even had kids there taking the skis from the wax tech and putting them back on your feet! I have to say, I was so tired of double poling by the end that I was glad for a long uphill just so I could stand up. The finish was right in the middle of town in Cavalese and the only problem with that was that in the winding little streets I had no idea where the finish was! I was really happy to finally come around a corner and see the finish and hear Vince yelling for me. I'm really happy with how I finished, especially with how far back I started (lots of people in front of me to slow me down). I was hoping to be in the top half of the women, but finishing 316 was great, especially on only 3 hours of nervous sleep the night before (reminder: tirimisu has coffee in it and should not be eaten the night before a race). Overall it took me 5 hours and 36 mintues!

Skiing the race course the day before. This was one of the big downhills pretty close to the start that was pure ice by the time I got to it.

Dumping snow on the streets in the start town of Moena the day before the race. It was an impressive operation.

Me just after finishing. I was so happy to be done!