Blogs from Canmore, Alberta, Canada, North America - page 5

We did a little geocaching late this afternoon. Geocaching is an outdoor activity in which the participants use a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver or other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers (called "geocaches" or "caches") anywhere in the world. A typical cache is a small waterproof container (usually a tupperware or ammo box) containing a logbook. Canmore and it's surrounding areas has more than its fair share of caches to keep us occupied. Actually we done quite a few of them here on previous visits. We did six caches today, they were all east of Canmore and towards the town of Exshaw about 14km away. One cache that was quite a challenge took us up into Grotto canyon, a place we'd not been to before. In the winter the river that runs through the ... read more

This morning we went to the Ammonite factory in Canmore. What is Ammonite ? Once upon a time a large central portion of Canada used to be a sea, in this sea lived shelled squid-like marine animals that became extinct 65 million years ago. A gemstone material is formed from the compacted remains of the shell which was exposed to eons of elemental movement, mineralization, intense heat and pressure. The fossil is called "ammonite" and the gem extracted from it is called "ammolite" There is only one economically viable ammolite deposit in the world making it rarer and more expensive than diamonds. This deposit is located in Southern Alberta, near the foothills of the Rocky Mountains and there are only 3 companies with mining rights, Korite International, Aurora, and the Ammonite Factory. We didn't buy any ... read more

The Nordic centre in Canmore was developed for the 1988 Winter Olympic Games Nordic events and arguably put the town of Canmore on the map. In the winter this place is a buzzing cross-country ski venue but in the summer it hosts walkers and the reason i'm here, mountain biking. In fact there are more than 100 km of single and double-track mountain bike trails. Needless to say i didn't do them all, i just managed 20km today.... read more

Canmore - Banff Went mountain biking today, drove up towards Spray Lakes where the Goats Creek Trailhead started. The trail to Banff is approximately 24 km but it's practically all downhill so it's not that bad at all. There are some great fast stretches on this well maintained trail, basically quite a wide shail track with a few muddy patches that day after the rain the night before. I wasn't sure exactly how long it would take me but guides said 1-3 hours, so i arranged with Tray to pick me up in 2hrs from the time i set off. Well, i didn't go particularly fast and even stopped a couple of times to take pictures but i arrived at the meeting point at the Banff Springs Hotel after 1hr 10 min. I got absolutely soaked ... read more

The day we decided to trek up Ha Ling Peak The name of the mountain has been subject to much controversy. Originally, the mountain was referred to locally as The Beehive. In 1896 Ha Ling, a Chinese cook for the Canadian Pacific Railway (some say the Okaloosa Hotel in Canmore) was bet 50 dollars that he could not climb the peak and plant a flag on the summit in less than 10 hours. According to the Medicine Hat News of October 24 1896, he started the ascent at 7:00 am the previous Saturday morning and was back in time for lunch. As nobody believed his story, he led a party of doubters to the summit where he planted a much larger flag beside the original, this one visible to the naked eye from Canmore. The townsfolk ... read more