Tue, Apr 3 2007 - Sulphur Springs/Elbow Valley BACKPACKER TRAINING (View Original Event Details)
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To all of you who backed out of the hike today (and you know who you are), you missed a wonderful day. Someone (who shall remain nameless... ok, it was me) got to yakking in the car when she should have been navigating and we ended up sailing right on past Station Flats. Once I realized what I'd done, we were almost at the winter gate, and when we got there we decided that instead of turning around, we would just go walk into Prairie Creek instead.
It was a beautiful winter wonderland in there today, and yeah, I know, most of us are ready to be done with winter wonderlands, but it really was amazingly beautiful, and a great "final fling" with winter. We followed the Prairie Creek trail in and up and down and in for about four kms, then stopped for lunch. Instead of retracing our steps on the way back, which would have involved some slippery downhills that some of us weren't keen on, Jerry decided to lead us through the bottom of the canyon instead. I hadn't thought the creek was still frozen enough to do that, and in a few spots it wasn't, but we had a grand time bushwhacking, creek-whacking, root-whacking, ice-whacking and noodling our way back through the canyon.
Once again I managed to lug my 35 pound pack the whole way. Jerry joined me in pack-loading, and Mike had a bit of extra weight. I think Lila will be ready for some pack loading soon too. This was a fantastic hike for West Coast Trail preparation for me because there was some up and down, a lot of root and rock walking, and so on. Once the snow is gone I'll probably do this again as a loop with Prairie Link and Powderface Creek trails.
Thanks to Mike and Jerry and Lila for not bailing on me today - I had a wonderful day!!
-- Rhonda