Weekend Escape

Time to catch up on the old blog.  What can I say?  We've been busy and with a husband always in school I rarely get a chance to get my hands on the laptop.

The weekend before school ended in June we decided to make a little escape to the mountains.  A few days before the trip I asked Grandma if she might consider taking the kids and letting us go solo.  And to my shock and delight she agreed.  The kids were totally thrilled too as hiking wasn't really appealing to them. This was our first weekend away since having kids almost 9 years prior so to say we enjoyed it would be an understatement!  We packed in every minute with fun to make the most of our short time together.  We drove out Friday after work and I'm pretty sure we smiled the entire drive.  Saturday morning we got up early and hiked the trail to Grassi Lakes in Canmore.  Absolutely stunning.  The colors are just truly amazing.

 After we soaked in all the beauty at the top of the hike we hiked back down and then drove to Lake Lousie.  I've always wanted to canoe the lake.  It was as amazing as I'd always imagined.  I loved being out on the water and away from all the tourist traffic.  It was pretty incredible to discover just how strong the wind gusts could be as we got closer to the glacier (it took some serious strength to get to the far end of the lake)

 The color of that water is just breath taking.

 We stopped for lunch (including an hour spent with T helping some strangers who had their jack break mid tire change.....not that I had any doubt but T is such a good man)
We then headed to Morraine Lake and hiked to the other side.

 I must admit I half tripped a few times because I was so fixated on staring at these blue waters that I wasn't paying attention to where I was going ;)

Even in the rain the view at the end of the trail was so worth it.  

 To say we were fairly tired by the end of the day would be an understatement.  We enjoyed a delicious dinner and a second glorious undisturbed night of sleep!
The next day we decided to try out a hike that was a little less touristy.  After searching online for trails we decided to check out Grotto Canyon.  Online there was a lot of mention that the trail was a bit difficult to find (first hint).
We knew it spanned across an empty river bed and set off from the vehicle at a trail marker.  We ran into several other hikers in search of the canyon.  We quickly came across a dry canyon bed that went straight up and was basically one enormous boulder after the next.

 The hike was pretty intense and just didn't seem like what I'd read about.  After trekking for a good 45 mins straight up the mountain side we finally decided to ditch out hiking companions and head back down and see if we could figure out where we went wrong on our trek.

 The view from where we got to was absolutely Gorgeous.......when I wasn't thinking about the wild life that also lived there lol Look how small those massive boulders looked from so high up!

 When we got back to the trail we ran into some other hikers that pointed us in the right direction which ironically ended up being on the opposite side of our vehicle.

 This canyon bed was much more of a level trail with steep canyon walls up the side.  It was completely gorgeous.  We were able to find the 1000 year old aboriginal pictographs on one of the walls thanks to some other hikers.

 And at the base of Grotto Canyon's  waterfall a hiker pulled out their hiking guide and showed us that we had actually hiked up Steven's Canyon which ran parallel to Grotto. ( A quick Google search of Steven's Canyon when we got back to the vehicle brought up a news story from the previous summer of a couple in their 30's hiking there and the lady had tripped and fallen to her death.  Super unsettling because it was so easy to imagine how that could happen there with no easy trail.)  We ran into our first hiking companions who had continued up Steven's another 20 mins.  They were scraped and bloodied and said we were wise to turn back when we did as they ended up scaling up some rock faces with ropes including several injuries before turning back.

At the far end of the canyon the ground was covered in inukshuks.  We of course had to build a few as well.   The beauty and the amazing history of the canyon was so fun to discover.  I would go back and hike Grotto over and over.  There is just something about the mountains that is so good for the soul.

After our hike and a bite to eat and stop to buy a few treats for the kids, we headed on the road home feeling renewed and refreshed.  It was an absolutely perfect weekend with my favorite person in the world.