Behind the Image: Cafe Crew
Probably one of the more memorable "dumb-shit but fun" trips of the summer. During the past 2 summers I've worked at Bicycle Cafe Canmore as a mechanic there wrenching on bikes and as with any mountain town that's ridiculously expensive to live in people that work there are full of stoke and adventure. Since last summer I've always wanted to ski this broad gully that you can see from the town of Canmore that usually held a good amount of snow till later in the season. But with the spring of 2022 being a weird year with the valley bottom melting out super quick but a decent amount of snow still remaining up high it would be quite the trek to reach the snow. Looking out from the parking lot of the Bicycle Cafe it would be staring at us every morning and talking to a few of my co-workers they also shared the ambition of trekking up there with snowboards and skis.
So we made plans to meet up at ridiculously-early-oclock and we set off. There is a mountain biking trail that is right below the gully so we decided to leave from the Bicycle Cafe in downtown Canmore. We pedalled up for maybe 300m or so before we had to ditch our bikes and start hiking. Its a neat little canyon in there, apparently a somewhat popular hike. As we watched the sun crest over the peaks and slowly flood the valley floor with light we were well on our way up. With the spring crust skinning was starting to become a bit of a losing battle, it wasn't long before we found ourselves kicking steps towards the ridge.
We kept a close eye on the time as we all had to get be back at the shop by 10Am to start work, and I wanted to get pancakes from Mcdonalds too. We managed to hit the ridge line of Mt Charles Stuwart South and were rewarded with amazing views, we could even make out Mt Assiniboine in the distance. From there we made quick work of the terrible skiing down the bowl, then some ankle threatening scree bashing back to our bikes.
From there we made quick work of the bike trail, cautiously making our way down with 2 extra feet of skis and splitboards sticking out above our heads, the occasional buzzing of our rear tires coming in contact with our skis when we leaned the bike over too hard. It wasn't long before we hit the Trans Canada Highway.
From there I'm happy to say we had time to grab pancakes from McDonals and still made it to work on time. It was a long yawn filled day at work but worth it to say the least.