Bow Glacier Falls, In The Rain (with Pikas!)

The forecast for today was hot, 28°, and sun, and we thought it was a great day to head up to some of the icefields. Forecasts are sometimes wrong, and today, the forecast was really out to lunch, as we never saw a temp above 15°, and it was 11° most of the day. In addition, while it started sunny where we were going...

Looks good towards the falls

...we drove through pretty steady rain by Lake Louise on the way up...

Looking down Bow Lake to the rain in the distance

...and it poured most of the afternoon, including virtually all of the hike back to the car.


The trail's a mess in spots. It's submerged in great chunks, in particular right at the pinch point where the river meets the lake, where keeping your feet dry was an impossibility.


The creek was roaring, as were the falls.

The nascent Bow River with the falls in the background

The falls up close

We were joined at lunch by a golden mantled ground squirrel, but while he was curious, he was not in your face about it. Still, I suspect he's been fed once or twice.

A cutie, but a chicken

We also saw a big fat marmot up in the basin, but got no pictures.

My friend Monty is out from Ontario, and while he lived here many years ago, it's been a while since he was in the mountains. He just finished a trip to the east coast, visiting many National Parks on the way, so to be frank, I'd like him to leave with the opinion that mine is the best.

Monty at the falls

We were happy to be squeaked at by pikas on the way to the falls, but disappointed to not see any. We were so hoping to see some on the way back, and indeed I saw something which I thought to be a ground squirrel, but in fact turned out to be one of three pikas we saw.

My buddy the pika

As I mentioned, it poured on us all the way back to the car. But I was happy to stand in the rain and watch my pikas collect grasses and dart around the rocks to hide their stash in their middens.

Amsterdam: Thoughts on The Red Light District

No discussion of a trip to Amsterdam would be complete without comment on the Red Light District. Yes, prostitution is legal in Holland, and the Dutch seem to be the only ones who really don't care about it. It attracts the attention of visitors and even surrounding countries (conversations I had during my short trip to Belgium can attest to this). So what's the big deal?


There isn't one, that I can tell -- at least not there. For starters, there's really not only one "Red Light District" in Amsterdam. Sure, there's a big area in the middle of town marked on pretty much every map, but just around the corner from our beautiful apartment in our beautiful residential neighbourhood was a street of "windows".

Red Lights are the giveaway 

Lots of red lights

This street happened to be on the most direct and least trafficked route between our apartment and the central station, so we walked it most days. So did lots of other people, 99.9999% of whom just ignore the windows. At the end of this street, and 10' from the start of the windows, was a restaurant, a deli, and the ground floor office of a magazine. On the street, between the windows, were the entries to 2 hotels -- and not seedy, run-down hotels. There's nothing seedy or run down about the windows in Amsterdam. The Red Light District is one of the safest places in a very safe town. There are police cameras on every corner and in the middle of every block. There's no hiding, and someone is always watching.


They are referred to as "windows" because they always consist of a door with a full length window in which the ladies (and they're usually ladies; more on this later) sit or stand and "advertise their wares". The rules are simple:

1. No taking pictures of the windows or the contents;
2. The occupants are allowed to do whatever they want to attract your attention, but...
3. They can't open the door unless you ask them to.

Some bang on the glass to attract your attention. All dress scantily. The windows are occupied basically 24 hrs a day (though we saw them being cleaned, usually around 7 AM. The Dutch clean stuff a lot).

One of the free tourist pamphlets has a section on the windows for tourists. It points out that not all of the ladies are ladies. There are "districts" catering to different tastes. Fat, thin, old, young, local, foreign, male, female and any of the various combinations and permutations you can imagine have their districts. I swear to goodness that we saw a 400 lb woman wearing a size 2 corset in one window. Not appealing. As I mentioned in an earlier post, it strikes me that if one is going to advertise like that, it would be more helpful if the product on display was not only well displayed (which some of them are), but that the product itself was worth buying.

Tourist make a big deal about the windows. Especially party barge loads of drunk guys, most of whom appear to be British anyway. The heart of the main section of windows is host to the (now de-consecrated) Oude Kerk, and there's tourists all over the place. There's a tour you can take (Saturdays at 1:30 PM) out of the Prostitution Information Centre. It really was on my list of things to do, but we never got around to it. The narrowest street in Amsterdam happens to be lined with windows (or I would have taken a picture).

The windows rent out for €150 per 8 hour shift. You do the rest of the math.

In the "main" red light district, there are your standard issue sex shows with on-street barkers, just like in many other major cities (though not where I live). This doesn't have anything to do with the windows or their occupants. Many of these sex shops are connected to gangs. The windows are fine. These other places I'm not so sure about.

But the reason I have to post about this is to attempt to highlight how little the Dutch actually care about all of this. They tax it (the Dutch are tolerant, not stupid). They know it's there. And they basically ignore it, under the simple and effective logic that so long as it doesn't bother them, folks are pretty welcome to do whatever they please. Keep the doors closed and voila, no bothering.

Biking the Kananaskis Valley

I managed to pick up a case of Runner's Knee (patellofemoral syndrome) on my descent of Heart Mountain last week, so have been trying to take it easy. What could be easier than taking our trusty steeds out for a ride on the paved pathway in the Kananaskis Valley, known as the Bill Milne Trail?

Our trusty steeds. Mt. Kidd in the distance

Looking up Evan-Thomas Creek

I have always said the downside with biking is the lack of photo opportunities that you get when hiking.


The paved path stops at Wedge Pond, and so did we.

The Wedge on the left, Limestone Mtn on the right

The Fortress peeks over the ridge on the left; Mt. Kidd on the right

We took the Wedge Connector and the Evan-Thomas fire road to get home.

Looking west at incoming storms

The whole route we rode today had bear warnings on it, and Wedge Connector in particular had lots of bear scat and tracks on it. We made lots of noise, at one point scaring off a deer.


In fact, we saw a fair amount of wildlife today. There were a number of Columbian Ground Squirrels around Wedge Pond.

Watched from the grass 

Yelling from the trees

We saw some mountain bluebirds, and in addition to the deer we spooked, here was one we didn't.

Mr. Fuzzy Antlers

He let me get pretty close.

Not much zoom used here

And here's why

The deer was scared away by a group of Harley-Davidson motorcycles who stopped to try and take his picture.

Deer and ground squirrels weren't the only animals out today. Someone on a trip from Stampede came out for a picnic in their stretch SUV limo.

Bigger than the MINI SUV from Amsterdam

Amsterdam Leftovers Part 4: Art and more

I'm reaching the end of my leftover bits, so here's a bunch of unrelated material.


Part A: Art on the Street


Our crank didn't get too turned by the Dutch old school painters, but as you can tell by my extensive post on Escher, some Dutch art is quite compelling to me. On of the things I personally find interesting is the normal "art on the street" in which cities invest. In Amsterdam, my personal fave was the sea of iguanas in a small park.

Dozens of the little critters

There were about 50, 2' long brass iguanas on the walls, in the grass, and even on the sidewalk. Loved it.


Then there was the chameleon.

Stylish

I think, in fact, he was for sale from the store he was parked in front of. He's not small, being about 3' long. Very cool.


Part B: Cleanliness is next to Godliness


The Dutch clean their cities. A lot. We saw them cleaning our street most days, including Sundays, from as early as 8 AM to as late as 8 PM. Sometimes a crew of 5-7 people with brooms and garbage bags would walk our street and pick up the trash. Street and sidewalk cleaners would come by almost daily.

Squirt it off the sidewalk and into the oncoming street sweeper 

There wasn't a city we were in in Holland in which we didn't see crews cleaning the place. Trash is put out on the street for collection, and they always spray cleaned on garbage collection day.


Directly across the canal from us was a glass recycling location. It took us a while to figure out it was here, and in fact, at the beginning of our trip, we couldn't see that they recycled in Amsterdam at all. But it was there, just hiding. This glass recycling station was merely a 12" square box sticking out of ground with round holes for bottle, and it wasn't really marked in any way. But we watched people use it, so we started to use it, too, not sure where the bottles went. Then we saw it being emptied by the coolest picker truck.

The picker grabs the drop slot revealing the underground box 

The glass drops into his truck

Part C: Wildlife and Critters


You know I like critters, especially wild ones. I really like Great Blue Herons. We have them, but they're not that common here. There's certainly lots of them in Holland. We saw them everywhere.

Fishing in Vondlepark

In Canmore, near where I live, we have a feral rabbit problem. People let domestic rabbits go, and they have taken over the town. Rabbits being rabbits, we have lots of rabbits, and now the town has to fix the problem. Well, someone in Amsterdam let a bunch of ring necked parakeets go in 1976, and now some 3,500 of them live in town, mostly in Vondelpark.

Very cute, but out of place

Repeated polls say the people of Amsterdam like them, so they stay. On the bright side, at least they don't attract coyotes like the rabbits do.


Traveling around Greece you see a LOT of cats. Amsterdam isn't cat mad, but I saw my fair share of them, especially in store windows.

One real one, asleep in the chair, among the fakes 

In a furniture store window

Hanging outside

Part D: When is a Mini not a Mini?


My first car was a 1976 Mini. KC owns a 2004 MINI. I know Minis well. A Mini is a small car where I live, but kinda normally sized in Holland. But when is a Mini not a Mini? When it's an SUV.

Somehow the antithesis of the word "Mini"

Here's hoping these never make it to Canada.


Part E: More Hoists In Action


I liked seeing a building hoist in action, so was happy when one across the street from me was used most of the day for moving.

On it's way up 

Nearly there 

Rotate and it's done 

In she goes

I also liked the hoists that were in use, but not for hoisting, like this one.

Three hanging ladies

Part F: Our Uninvited Guest


Halfway through our stay, we were joined by a houseguest. Here he is helping himself to some food.

Blurry, but you get the picture

He didn't bother us on his nightly visits, so we didn't bother him, though we did our best to discourage him.


Part G: What can you get in markets?


Turns out everything...

Wait for the joke...

...including the kitchen sink.


Part H: Strictly random


I can offer no comment on this. Its just something I never see at home.

Taking it for a walk, I assume

I'm nearly finished; I have but 2 Amsterdam posts left. Stay tuned, blog fan(s).

Heart Pounding Heart Mountain Horseshoe

One of the most popular early season scrambles in my neighbourhood is the loop of Heart Mountain & Mt. Grant MacEwan, known as the Heart Mountain Horseshoe. It's always free of snow earlier than other hikes, and it's a genuine scramble with two short 3 meter pitches up obvious cracks in vertical rockfaces. Now, don't let that for one minute belittle the challenges that await. You get to climb 850 m (2,775') straight up, then saunter an undulating ridge, then descend over 900 m (3,000') straight down. Here's the ridge you climb:

From the bottom. You get to climb the ridge on the right of the Heart

The climb up is relentlessly steep, and the trail has been braided like crazy by all the people who think they can find an easier way than straight up.

A reasonably consistent 30° slope

What makes this all worthwhile is that the higher you go, the better the views.

Yamnuska on the left, the prairies in the middle 

From the same point, looking up the valley past Lac Des Arcs

We took 2½ hours to reach the first summit. Some people go up to here and then turn around. This strikes me as being insane. This section is the section with the two scrambles, which I wouldn't want to down climb, plus the trail is braided and not in great shape, making it slippery as all get out on the way down.


There's actually 4 mountain summits on this loop. Once past the first summit, the trail goes up and down in 100 m increments over them. However, in most cases, you're hiking on a knife edge ridge with 1,000' drops on one or both sides.

Looking back to summit #1. Note the the vertical cliff. 

Looking back along the ridge between #1 & #2.  

The ridge to Summit #2 you get to climb. Cross the grass to #3

Looking south from the middle of the ridge above. 1,500' down. 

Summit #2 is Mt. Grant MacEwen. There's a summit register you can sign. Trick was, it had practically no paper in it. So people had put in everything from grocery receipts to used downhill ski tickets to sign. From this summit, you can see Barrier Lake and the fire lookout we hiked to a couple of weeks ago.

Barrier Lake on the right. The fire lookout through the trees

From this point, you can actually see the city of Calgary.

The city in the distance

The meadows up here are very pretty, and the trail to summits #3 and #4 quite pleasant.

Nice, but no sign of animal life

Summit 4 is the last chance for world class views.

Towards Exshaw 

Yamnuska and the prairie 

The route up, more or less, plus Lac Des Arcs

Alas, from here it is down. Straight down.

Looking back up the descent route 

A detail of the route, which is in the slot at the top left

The descent is tough, unstable, slippery and very, very slow; it took us 2 hours from the top of Peak #4. Fortunately, there is the odd flattish spot with some grass to break the brutal 30° grade.

A brief respite in the descent.

From here the trail descends steeply in a dense forest with no views for about another hour back to the parking lot.


There's a lot of similarities between this trail and Tent Ridge, that we did a few years back. There's technical sections, though Heart is more technical. There's great views, though most of the climbs in my area feature those. There's knife edge ridge walks with 1,000+' drops. I'd call them very similar in difficulty, with Heart Mountain a little tougher. Maybe that was because it was windy as stink today, with a pretty consistent 50 km/hr wind, with gusts up to 90 km/hr. That certainly made walking the knife edge ridges interesting today.