As I sit here writing this, the month of August is over, and we are about to enter autumn. Yeah, I know it’s not officially autumn yet, but let’s not kid ourselves. Summer is winding down. Peoples’ minds are on autumn activities. Vacations are over, students are starting back to school, harvest has begun, the weather patterns are changing, and some different sporting and fitness activities are starting up. It’s a good time to recap and share our fun filled summer of adventures.

Oh yes, we are still having hot days, but the nights are certainly cooler. Just a reminder to keep those hot weather tips in mind to beat the heat when you exercise. Go early, go high, wear the right clothing, wear sun screen, and hydrate, hydrate, hydrate.

My wife, Shelley, and I had a summer full of travel, family, fun and fitness. We walked, we hiked, we biked and we paddled. I even sailed one day with my two brother-in-laws on Clear Lake in Riding Mountain National Park (RMNP for short). It wasn’t exactly aerobic exercise, but there was certainly some muscle strength and endurance hauling on the sheets. That’s a rope attached to a sail for those of you who aren’t familiar with sailing. Plus, some fast muscle twitch exercise dodging the boom when we had to “come about.” I’ll let you look that one up. This certainly brought back memories of my sailing days as a teenager.

The heat was pretty much ever present since mid June so we often had to take that into consideration when choosing our activities. Where we live we are fortunate to have a trail on the hillside area close to our home. a five minute walk from our front door, it is all sage brush without any trees. This trail is our “go to” exercise route for a short 2 km walk. The terrain is undulating so we get our heart rate up just by keeping a brisk walking pace. During the hot days we walked this trail early in the morning before the heat of the day started to build.

A couple of other city walks we frequent is MacArthur Island Park, and the Rivers Trail at Riverside Park. These trails are nearby, and the terrain is flat, so we walk at a good pace while we enjoy the cool breezes off the Thompson River.

Kenna Cartwright Park is another local favorite. It is covered with trails, both single track and dual track, that are for bikers and hikers. There is quite a variety of terrain here from blue to back diamond in difficulty and open sagebrush to fairly heavily forested areas.

Longer hikes and bikes took us to the Dewdrop Range, Paul Lake, and Stake Lake. All of these are higher elevation areas about 20-40 minutes from our home. Climbing is definitely in store for you on these trails, and as they are higher up, they can be 5 to 7 degrees Celsius cooler than the valley bottom in Kamloops. I often refer to a blog called Kamloops Trails for ideas on where to hike. Here is the link. Kamloopstrails.net

The Dewdrop Range has many trails which involve some steep climbs, and descents with stunning views of the Thompson and North Thompson River valleys. I would recommend this area for more experienced hikers.

Stake Lake is a multi sport destination. In winter this where our cross country ski club is located so it is the center of our winter recreation and fitness. However, once the snow is gone the trails are great for hiking, mountain biking, and the lake itself is a nice spot for a paddle. It’s a true gem in our region. We have spent a lot of time there the last two months taking in all three activities.

Late June and early July saw us travel east across the prairies to our home province of Manitoba. It was a trip to visit family, but we took advantage of the opportunities to explore some new mountain biking trails.

Riding Mountain National Park

Our first stop was Riding Mountain National Park, a place Shelley and I are quite familiar with. Both of us grew up camping there, and later on our family’s owning summer cabins there. This time we camped at the Wasagaming Campground in our camper van, Miss Daisy. Our mountain bikes were our main mode of transportation, so we did quite a bit of cycling in and around the townsite of Wasagaming on trails we are quite familiar with.

Manitoba had a large amount of snow over the winter, and when combined with the spring rains it resulted in many of the trails being closed to hikers and bikers. The wet spring also meant M-0-S-Q-U-I-T-O-S. I felt like I was at a blood donor clinic. Being old hands at this, we had the tools to combat them. To find out more about this National Park you can go to their website. https://www.pc.gc.ca/en/pn-np/mb/riding

Northgate Multi-Use Trail System

After a bit of research we discovered a new set of trails in the area. The Northgate Multi-Use Trail System near Dauphin, Manitoba is just outside the north boundary of RMNP. The trails are located on the north escarpment of the Park, and their Facebook page states that they have 26 km of trail in a stacked loop design with sections that are suitable for mountain bikers, hikers, and trails runners. I guess you can just also go to enjoy the view out from the mountain to the prairies below. Now these are very, very old mountains so they are nothing like what there is in BC and Alberta. However, it is a beautiful area to explore.

We had a chance to ride a couple of the stacked loops and they were definitely cut out of the bush as this is the northern boreal forest. The Northgate trails were also suffering from a lot of rainfall, so we were running into wet, muddy and some flooded sections. They had some maintenance going on to mitigate the water and mud the day we were there, so being mindful of doing damage to the trails, we decided to call it a day. From what we saw though, they’ve got something really good going on at Northgate, and we can’t wait for our next trip to explore some more. You can go to their Facebook page to get more info and see more pics. https://www.facebook.com/northgatetrailsdauphin

Spruce Woods Provincial Park

From RMNP we headed south to my home town of Carberry, Manitoba. Now Carberry is known as a farming community in the Carberry Plains, and has some pretty dam fine farm land. Did I say plains? Yes, it is gosh darned flat there, but 18 miles south of town is the Spruce Woods Provincial Park. The area is one of contrasts with sand dunes, mixed grass prairie, and boreal forest. Yes, I said sand dunes. After the retreat of the glaciers from the last ice age, the Assiniboine River was 1.5 km wide. You can easily see this as you approach the present day river valley. The river emptied into glacial Lake Agassiz, and Spruce Woods Provincial Park was part of the river delta. The waters were full of sand and other sediments, and when the waters receded, the sands were left behind forming the “Spirit Sands”. The aboriginal people of the region believed the Spirit Sands were a place close to Kiche Manitou, the Great Spirit. It is truly a magical place. You can go to the Spruce Woods Provincial website to learn more or download this PDF I have attached for you.

Info-Spruce-Woods-PP-1

Growing up in the area, I spent many days camping, swimming, and hiking in this park as well as paddling the Assiniboine River that runs through it. A number of the trails, are multi use for hikers and bikers, and in the winter for skiers and snowshoers.

Seton Trail

Shelley and I rode the Seton Trail one afternoon.

The trail namesake is Ernest Thompson Seton, a renowned naturalist, author, and artist who spent much time in the area. The trails had some steep inclines and sandy patches, but we found it quite flowy. Needless to say, we got our heart rates up in this prairie region.

Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park

Travelling home to BC, we stopped over at one of our favorite places in the prairies of Western Canada, Cypress Hills Provincial Park. This park is actually an interprovincial park with 3 parts: Alberta, West Block and Centre Block of which the latter two are in Saskatchewan. All are connected by backcountry dirt roads. In fact, we travelled one of them back around 1989. Most of our visits have been short, just a nice overnight place to camp off the busy Trans Canada Highway corridor.

This trip we stayed in the Alberta section approximately 35 kms south of the Trans Canada Highway. There are a number different campgrounds beginning with a full service one near the townsite of Elkwater at Elkwater Lake, and then more basic campgrounds as you climb uphill along Fergusson Hill Rd. We went uphill as we didn’t need any services, and found a great campsite in a nicely forested area.

We were able to ride directly from our site, and the next morning we rode the Beaver Creek Trail. The connector trail from Fergusson Lake Road had some steep, but nicely banked corners as it wound its way down to the creek. It was a little bit too steep for our ability so we just took our time. This trail was in a heavily forested area and it wound along the bottom of the valley next to Beaver Creek. It climbed gradually to the top of the trail over about 4 km.

This was an example of paying attention to someone’s trail report. The climb was not the challenge, but the tree roots certainly were. Did someone say tree roots? Yup, a lot of tree roots. It was tough on my hard tail and for Shelley on her full suspension bike. It was far from my favorite ride on the trip, but when we we popped out onto the Plateau Trail at the top we were rewarded with a fabulous view out over the prairies. That made it all worthwhile.

A quick fact. Cypress Hills is the highest point in Canada between Banff, Alberta and the Atlantic Ocean. I did not know that until I read more about the Park. It’s a beautiful area and we will return to camp explore more of the mountain bike trails. As it is an interprovincial park here are two websites you can use to find out more.

https://www.albertaparks.ca/parks/south/cypress-hills-pp/ https://www.tourismsaskatchewan.com/provincialpark/3033/cypress-hills-interprovincial-park#sort=relevancy

Well, there you go. A recap of our fun filled summer of adventures. No matter where you go, you can find places to go, and things to do to stay fit and have fun. Stay tuned for my next post where I will delve into some of the fall activities that cross country skiers are doing now that we are about to change seasons into autumn.

Roy, the XC Ski Guy