Sat, Sep 19 2009 - The Long Haul - Downtown to Laurier Park, and Back! (View Original Event Details)
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Well, we DID promise you a long day!
Despite a bumpy start (no one realized there was another event booked for Victoria Park that morning) we managed to leave pretty much on time from the Royal Glenora parking lot.
Being an ambitious group, we upped the ante at the beginning by tackling the 202 steps (thanks for counting, Pat!) from the River Valley to cross the High Level Bridge and added a couple of kilometers to that end of the hike. The rest of the walk went pretty much as planned; we crisscrossed the valley down to Quesnel, then turned back there and stopped for lunch at Laurier Park. We picked the more attractive routes, including the shaded forest trails through Hawrelak, Emily Murphy and Buena Vista Parks, and the lovely walk below the Provincial Museum and up MacKinnon Ravine. The first signs of Fall were just becoming visible, and part of the group was entertained by an eagle and an osprey battling for supremacy over the Buena Vista bridge.
We had a few other adventures along the way, including being asked by a few university students to help them with a game they were involved in - some of us ran a pretend 'wheelbarrow race' with them, and others helped form a human pyramid, all in the shadow of the Groat Bridge while curious bystanders looked on.
As with any hike this length, the differences in speed between the faster and slower groups became more obvious by the end, and we eventually became strung out over several hundred meters. Almost everyone finished, but there were probably a few very sore muscles on Sunday morning, and at least one case of blisters caused by new boots!
We left for the hike only five minutes late and returned to the parking by 3:00 PM. The entire hike took just over five hours, and the best estimates we could come up with suggest we covered around 20 km. A long day, indeed, but lovely weather and an excellent hike.
Have some photos from this event that you'd like to share in our photo album? Please forward them to Mark G at photos@edmontonoutdoorclub.com. If you have a LOT of photos, please submit up to thirty of your favourites (only) for a day event, or up to sixty of your favourites for a multi-day event. Thank you.