Oh boy is TyTy ever going to grow up with a sense of humour. I am the Queen of Misadventures and since he’s being drug along, he’ll have plenty of misadventures too. This week, I headed out to Castle with Samara and Ty with plans to cross country ski on the Syncline Trail.
Samara and I were excited because we skied on this trail last winter when I was pregnant and we thought we were coming full circle. There was no trail report on the Alberta parks website (at least not since April) but Castle posted they had a lot of snowfall on Monday night so we figured the trails would be good.
The closer we got to Castle though, we realized there was not much snow. I kept thinking as we drove along that we would see more, but alas! We got to the trails and grass was stlll poking through.
Samara is my perfect companion because she is so go with the flow. We started discussing our options which were extra limited because neither of us brought proper footwear for hiking.
We decided to go to the ski hill and see if there was enough snow on the trails there. Lucky for us, there was! It was like, we went over the cattle guard and there was suddenly enough snow.
There are three snowshoe trails that are just past the houses south of the rental company, so we geared up, put Ty in the carrier and headed over. Just as we got to the trail head, Ty started crying his hungry/tired cry so we stopped and I made him a bottle and fed him trail side.
He was super tired and I figured once I put him the backpack and started moving he would fall asleep. He screamed while I desperately tried to clip in, which is very difficult when you can’t bend over to line up your boot with the binding.
Once I finally clipped in, we headed off. Ty was pretty content when I was moving, but whenever I stopped, he would start crying again (exactly like when we’re in the car).
I stopped a lot though because these trails, while snowy, were very narrow, and had many little ups and downs.
I had a couple of near falls, where it took everything I had, and my poles to balance me and keep both of us from tumbling over. The couple times I lost balance, Ty got mad and gave me his angry scream.
After five minutes, I told Samara I had to take him out and let him fall asleep. We sat down and I held the little goober until he passed out. While he was sleeping, I asked Samara if she would be mad if we ditched the skis and just walked. Cross country ski boots are waterproof and comfortable. I knew I couldn’t continue on with Ty on my back, I’m just not good enough on skis yet. Samara is so chill and awesome that she said no problem.
Once Ty was passed out, we stealthily slid him into the backpack and I got him on my backpack, resting his head on my shoulder.
We walked for awhile and were SO GLAD we ditched the skis! There was just not enough snow. There were almost rocky patches, logs over the trail, and narrow passages. The trails still could use another foot of snow.
The trail we took goes along a creek though and the views were just gorgeous.
When we hit what felt like the end of the trail (it wasn’t) we turned around to head back. I went to take a selfie of myself with my sleeping baby in that beautiful setting when I noticed his eyes were wide open an he was just lying there.
Ty relaxed quietly in his backpack the whole back. At some times, he would whisper so softly “Da. Ada. Ugggh.” It was SO CUTE! And while his pack killed my back (I had a deep tissue massage the day before) it was so fun to listen to him babble away as he took in his surroundings.
Before we knew it, we were back at the trailhead. We must have gone a total of a quarter mile? ha ha! It seemed like more with the snow, the baby on my back, and the narrow trail.
Samara was such a trooper putting up with our group and our misadventure.
We opted to take the scenic route back, doing a quick stop in Waterton to say hello to our favourite place.
Lesson learned is that I need to find a sitter for cross country skiing! Ha ha ha! But I’ll never stop dragging TyTy outside into the mountains and woods. And thank goodness for patient friends! 🙂
Awwe I loved this misadventure! Another great one for the books 🙂