Youth Ice Climbing with the University of Calgary

Mack belaying his old man.

One of the dilemmas facing parents who want their teenagers to get off their butts and go hiking, is the lack of groups for teens that go hiking. Want them to go snowshoeing, rock climbing or ice climbing? Good luck.

When I was a teenager, I was lucky enough to belong to a Scouting group that was more interested in getting out to the Rocky Mountains than in earning badges, and that had Ventures and Rovers so we had a social group to go hiking, scrambling and even mountaineering with. But Scouts had already lost its cool back then. Today, the concept of a youth organization with uniforms and salutes and badges is, to put it mildly, not relevant to most teens. Just saying.

I'm fortunate that my sons, now 16 and 11, still want to spend time with their dad. Or at least they pretend to, which is good enough for me. Not only that, they genuinely enjoy going to the mountains with their old man. But what about other teens, and pre-teens for that matter, who don't have outdoorsy parents to take them out? Unless they have friends with the inclination to get out and a driver's license to get them to the trail, they're hooped.

When I saw the University of Calgary's Outdoor Centre offering Youth Ice Climbing lessons, and that parents could take it too, I jumped at it. First, I asked Mack, if he'd like to go ice climbing. Affirmative. Then I asked if he'd mind if I tagged along. He said he'd prefer it. To say I was excited would be an understatement. I'd get to share the brotherhood of the rope with my son, and maybe meet some other like minded parents.

I was a little surprised when we showed up and the other six participants were all teens. I was the only parent. But Mack didn't seem to care, the other teens didn't seem to care, so neither did I. And all six teens were keen to be there. There was no complaining about the cold. No complaining about having to carry the ropes to ice falls at King's Creek in Kananaskis. No complaining at all. They encouraged each other. They were excited by the beauty of the surroundings and the challenge of the ice.

A few of the teens were clearly interested in more than a one day ice climbing course could offer. They wanted to go again...but how? They didn't have many options other than paid ones. It's either talk their parents into shelling out a hundred bucks or more for a guided day in the mountains, or not go. Luckily, these kids had parents who were willing and financially able to send them. In fact, one kid's parents had shelled out for so many outdoor programs at the U of C that all of the guides knew him.

For all the talk and hype about the need to get youth, from tots to teens, out into nature, there hasn't been much action to make it happen. Thankfully there are a handful of organizations like the University of Calgary that are starting to run outdoor programs for teens. The six on the ice climbing trip may have to wait until the U of C's summer backcountry trips for teens, but at least there's something for them.

Hiking with Kids at Mt. Assiniboine: An amazing backcountry experience for the whole family

On the Nublet, Mt. Assiniboine in the background.

Something amazing happens when you and your kids are dropped off by a helicopter in the backcountry with no TV, no wifi and no way to charge cell phones. The whole family is forced into the moment...adventure unfolds naturally, you have the kind of talks that only happen on the trail, and you truly get to experience and enjoy each other's presence.

That's what happened when Mack, Michael and I stepped into the helicopter at the Mt. Shark helipad and stepped off it at Mt. Assiniboine. After four days with their grandmother in basic old school cabins in Fairmont Hot Springs (where we visited Lussier natural hot springs and went white water rafting on the Kootenay River...even at 80 she's a cool grandmother), I'd booked us for one night camping and one night in one of the Naiset huts at Mt. Assiniboine. I figured if it was raining, two nights stuck in a tent would be miserable for a 9-year-old and a 14-year-old, and the experience would turn them off of the backcountry instead of onto it.

I needn't have worried. We arrived around 12:30 p.m. the first day to sunny skies, and easily made our way on the 2 kilometer trail to the Lake Magog backcountry campsite. There we found a mini-city of backpackers who'd hiked in from Mt. Shark and Sunshine Meadows, some smiling and some the worse for wear. After setting up our tent, we explored a bit, found the outhouses and cooking shelter, and ambled along the shore of Lake Magog back to Mt. Assiniboine Lodge in time for the 4 p.m. tea and cake. Mt. Assiniboine is almost like a backcountry amusement park. Between the posh lodge and its

The first night's campsite.

cabins, the nearby basic Naiset huts, and 30 or so campsites at the Lake Magog campground, there must have been a hundred or so people wandering the trails and meadows in the immediate vicinity of the mountain. For an introduction to the backcountry, this makes it a safe place for novices of all ages. You can rough it as much or as little as you want, and if the kids are resisting the wonder of it all there's the daily bribe of a Coke and cake to focus them on. After finishing off two plates of the fresh baked banana bread and chocolate cake, we returned to our campsite under increasingly cloudy skies.

Breakfast the second day.

We heard the first thunder clap as we started up our Pocket Rocket camp stove, but the rain held off until we were finished the main meal and the last kernels of our Jiffy Pop popcorn were popping. If you want to turn your kids into celebrities at any campsite, Jiffy Pop is the way to go. Despite the rain, Mack and Michael were grinning ear to ear when they realized all eyes were enviously on them and their rarest of delicacies in the backcountry. Forget all the fancy backcountry deserts in the freeze dried food section of MEC or REI. Jiffy Pops are fun to make and even more fun to eat than a foil bag of something grossly mislabeled as "Chocolate
Mousse with Chocolate Crumble Topping."

By eight we'd crawled into our tent with the pitter patter of the rain on the fly. I'd brought a deck of cards, but we didn't need them. The kids loved just sprawling out, telling jokes and relaxing to the pitter patter of the rain on the fly. I loved just enjoying the time alone with them, no electronic distractions and lots of laughing.

The next morning, I crawled out around 7 a.m. to a big blue sky and nothing but birds breaking the silence. While the boys slept in, I fixed coffee on one of the open air cooking pads and enjoyed the

Descending the Nublet

company of a couple retired guys who'd backpacked in with one of their grown daughters. When they'd finished their breakfast, it was a young family with two daughters, 4 and 7, who'd flown in and were going to backpack out the next day. It wasn't until 11 a.m. that we'd finished our breakfast of pancakes and were on the trail for the day's adventure: an easy 500 m scramble up the Nublet, a bump on Nub Ridge on the way to the summit of Nub Peak.

With no schedule other than cake at the lodge at 4 o'clock, we took our time on the 4 km trail, stopping to look at tadpoles in a stream or at the amazing view of lakes below and mountains above. On the last section of actual scrambling just below the top of the Nublet, I marveled at how
surefooted the boys have become on scree, how they naturally test hand holds to make sure the rock is solid...how at ease they've become in the mountains, how great it is to be an outdoor family...On top we enjoyed the views for half an hour, Mack spotted a bald eagle (not that common in the Rockies) and I was the happiest dad on earth.

Our hut and its small door.

An hour later we were packed up and making our way to the lodge for a cold Coke and cake. From the lodge we carried our gear the half kilometer to the Naiset huts and started cooking supper in what turned out to be a fully equipped cook hut: running water, propane stoves and lamps, gourmet quality pots and pans...not bad for the backcountry! That left us a few hours to explore before sunset and bed, and there was lots to explore. We got our feet wet hopping across and through the creek that leads down to the lake, got them wetter wading in the lake, and had fun doing nothing but having fun. When we finally went back to the hut, we found our hut mates already in their sleeping bags trying to sleep (sorry!) and more or less quietly climbed into our own bags. Even getting up at 2:30 a.m. to go to the outhouse with Michael was an amazing experience, stepping out of the hut's pitch black to a dark sky filled with millions and billions of stars filling the mountain sky.

Waiting for the helicopter the next morning, I couldn't help but think about what an amazing time we'd had. As exciting as flying in a helicopter is for a kid, for Mack and Michael it paled in comparison to things like playing in the lake as the sun set, reaching the top of the Nublet and, for Mack, being the first to spot the bald eagle. Originally, I'd been a little disappointed when I saw how many people would be sharing our backcountry experience, but that had given way to another welcome lesson in letting go of expectations and accepting what the mountains give you. The boys had been exposed to new aspects of mountain culture--sharing a cooking pad and a hut, cook shelter etiquette, meeting fellow campers--and they'd thrived in it. And that's what the
mountains are all about regardless of how old you are: taking what they give you and thriving in it all.

 

Sunset at Mt. Assiniboine.

Morning visitor at our hut.

 

A happy dad on the flight out.

Hiking with Kids in Kananaskis: The Vaults of Mt. McGillivray

A giant vault blasted into the side of a mountain, then abandoned and almost forgotten. What's not to get excited about if you're a kid (big or small)?

The Trans Canada Trail

Back in the 50s or 60s, somebody blasted a tunnel and side vaults into the side of Mt. McGillivray in Kananaskis (you can read one theory of who and why here). When I was a kid in the late 70s, getting to them was something of an ordeal. You had to bushwhack to them from the Trans-Canada highway, and if you didn't know where they were you could spend the entire day searching for the narrow entrance and never find it. But if you did know, the short hike through the brush to treeline brought you a place custom designed to trigger a kid's imagination.

One of the washouts

Click here for more kids hikes in Banff, Kananaskis, Kootenay and other areas of the Canadian Rockies. 

Today, you park at the Heart Creek day use area, head west and the Trans Canada Trail takes you most of the way there. Luckily, the floods of June 2013 washed out a couple big chunks of the trail, reintroducing a bit of adventure and effort to reach the vaults. After negotiating your way across the washouts, it's almost impossible to miss the well-beaten path that now leads up to the vaults in a couple gentle switchbacks.

Although the vaults now lack the

Wolf track on the trail

exclusivity of being able to say you went somewhere that 99.9% of even the most experienced hikers have never heard of, they haven't lost any of their ability to spark the imagination.  And, as the wolf tracks we followed down the path, well beaten mountain paths are still wild. Try this hike from spring through to fall when you're looking for a fun, easy way to spend a couple hours in the mountains.

Distance: 3 or 4 km return
Time on the trail: 1-2 hours
Elevation gain: About 100 m

Driving Directions: Trans-Canada west from Calgary to the Heart Creek day use area across from Lac des Arc. Look for the Trans-Canada Trail sign on the west side of the parking lot across from the outhouses.
Click here for a driving map.

The entrance

The "foyer"

Old School Outdoors: Retro sliding with cardboard toboggans

Yesterday after tubing at Norquay, we went into the day lodge for hot chocolate. At some point, one of the boys pointed out a poster announcing an upcoming cardboard toboggan derby. I didn't think about it again until we got home and they announced that they wanted to make their own cardboard toboggans.

So I went into the basement and pulled up a couple big sheets of cardboard that their bedroom furniture had been delivered in. Then, being the over-thinking adult of the family, I went online to find photos of cardboard toboggans to see how to make them. By the time I looked up from the screen, the boys were already cutting and taping. So I closed Google Images, shut up, and let them create.

The results? The old school cardboard toboggans slid better than 90% of the fancy plastic store-bought sleds we've tried over the years. We spent at least an hour going up the little hill behind my house, sliding down on the toboggans and our butts, getting snow up sleeves and down necks. When we were finally too cold to continue, we reluctantly headed back home, upon which a certain teenager was heard to say, "I can't believe we had that much fun with just pieces of cardboard."

Basic but effective

A little less snow in the face thanks to the deflector in front (the uphill end)

Tubing with Kids in Banff: Norquay is Just as Good the Second Time

You know you're doing something right when you go to a tube park and your 9-year-old says he wants to walk up instead of taking the magic carpet.

Last year when we went tubing at Lake Louise, walking up wasn't as big a commitment. But Norquay is hands down the tube park with the most vertical in Banff National Park. It's also steeper. That adds up to a good workout, even for an outdoor dad who's used to hauling his butt up mountains.

The reward was worth it, though. Whether you hurtle down one of the seven runs solo or as three tubers holding onto each others' tubes for dear life, you get a pretty wild ride. At the end of each run at least one of us walked away with a face that felt frozen into place by the rush of winter air we'd just blasted through.

After a couple walks up the hill, the magic carpet proved to be a valuable addition to the tube park since the first time we went to Norquay in search of tubing fun a couple years ago. Exercise and active kids are good, and so is just focusing on the fun of an activity without feeling like you have to maximize its fitness value. This was one of those days, and when my 13-year-old asked if we could take the magic carpet I didn't complain. You'd be amazed at how sitting on a tube and letting gravity pull you to the bottom can leave you breathless.

Also in tubing's favor: it costs less than skiing and has zero learning curve. Even for a skiing family like us, sometimes it's nice to leave the skis and boots and poles at home (not the helmets, even though they aren't required) and hit the slopes sans all the stuff.

Luging with Kids: The Skyline Luge at Calgary's Winsport Olympic Park

Okay, so it's not hiking or some other "outdoor" activity, but the Skyline Luge at Calgary's Winsport Olympic Park is too much fun not to write about. And as a writer, I have to give credit where it's due. The tagline "Once is Never Enough" is absolutely true.

Calling the Skyline Luge a "luge" is a bit of a stretch, though. Starting at the top of the ski hill, you race a speedy little gravity-powered go-kart type of thing down a 1.8 km concrete path that winds down to the base of the chairlift, losing 120 m of elevation in the process. And fun it is. You're low to the ground, the curves are tight and passing has all the thrills I imagine a driver in F1 experiences. Best of all, it's something the whole family can do together. Kids 6 years who are 110 cm tall or over can ride by themselves. Younger and smaller kids have to ride with an adult.

Michael is 8 and Mack is 13, so we were all able to drive our own luges. In total we did three runs and, not surprisingly, the boys beat me every time but once. I guess my inner child isn't much of a speed demon.

www.skylineluge.com/luge-canada/skyline-luge-calgary/

Canoeing with Kids: Getting them Started on a Lifelong Adventure

Canoeing is a natural family activity. It brings parents and kids together as a cohesive team in a way that most other outdoor activities don't. And it's fun. Way fun. If you'd like to get your kids and family out canoeing this summer, please read the article Canoe Camping with Kids that I wrote for Amelia Meyer's blog, Tales of a Mountain Momma. While you're there, be sure to check out her other great posts on getting your kids, your family and yourself outside where you all belong.

Youth bodsleigh test athlete narrowly averts calamity in demonstration run

Unless you're part of the extreme sport community, you probably aren't aware of the risks athletes take in the development of new sports. On a recent demonstration of one of our newest sports at Lake Louise ski resort, a videographer from the Big Grey Rocks New Sport Development Lab (B5L) caught test athlete Mack brush with disaster when he had a gear malfunction. However, thanks to Mack's training, skill and quick thinking, he walked away from the incident unharmed.

Tubing with Kids at Lake Louise: Spin Yourself Silly at the New Lake Louise Tube Park (with video)

There's something very basic about sliding and spinning down a hill on an inflated rubber tube. It taps into the fun center of your brain regardless of your age. No skill is necessary, the required gear is minimal and anyone with a sense of adventure can do it.

We'd been to the tube park at the Norquay ski hill in Banff and had a blast, so when my 8- and 13-year-old boys had a day off school last week we decided to give the tube park at the Lake Louise ski hill a try.

Walking up was faster than taking the magic carpet

A much larger resort than Norquay, the boys were immediately impressed by Lake Louise's relatively sprawling lodge. The last time I was at Louise I parked at the ski out and snowshoed through the resort to Boulder Pass behind it. Before that, I'd skied the same trail to the historic Skoki Lodge, a backcountry destination that dates back to the 1931. But I haven't been skiing there for years. So I was probably just as impressed by the newer, much larger log complex that now serves as the main lodge. The boys and I all agree that our next ski trip should be to Louise.

After a bit of exploring, we found the ticket office, bought our passes and were off. Upon getting our tubes from the attendant at the base of the tube runs, the first thing we noticed was that the tube run was shorter and not quite as steep as Norquay's. This was confirmed on the run down, which was somewhat slower than what we'd experienced at Norquay. But what the Louise tube park lacked in speed it more than made up for with the noticeable absence of lines. For the first hour we were the only people on tubes. Determined to pack in as many runs as possible, 8-year-old Michael quickly figured out that it was faster to walk up the hill than to take the magic carpet.

What the hill lacked in speed was also made up for by the spins. At Norquay, the attendants only let us go down in ones and twos. At Louise, we went down in chains of three, experimenting with new combinations to see which produced the best spin. By the time the next group of tubers joined us, we'd settled on Michael (the lightest) on one end, me (the heaviest) on the other, and Mack in the middle. This was definitely the optimum configuration, sending us down the track in wide, swooping arcs that bounced us off the sides and accelerated when I was on the outside of the spin.

How many runs we tubed I have no idea, but by the time we left I'd gotten my exercise for the day. Pulling a tube up a hill over and over again is a great workout. I also filled my spin quota. You know you're getting old when the even the thought of one more twirling run makes you queasy. But for the boys, the extreme spinning was at least as good as the higher speeds at Norquay. Walking back to the lodge at the end of the day, Michael announced, "I'll probably get a job here when I'm older. It looks like those guys were having a lot fun spinning us."

For more information on tubing in Banff, check out this post:

Tubing with Kids at Mt. Norquay: You don't have to ski to have fun at this ski hill

Two satisfied tubers

Skiing with Kids: Why wait until you're on the hill when you can squeeze in a quick run in the parking lot? (video)

The coaches and athletes at the Big Grey Rocks New Sport Development Lab (B5Lab, or Big Lab as people in the industry call it) have been busy. We're still waiting for word from the IOC and FIBT on the status of bodsleigh for Sochi in 2014, and we're targeting the X Games with extreme parking lot skiing. Watch for it in Aspen in 2014.

Tubing with Kids at Mt. Norquay: You don't have to ski to have fun at this ski hill

Do you miss the good old days when all you needed to have fun was an old inner tube and a snowy hill? Tired of all the newfangled toboggans and sleds that cost a small fortune?

Snow tubing parks are popping up at ski hills everywhere. True, they use tubes specially manufactured for the purpose instead of recycled tire tubes, but they slide just as well. An added bonus is they usually have a rope tow of some kind to haul the tubes back up the hill, so you don't have to pull them yourselves. And the runs are separated from the people walking up, so you don't have to worry about your kids being bowled over by an out-of-control Krazy Karpeter.

So we decided to leave the skis at home and give the tube park at Mt. Norquay a try. Located at the bottom of the double-black diamond North American run, the tube park didn't look too daunting from the bottom. But after climbing up to the top and looking down, the intimidation factor set in. The North American is so named because it was once the steepest ski run in North America. When you're standing on it, you can reach out and touch the hill. Back in the day, before Norquay expanded and it consisted of a few black diamond runs (there was no such thing as double black yet; yes, I'm that old) and a couple greens, I got my 35,000er pin by completing 27 runs in one day down its quad killing moguls. Now, standing at its least steep section, I could feel the burn in my thighs and ache in my knees return. There was no mistaking the feeling: I was more than a little apprehensive at the thought of speeding down the carefully groomed run in an inflatable device. I hadn't felt that way at a ski hill in years, and it was exhilarating.

Our youngest son Michael (8) shared my apprehension, so on the first run we went together, holding onto each others' tubes until we came to a stop on the burlap covered run-out on the bottom. After experiencing the speed rush of that first run, he was ready, willing and able to go solo. Mack (12) needed no parental guidance. He was ready to go it alone right from the start and even asked the attendant to give him a spin. I was also ready to brave the hill on my own, and we spent the rest of our two-hour pass alternating between solo and tandem runs. On your own, the speed and cold air racing past your face was a blast. But tandem, the weight difference between the boys and myself turned a little nudge from the attendant into a wild, lopsided spin that bounced us off the sides of the runs. To say it was fun would be an understatement.

At the end of two hours, my quads were indeed a little tired from trudging up the hill over and over. The boys had gotten a good workout too, something I hadn't expected when we set off for our tubing adventure. But it makes sense. Walking up a hill, whether you're hauling your own tube or it's being pulled up for you, is great exercise. And how else could you convince kids to do a hill workout?

Taking a well-earned rest on a snow sofa at the end of the day.