Giving Thanks: A Thanksgiving Day Run Up Mount Albert Edward
Since returning from the Transalpine Run to the low altitude and relative flatness of Victoria, Aviva and I have both been dealing with a heavy dose of mountain withdrawal. And though we’re both looking forward to making some turns this winter, this current alpine longing could only be addressed on the run. With days shortening and temperatures dropping we knew that our opportunities were running out, but nonetheless kept our eyes hopefully on calendars and the weather forecast for the mountains to our north, looking for a confluence of clear skies and days off work. This weekend we got our wish: a single day in Strathcona Provincial Park, following rain showers and preceding snow storms, when we could - we hoped - sneak in a run up the easily-accessible Mount Albert Edward. The 33km route is one I’ve hiked and run a number of times, but it would be Aviva’s first time up the 2,093 m (6,867 ft) mountain, a goal she’s had in mind for a number of years.
After an altogether too early wake-up call and a 2 1/2 hour drive up to the trail head, we spotted our objective through the trees and got started on what we hoped would be a blue-bird run up to the summit - a perfect way, we figured, to bookend an amazing summer on the trails. While the “blue-bird” didn’t quite pan out the entire day, the unexpected weather we met along the way simply made for a more memorable adventure, and one for which we were certainly very thankful.
For the rest of the story, in photos, please hit “Read More.”
Heart breaker on Flickr.
Gone Fishing on Flickr.
Nostalgic on Flickr.
2011 Transalpine-Run | Pre-Race: Final Preparations
There’s very little that’s Dickensian about spending a couple of days mostly putting your feet up in a lovely Alpine village in southern Germany, but in some ways the final couple of days before a big race have the dichotomous quality of the opening lines of Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. They’re the best of times because you know the work is done and you can relax. Or, at least, there’s no more time to do any work that will help, so you’d better relax. And your primary task, other than going for one final run with some efforts at speed to activate the legs, is to load-up your system with carbohydrates - i.e. to eat. What can be so bad about that? Well, the worst of times aspect is in the amount of time you still have. With little to do the clock slows down and, if you don’t keep yourself occupied, you run the risk of falling down the rabbit hole into your own head, getting wound up in wondering whether you are in fact ready for what’s to come. So we tried to stay active on the last couple of days before the start of the race: getting in our last run up high, reading, slacklining, “dryland luging” (as Aviva put it) and, yes, eating…in some very picturesque spots indeed. Photos of all that here.
2011-08-30 Transalpine-Run - Walmendingerhorn to Grünhorn, a set on Flickr.
Feeling a little bagged after our day on the Hindelanger Klettersteig, recognizing we were only four days out from the start of the race, but nonetheless wanting to get up high for a little more altitude adjustment, we elected to bus into Mittelberg, Austria, from Oberstorf to head up the Walmendingerhornbahn lift to get in a fairly gentle hike over to the Grünhorn (2039m - not to be confused with the larger mountain of the same name in the nearby Swiss Alps). The highlight was the dominating presence throughout the hike of the 2533m Großer Widderstein, around which we would be running in Stage 2 of the TAR.
Click the link above to view the entire photoset.
2011 Transalpine Run | Pre-Race: Hindelanger Klettersteig
On our first trip to Italy, in 2009, to hike the Alta Via 2, we were introduced to via ferrate (Italian for “road of iron”; German: klettersteig), which are according to Wikipedia: “mountain route[s] … equipped with fixed cables, stemples, ladders, and bridges. … The first via ferrate were built in the Dolomite mountain region of Italy during the First World War, to aid the movement of the Italian mountain infantry.”
Our definition is even simpler: a whole lot of fun up high. So though the focus of this trip was the Transalpine Run, we made sure to pack our helmets, harnesses and gear to take advantage of any via ferrate/klettsteigs we might come across in our travels. Conveniently, there’s one right at the end of the Nebelhornbahn above Oberstorf and we had a great day traversing this 5 km route. Atypical pre-race preparation perhaps, but what the hell.
Far End of the Route
For some inexplicable reason, Aviva loves the climbing along via ferrate (in our experience most of the folks on these routes use the metal ropes and other aids to make their way - wherever possible we try to climb in a more traditional fashion, i.e. along the rock, using the ropes simply for safety), but gets sketchy on the ladders. She’s a very happy girl to be getting off and onto solid ground here.
Looking back along the route from ~ halfway
Aerial shortcut
Matthew
I elected to travel to Europe for the Transalpine Run without my DSLR, which was the right decision - it would have been hard to keep it safe while being transported from town-to-town between stages in my duffel, etc. - but still I missed it. I also missed the process of going for a photowalk, no precise objective in mind, but heading out with the intention of creating something. Victoria is a town with stories to tell, if you have a little patience, a willingness to stop and listen, and perhaps dig underneath the surface a little. The graf on the right caught my eye early in the walk and, though I didn’t feel it stood on its own, the sentiment got me thinking. This is where those thoughts led. I’ll leave the rest of the interpretation to you.
2011 Transalpine Run | Pre-Race: Fellhorn to Hochgehrenspitze
We chose Oberstdorf as our pre-race home base not only for simplicity owing to it being the start town for the first stage of the Transalpine-Run, but also due to the easy access it provided to the alpine, perfect for we sea level dwellers to get our mountain legs underneath us. Via a number of lifts open nearly year-round, the winter or summer visitor to the area can quickly get up to 2000 metres and more. For our first outing we jumped on the Fellhornbahn to Oberstorf’s southwest, zipped up above the treeline and then went ridge running for a couple of hours, traversing the summits of the Kanzelwand (2058m), Hammerspitze (2170m) and Hochgehrenspitze (2251m), the last of these overlooking - though we didn’t know it at the time - the top of the first major climb of our race, up to the Fiderepasshütte at 2067m. It was a stellar route, made a little more entertaining knowing that the ridge we were running along marked the boundary between the countries of Germany and Austria.
