Canmore home away from home

January 16th, 2012 |

It’s becoming a tradition in our family that sometime after Christmas we grab our skis and snowshoes and head into the back-country for a couple of days to relax, unwind and enjoy a winter camping experience with a few other local families in one of the Alpine Club of Canada’s back country huts. Last year we chose a fairly easy trip and stayed at Wheeler Hut for a couple of nights last March. This year we decided to kick it up a notch and see how the kids would handle a 12km ski up over a mountain pass and into a hut. On January 9th my two boys and myself stuffed a back pack each full of clothes, food and sleeping bags and headed from Canmore to the Lower Kananaskis Lakes to start our trip into Elk Lake cabins with four other Canmore families. My wife decided that she’d let the boys and myself go by ourselves this year (I think she just wanted to spend some time by herself after a busy Christmas at home with the three of us).

Thankfully the temperature the week of January 9th in Canmore was mild so the 5 hour ski in was an absolute joy. From the lower Kananaskis Lakes you head up hill and up Elk Pass for about 7km. It’s a fairly gentle slope with a few steeper grades for almost 7kms straight out of the parking lot until you reach the top of Elk Pass. Once you hit the top of Elk Pass it’s a 4.2km ski down to the hut.

The hut itself becomes our home away from Canmore for two nights, as soon as we arrive we have to make sure we chop enough firewood to keep the hut warm and find the closest water hole and start boiling water for drinking, cooking and washing the dishes. Elk Lake Cabin is maintained by the Alpine Club of Canada and is stocked with all the pots, pans and dishes dishes for your stay. It also has a wood burning stove to heat the cabin and a propane stove for cooking. Elk lake cabin was renovated this Summer and now sleeps upto 16 people and we made great use of the space – Our party put this to the test with ten kids all aged between 6 and 12 and six adults (ages withheld!)

The greatest part, I find, about these trips is the way the kids adapt so quickly to their new environment. There are no ipods, no tvs, no video games and no electronics of any sort. All the kids have to occupy their days are their skis, toboggans, winter coats and snow pants and a few packs of cards. No sooner than we arrived – it took us 5 hours to ski in the 12kms to the hut, the kids were outside again building toboggan runs, building snow caves and having snowball fights. Once it was dark outside and dinner had been cleaned up they were hanging out and playing cards for hours with each other, teaching each other new games and chatting away like they were long lost friends that haven’t seen each other in years.

Canmore is great town to live in or spend time in and get away from the City, but when you want to get away from Canmore for a couple of days and give your kids a wonderful winter experience a weekend in a back country is a great option. The Elk Lake Cabin is a work-out to get in to, and out of, and I wouldn’t recommend it for the first hut you take the kids to, especially if the kids are 7 or younger. If your kids are up for a challenge though – or you want to show them a true back country winter experience I would (and my kids would too) highly recommend giving it a go. The memories we have from our past two experiences will stay with us for a long long time and also motivate us to keep the tradition going.