On Saturday, I went and climbed up to the summit of Mount Allan. This is the Centennial ridge hike - and you can take this as a one way trip from Kananaskis Village right into Canmore. I went with Charlie and Brad, and we went from the K-village to the summit, then back down, thus avoiding the complication of getting back from Canmore to K-village. It’s easy to get to the trail head - you just park at the trail head for Ribbon lake, and follow the signs. Where Locals Hike has an excellent writeup about the hike.

This is a fantastic hike. The vistas from the summit are … stunning. It’s like you can look down on all of the Rockies.

Let me explain about this hill, though. This is a big hill. One might go so far as to call this a Mountain. What you’re going to do here is go on a long hike, and by the end of it, you’ll have gone 14Kms and gone up and down 1400m. For those of you who aren’t as gifted with Math Skillz, that would be 1400m in 7Km, or about a 20% constant grade.

But that wasn’t quite enough of a challenge. So, we decided to do this hike on one of the hottest days of the year … you know, just to make it interesting. We left Calgary at about 6:30am and got back around 6:30pm. That was about 5 hours to get to the summit, 1.5 hours or so at the summit, and then 3 hours back down.

The hike was fantastic. You start out in some trees, and very quickly make your way out into some grass and start an ascent. You can see a peak that you’re working towards, but unfortunately, that’s not Mt. Allan. In fact, that’s just a peak on the way to Mt. Olympus, which is a peak on the way to Mt. Allan. Point being - take your time; enjoy the climb. It’s a nice trail and there are lots of switchbacks to ease the pain. It’s very steep, though, so bring poles to ease the shock on your knees. Oh, and unless it’s like 30 degrees, you’ll want a jacket for the top - it’s cold and windy on mountain tops.

I recommend taking a lot of water. I bought a 2L MSR bladder for this trip, and I highly recommend picking one of these up. I know there’s a lot of iffy reviews of them, but I’ve used Eric’s on 2 Rockwall backpacks, and then used this one on this hike - they’re fantastic and worth the 30$ - espeically to just be able to take a quick sip without taking your pack off. By the summit, I had drank about 2L, and I drank another 2 on the way down, so I was really happy to have brought it with me. As most of you know, I am very hard on gear. I’ll let you know how this new addition holds up.

You don’t need crazy gear to do this hike, though - there was a guy who started after us, and he was on his way down from the summit when we reached the half way mark. Then, when we had been at the summit for about 10 minutes, he showed up again. He did the hike twice in one day! That was amazing - and he only had a tiny little water pack on his back, not much in the way of gear. Then there were the group of guys who were hiking up it with unlaced shoes and without hats. And the group of 4 others who showed up - one of which had never been hiking before, hit the summit and didn’t have any water - another hiker was nice enough to pass some along.

This trip is very extensively documented. Brad, Charlie and I all brought our SLRs, and so you can check out the range of pics (each of us with very different pictures):

Brad’s pictures are here.

Charlie’s are coming soon.

Mine are here.

This is to hikes what Rockwall is to backpacks. The vista’s are amazing, and it’s a hell of an effort to get there, but where you’re at the top, it’s some of the best views you can get. Definitely one of my favorite hikes, and I look forward to climbing it again.

Powered by ScribeFire.

It’s odd, how you can be anticipating something, looking forward to it for a long, long time - and then suddenly it happens and passes in a disproportionately short amount of time. I went to a “Harry Potter” release party last night, picked up the book, and started reading. I wasn’t in a rush to finish the book - it seems to me that rushing something that you wait a long time for is a bad idea. I just … read. I had all weekend, and I figured I’d finish it at some point.

And so it’s with a bit of a shock that I write that I’ve finished the 7th and last of the Harry Potter books. It was fantastic. Actually, fantastic isn’t enough. The book is by far the best I’ve read in a long, long time. It would seem to me that the first few books are really just notes preparing the reader for the real novel - the 7th one.

I’m sure everyone has things they really enjoy and even obsess a bit over. And so you’ll know what I mean when I say I was really worried that Rowling wouldn’t be able to tie up all the plot lines that she’s thrown about. I was mostly worried that the book would end and the whole thing would feel cheap. I was worried about this because of how well written I thought the other books are - I’m sure Star Wars fans can remember the final movie coming out, and having a similar concern - in many ways, the last book would either make or break the series. Just another situation showing that worrying really is a waste of time.

This book ties things together from the other 6 books. It doesn’t just throw some deus ex machina type of ending in for the series, which would be soooo easy to do. Instead, all the hand waving and vague answers are gone. Everything ties together. The answers all glue together, and in a very satisfying way. In fact, as I was reading, these explanations were coming out, and I would think to myself - of course! That makes perfect sense - why did I even doubt that it would be anything else? And, I think that’s the mark of a really good story - the ends all come together, and they’re solid.

Of course, I have no intention of flying through what happens the book and ruining it for anyone. What I really want to say here is that I highly recommend this book. If you’re a fan of Harry Potter - rejoice! - this book takes the amazing series that you know, and lifts it to another, higher, level. If you haven’t enjoyed the series, or haven’t read them, then I’d really recommend trying to get through to this one. Like many of the great series - once you’re in them, it’s very much worth the time and effort.

My thanks go to JK Rowling for sharing her wonderful stories. It can’t be easy trying to share something with the public - with all the attention from the media, expectations from the fans, and pressures that come with success - not that I would have any clue about that. I think she’s done an excellent job and I’m very grateful for being able to read the books. I look forward to having some great chats about it over the coming weeks and months.

This is a very good month for anyone who enjoys Harry Potter. With the book coming out this very night, I went to see the 5th Harry Potter movie, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I think this movie was a good adaptation from the book, and give it a solid 4/5 rating.

I was really looking forward to this movie - it’s my favorite book. The 4th movie did a good job of hitting the major points of the book, but the 5th book was considerably more complex, and I worried that the movie would just be disjointed and confusing. Again, though, they’ve managed to take the major plot points and string them together in an impressive fashion.

I think this movie would be a bit harder to follow than the others, if you haven’t read the books. While the movie does string all the plot lines together, it’s very quick, and at the end, it left me feeling like I got off a roller coaster ride. At first, I really didn’t like how they portrayed Loona Lovegood, but she grew on me, and by the end of the movie, I thought she was an excellent choice. I do find Hermione’s character to be a bit more forceful in the movies than in the books - but maybe that’s just me.

I suppose I can’t get into too many of the details, as I don’t want to ruin the book or movie for anyone.  I suppose what’s most important is that they haven’t yet done what so many sequels do - and screw up.

The film is entertaining and fast paced, and very much worth seeing if you liked the last few at all. It’s darker than any of the other films, and in this book we start to understand the world that we were introduced to in the Philosopher’s stone.

And now we’re ready for the last Harry Potter book! I am very excited for it, as I’m obviously a bit fan of the series. But so are lots of people, and as this is the last book in the series, we truly are on the eve of an historic event. It’s hard to see how the books will end - there are some very big questions that Rowling has yet to answer. I look forward to finishing this most excellent journey.

I came across an interesting site that talks about the chaos we all face in the world today. Everyone has their own take on what’s wrong and what needs to be done to fix it. This is certainly an interesting site to read. An excerpt:

“Our world has entered a state of chaos. This earth can no longer support our present habits. She no longer has the resources to supply enough oil, wood or water to sustain all of us living on this planet. ”

For more, check this out.

You must CLICK HERE!

This is a fantastic video of a magician playing with lasers - he even hangs up his shirt on the laser beam!  You can download the vid if you feel like it.

This is an amazing video (albeit a bit long at 50 minutes) about a guy in England who can do some stunning mathematical calculations in a very different way.  You don’t have to watch the vid, it’s enough just to listen to it in the background.

Lastly - road trips are great fun.  I love jumping in the car and driving around the country for a week or two.  Google maps are very valuable when I’m doing these trips, but they’ve made it even better.  When they suggest some routes, just drag the suggested line around on the map to include points of interest.  Watch this vid for more info - it sure looks like a great help!