Mountain Therapy Escape February 14, 2022

Skating on Lake Minnewanka  💗  Hiking around Cascade Ponds

Lunch at Two Jack Lake 💗 all in Banff National Park

My last Mountain Therapy Escape starting on January 24th was such a success in so many ways, I signed up for another one!  The weather forecast was not going to be the most favourable for all sports but it was good enough for many of the things included on my "todo-tosee" list.  For this Escape, my home away from home was located in Lake Louise Village so stopping off in the Banff area along the way was an ideal thing to do.

When I was at Lake Minnewanka on January 24th, the Lake was covered in snow so skating was not an option.  You never know from day to day what the conditions will be like there, so this time once again I brought my skates with hopes of being able to blade away.  I also brought my Calgary Flames jersey in case there were some people I could shoot the puck with.  I was ecstatic to see the Lake was windblown down to ice in many long stretches further out.  With skates in hand, I donned my spikes and worked my way out over the frozen lake to where there was a wide open space to skate.  I laid out my towel, settled down to change into my skates and then skated until my heart was content!  

There were four others skating but they were further out, quite a bit further out, with no hockey sticks or pucks in sight.  After capturing my jersey shot, I removed it and then skated circles, straight lines, over here, out there and back again, then did it all over again and again and again. 

This was the perfect way for me to celebrate Valentine's Day and my love for skating!

I needed only a few more kilometres of skating to reach the finish line of my Marathon to Athens Virtual Challenge.  Using the conversion factor, the kilometres I needed equated to 42 minutes of skating, I skated for 45 minutes.  With this challenge now complete, going forward I will add my skating kilometres to my Conquer 2022 Challenge.

After my skating session, I aimed for Two Jack Lake for a lunch break.  I found the National Park red chairs and settled in for snacks and tea. With this much snow, it's not the easiest task to get down in the sitting position but once there, the comfort level is up there!  

playing with ice along the shore of Two Jack Lake

With time on my side before heading to Lake Louise, I stopped at the Cascade Ponds to hike around the Ponds and along the trails leading away from the Ponds.  I debated whether to skate here but opted out for safety reasons.  The Ponds were windblown down to sheer ice, with the ice being on the thin side.

It's been warm here with still more warm weather forecasted.  

Warm weather equals wonderful reflections! 

view from further along the Pond

Close to two hours was enough time to see all I wanted to see at The Ponds area and that brought me to the right time for hitting the highway west to check into my home away from home for a few nights.