BY LORNE ECKERSLEY
Advance staff
The headline for this piece is a lesson I learned many years ago, so many that I have forgotten the source. But it is nice to know that the lesson is being acknowledged locally.
After many frustrating months waiting for, and then recovering from, surgery I have now returned to hiking, my favourite outdoor activity, and walking. It is my fitness program and I have missed it.
Two weeks ago we made a plan to hike on Goat Mountain on Saturday morning, and it was a joy. So good to get back into the boots, clip on the bear spray and head up the mountain to the chirping of birds, rush of spring water streams and scent of pine and fir.
I’m back, I thought. Then on the following Thursday evening I experienced some sharp pains and forewent another planned hike for the following morning. Fortunately, a friend stopped by the office that same morning and asked how I was doing, recovery-wise. He had the same surgery a few years back and has been an excellent source of information based on his experience. I told him about the stabbing pain and his smiling response was, “Get used to it, it’s part of the healing!”
I took the advice and last Saturday we once again were on our way up the mountain by 7 a.m. I surprised myself that, given my poor conditioning, I was able to navigate the 4+ km zig-zagging path that makes a nearly 600 metre vertical ascent to Foster Road (which starts in Lakeview). As we started a 3 km walk westward along Foster Road to our return path I found myself thinking, “I could do this all day!”
Not quite true, I discovered once we began our descent toward home. Walking downhill takes a much greater toll on the legs, especially the knee joints and calf muscles. Still, I suggested a detour along an old logging road that would take us back to our original path and add several km to the hike. We emerged back into civilization just after the 12 km mark (I use a GPS app to track our hikes on my IPhone), and I suggested we take a circuitous route home in order to push us over the 15 km mark, which seemed like a pretty decent goal.
We circled from 20th Avenue North and ended up on Northwest Boulevard, then up Devon Street to the newly created gravel trail that connects to 16th Avenue North. I am surprised at just how thrilled I am at that little half-kilometre or so construction.
After another 15 km day on Sunday, comprising of two different walks, I still wanted more on Monday. So I left for work early and started out with the new gravel trail again, thinking about all the times I had walked on pretty much that same path, going on a narrow, sometimes nearly invisible footpath through trees and high grass. Now I especially enjoy the great views to the south that open up before the trail meets with Devon Street. I didn’t go straight to the office, choosing to extend the walk to more than 4 km by heading east on Canyon Street and then circling back. I did a similar route to go back home at lunch, adding Steve’s Ride to the walk and stretching the walk out to more than 5 km.
So the Devon-16th Avenue connector trail is perfect, because it follows the old adage of building trails where people already walk. It should become a mantra for all future development. There is another footpath, for instance, that connects McLaren Street with the 20th Avenue North right-of-way, which eventually leads up to the old bypass right of way. That connecting path goes through a field of private property that I am told might soon be developed. If that is the case, wouldn’t it be great for the Town to require that a similar path be made part of the development, giving walkers and hikers convenient access to the treasure that is Goat Mountain?
Here is one of the great joys of that particular trail, which we took to get up to Foster Road on Saturday—it connects with Foster Road only a few hundred metres west of Ladyslipper Trail, which takes hikers to the top of Goat Mountain. It’s a fairly ambitious hike, but we have done it a few times and it is extremely rewarding, especially in huckleberry season. It should become part of our community’s growing network of public trails.