Hiking with Mieka

Today Jeremy and I hiked our hardest hike so far. It was 4.2 km one way and were were hiking for a view of Minnewanka Lake and some mine shafts from my favourite abandoned town Bankhead. The hike was to the C Level cirque. We started hiking early and got to the building and coal shafts, which were really just ventilation shafts but still cool nonetheless and the trail became very muddy/icy and it didn't really look like it was well travelled we were starting to enter a very thick and dark forest. We hadn't seen anyone the whole time we climbed and I was starting to feel very uncomfortable. We were in the boonies and I was a bit scared. Jeremy and I have encountered a bear on one of our hikes a couple years ago, we turned a bend and there was a bear sitting right in the middle of the trail. It didn't see us and I stopped Jeremy and we had to go back down the hill. Anyways Jeremy and I decided to call it quits and headed back down the hill. On the way down we encountered two people and their 7 month old baby Mieka. Jeremy and I really did want to reach the end but after seeing people with us on the trail I felt at ease and I asked them if we could hike up together because I was feeling really uncomfortable. They agreed and we hiked for 2 hours up the side of the mountain to get the panoramic view of the mountain range. They had told us they were discussing quitting them selves and were going to turn back until they ran into us, so we both helped each other reach the end. Their little baby smiled and squawked away the whole time and even slept for a little while (I was jealous) She was the best baby we could ever hike with.




The view at the top was quite breathtaking. One direction were the mountain ranges and the other was a cirque with remnants of an old glacier. It took us about 5 hours and needless to say we are in a lot of pain now, but it was worth it. Here are our pictures from today: