Grandview Chalet Bed & Breakfast

01/28/2024

08/16/2021

Grandview Chalet has re-opened until the end of August 2021. Hopefully we will be fully open June 2022 for fully vaccinated guests.

10/09/2017

Carol and I did a hike on a beautiful October day up Mt Allan via the South Centennial Trail. To see more photos, check out:
https://www.grandviewchalet.com/blog/2017/10/9/south-centennial-trail-to-mt-allan

There is also a post there on Lake O'Hara, which was at it's fall prime.

09/06/2017

Sept 4/17 Kananaskis Country:

Once again, we rode the High Rockies Trail from Blackshale Creek(?) to Headwall Creek (3rd time for some of us). Blackshale is at the dam that holds back Lower Kananaskis Lake, and Headwall Creek is about 3km south of Chester Lake. The route is about 16.4 km, with plenty of fun ups and downs to tire out most ordinary humans. Then back to the car.

Officially, the trail was opened last week upon completion of the suspension bridge that is along the way. The first two visits required plummeting down to the Smith Dorrien road and back up in a tiring sort of way. Now, as the picture shows, there is a lovely short cut designed by a brilliant engineer.

Where there is singletrack, the trail is excelllent! Lots of jumps and banked corners. Sometimes, however, the route uses the old logging roads - and that's OK. They can be tough uphills, and wicked downhills. Lots of bear s**t, so make noise!

Only portion left to ride is the Buller to Headwall section. Stay tuned.

07/24/2017

Akamina Ridge, Waterton
Did this fabulous hike a few days ago. Highly recommended! One of the amazing sights was the bear grass flowers, which reach over a meter in height, and extend high into the alpine. The ridge hike itself is 22 km, with over 900m of vertical, and an ultimate eleavation of 2565m. You can see a long ways into Montana's Glacier NP, as well as Waterton and Akamina Provincial Park. Outstanding!

07/18/2017

Last evening, we rode the High Rockies Trail from Goat Creek to Driftwood in smoky skies and cool temps. Although much of it uses an old double track road, it's fun, easy and has some alternative views of Goat Pond, the Spray Reservoir, and various peaks like the Big Sister. The smoke from various BC wildfires gave everything an orange glow in the evening light. We saw a busy, large osprey nest near one of the ponds, with one of the adults bringing home some nice fish.

After finishing our ride, we also got to watch a very brave rescurer getting long-lined under a helicopter up to one of the EEOR climbing cliffs. Not sure of what happened there as yet...

06/12/2017

A beautiful road bike road up and over Highwood Pass to Mist Creek yesterday - and back! More at:
https://www.grandviewchalet.com/blog/

04/07/2017

Duane's winter passion...back country alpine ski touring. And this day was truly epic and blue bird fabulous! (And within a 1 hour drive from Grandview Chalet ...happy bonus😉)

04/05/2017

Bluebird skies April 4, 2017 - nice day to alpine tour the French-Haig-Robertson loop in Kananaskis Country south of Canmore. About 24.5 km, and 1400m (4600') of climbing. Some wind, cool temps, lots of sun, and a totally stable snowpack. We left the parking lot at 11 AM. Conditions were fast, and Robin and I were able to ski it in 6 hours. We caught and passed one group down the Robertson Glacier who had made nice kicksteps for us up the steep col, which is the highest elevation (2,868m, or 9411 ft). The ski down the glacier was nice, fast, and a blast! A classic tour!

03/22/2017

We toured Black Prince today - rain line from Saturday was halfway up. We had the place to ourselves, and encountered nice snow above that point. A big crown was visible above the "cone", so we knew the evil above us was already settled. The crown went right across the base of the limestone cliffs, and the avalanche flooded the big gully lookers left ( we think it went the other way too, but couldn't see it). We ripped the skins off at the last trees and had nice turns for 200-300m before entering the nasty zone.

Having nothing better to do, we skied over to the gully at that point, knowing it had all come down. And did it ever! The gully was filled with debris, and it had actually spilled out the gully, leveling and bending over trees. Three quarters the way down, large trees still had packed snow and stripped branches five meters up above the debris. The Avalanche, like others in view, went to the bottom with a fair bit of lumber. In some respects, that settles things down for a while.

By the way, the Smith Dorrien road was really bad on the way back to Canmore. Spring breakup in effect. Rocks all over the road, with running water, all the way down the hill into Canmore. A car wash was in order.

Another adventure in the mountains! Wait for beaucoup new snow after it cools down again.

03/07/2017

The attached video shows some avalanche control that was video'd from the deck of Grandview Chalet B&B. Loud booms, and some snow action off of the East End of Rundle here in Canmore, AB.

https://youtu.be/h_ksNI5dwIk

Video of avalanche control above the Spray Lakes Road on the East End of Rundle (EEOR). Shot from Grandview Chalet B&B in Canmore, Alberta, March 6 2017.

01/10/2017

Hit Louise today. -19C into the parking lot, with 10cm new backside, and still snowing through the morning. Excellent first run down UpShoot. Then the pro-patrol was opening the gate for ER7 just as I got to the top of the 6 Pack the second time. Glided past a couple of snowboarders when they stopped to do their bindings up, and made first tracks off the cornice. Then several runs on East Bowl that were excellent with some visability.

By 1 PM, the sun started coming out, so started doing loops on the Whitehorn Chutes (awesome). Finished the day with two runs on Outer Limits, shifting to lower West Bowl halfway down. Never stopped for lunch, so my legs were toast at 3 PM. Best day of the year! And hardly anybody there - wind sift filled tracks if it wasn't snowing. It was -17C at day's end. The west winds that happened today will certainly impact backcountry alpine ventures in places.