Prospector pics

First ride since Saturday - always nice after work on a Friday.  With two clear days, the snow is gone from all but the peaks & the trails are pretty dry.  I threw the bike in the back of the car & went & hit the Prospector Trail after knocking off work - how great is it having sublime riding one minute's ride from work?  The nice blue skies had gone & with them my hopes of getting great photos of all the brilliant fall colours that have sprung up in the last week.

It is three weeks since Alex & I rode this little gem of a trail & this time I remembered to pack my camera to get a few pictures to go with my previous trail description.  Unfortunately as I was by myself, there aren't too many action shots.  The climb up the valley was harder than two weeks ago - my riding diary tells me I've only been on three rides in the last fortnight.  It's amazing how quickly one can feel the effects of less riding & fifty-five hour working weeks.  So I pushed a bit more than usual up some of the steepest parts of the climbs & started to look around for photo opportunities in the gloom.  Unfortunately, being by myself, there are not many (rather, no) action photos - so you'll have to imagine me riding over the features.

 Riding up beside the Exshaw Creek - that slickrock on the left is where the trail ends.

 The first of many trail features - this one has a nasty gap at the end that you can't see from here, thankfully there is a chicken route down to the right.

 This part of the trail goes along the top of a short spur & has some more nice features.

 Looking out across the Bow Valley (this is east [~15 km] of Canmore).

 Looking over Exshaw - Heart Mountain on the left, not that you can really see the heart shape - it's there - I assure you.

 Down in to the slickrock section.

 Work - for now.

This one is good fun.

Here is a little video I made by setting my camera on a conveniently placed rock.  Unfortunately, I took the file off my camera before truncating the bit of me running back up the hill to get on my bike - so skip the first half or enjoy the wind whistling past.  Sorry, I really can't be bothered going to the trouble of getting the software I need to crop it.