Hikes

Last Sunday we honoured Stan Skirrow with a late afternoon hike and celebration. For those of you who didn’t know Stan, he was the member with the vision and dedication that really got the Waskahegan Trail going. When Stan passed away last December, we decided pretty quickly that we would do something special around Stan’s Bench on the Mix-Cloverlawn section of trail early in the summer hiking season.

We picked the Sunday closest to Summer Solstice and invited the Skirrow family to participate.

We climbed up the hill to the narrow ridge and crowded around Stan’s Bench for a toast and sharing of stories.

From there we walked over to the landowners’ beautifully-landscaped lawn for conversation and home-baked refreshments. The landowners had known Stan for 30 years and have been generous friends of the trail.

After the group photo, 28 people joined in for the hike, including five members of the Skirrow family. The Skirrow sons remember working with their dad building shelters on the trail.

The hike was a short one—only 5 km—but that allowed us more time than usual to linger and visit in the late day sun.

Thanks go to Oscar for leading hike, to the trail maintenance work party who got it into shape, and to the landowners whose generosity made this event even more special.

You can find all the pictures on Flickr.

The Kopp Lake trail starts with a long section of lush woodland that now belongs to the University of Alberta, thanks to a generous donation of private land.

It was our first “Smell the Roses” hike of the year—aptly named for this hike because the wild roses are in full bloom and the warm humid air in the woods is redolent with the scent.

Fifteen people came out, with mosquito nets, bug spray and nature identification books and followed along as botany expert Jerry pointed out the specimens of almost 40 different species of flora.

As we got closer to the lake, we heard many uncommon bird calls, including the yellow-headed blackbird and the rarely-seen rail. In the field we managed to catch and identify a Common Alpine butterfly.

Perhaps the most spectacular specimen of all was the beaver carcass. Mostly picked-over, it was easy to examine the large yellow-orange front teeth and the rows of molars at the back of the jaw.

Thanks to John for leading the hike and the whole trail maintenance crew for their mowing and clipping. You can see all the photos on Flickr.