Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Introduction

My mom has called me “Grace” for as long as I can remember, and no, it’s not one of those nice nicknames. It’s one of the ironic ones. Despite taking dance classes since I was four years old, I still have more than my fair share of episodes of clumsiness and have always been more of a, shall we say, ‘bookish’ person than a natural athlete.

Which, I think you’ll agree, makes me an unlikely candidate to have been the founder of the wildly successful and popular Calgary Outdoor Club, which is now entering its sixth year with more than 4,000 members, over 100 volunteers, and averaging more than 150 events per month.

In the early 2000s, I had been lightly involved in the Atlanta Outdoor Club, which was started by a friend of mine, but truthfully, my main involvement was in programming their web site. I rarely participated in the activities up until just before I returned to Calgary after my brief time in Atlanta. As I settled back in to life in Calgary I realized that I missed the AOC, specifically some of the friends I’d made, and missed having an active social circle. I tried to find a club in Calgary that would fill that need in my life, but after a year and a half of searching (and complaining about not finding one), I finally bit the bullet and posted a new website for a “Calgary Outdoor Club” (a knock-off, of course, of the Atlanta club web site). Then I pressured a few of my friends to join my new club-of-one and posted a couple of easy events.

Hiking, though, never occurred to me. I was more interested in rollerblading, river tubing (which I’d enjoyed in Atlanta), and going to Race City Speedway (you can take the girl out of Red Deer, but you can’t take the Red Deer out of the girl). I was so naïve about the outdoor scene in Calgary that I had no idea that hiking was actually a ‘big thing’ here. The mountains were something I enjoyed, but like too many Calgarians, I enjoyed them through my windshield on my way to work or Vancouver. It was my friend, Bridget, who suggested offering a hike as an activity, and rather than risk being a stick-in-the-mud, I thought OK, I’ll try a hike.

I had no idea what a kilometre was or how many of them you could reasonably walk in an hour or a day. Was an eight-kilometre hike really challenging, or was it a sissy stroll? It sounded pretty hardcore to me.

My first hikes with the COC could be described as gong-show, what-not-to-do examples. The very first one, which included simply Bridget and I, was a May trip to Jumpingpound Loop west of Calgary in the Sibbald Flats area, with melting, boggy spring terrain and stream crossings for which we were ill-prepared. Does a hike with just you and your friend even constitute a club event? I don’t think so either, but there it is, still proudly standing on our May 2003 calendar.

The second club hike, to Grotto Canyon near Canmore, included another of my pre-club friends and (how exciting) another person who was one of the first legitimate club members. It turns out Grotto Canyon is not hikeable in spring. The trickling stream of summer was a raging torrent and as we tried, unsuccessfully, to find a passable route, I wondered why it had been recommended as an ‘easy’ hike.

The third hike, to a place called Fir Creek Point south of Black Diamond, rather than being an actual hike was more of a ‘wander’ -- up and down the parking lot, glancing wistfully across the raging river at the hiking trail on the other side and wondering how we were supposed to get over there. Finally we gave up and went to the bakery for coffee and Nanaimo bars in nearby Black Diamond instead.

Things slowly got better for me (and consequently, the COC) with hiking, but thank goodness we started getting a few more – ahem -- knowledgeable people to start coordinating some hikes. Not that the COC is a ‘hiking’ club. Thanks to the great volunteers we’ve accumulated, the club also offers scrambles, backpacking, mountain biking, canoeing, kayaking, rollerblading, snowshoeing, cross-country skiing… the list just goes on. But hiking is a COC staple, and amazingly it has become a passion for me as I go stumbling around the Rockies.

1 comment:

  1. i'm thrilled that you were courageous enough to cross that soggy springtime jumpingpound loop and so happy that hiking is now part of your lifestyle!

    ReplyDelete

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