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Beside the Mountain

I am a food blogger, certified in Holistic Nutrition. I am a mom that is passionate about taking my kids outside everyday and eating well.

09/14/2026

After spending almost a month deep in the backcountry, hiking every day and sleeping in a tent, we got home and asked the kids if they would like to go camping again this summer. They both immediately cried, “YESS!!”

We packed up all our leftover dehydrated food that I had prepped extra for hiking the GDT… because at this point in the summer, I had very little energy to do more food prep.

On the way to the lake, we finally bought our very first camping stove!! Yippee! (After 10 years of borrowing my parents’ Coleman stove or using the Jetboil, it was time to invest in something a little bigger.) 💕

We picked up some pancake batter and Creston cherries and peaches and set out on our first canoe trip as a family of five.

We keep adding one more day to our canoe trip each year. This time, we made it 8 days.

Canoeing for just 1 or 2 hours a day was so perfect after our long 10-hour hiking days on the GDT. We could’ve kept going—it was such a whimsical trip.

09/02/2026

Day 24 of 24: Mount Sarrail to Elk Lakes Trailhead

Trail time: 6 hours 50 minutes
Elevation: 336 m gain
11.1 km

To get back to our van so that we could get home, we had to hike 11 km back to Elk Lakes because there's no road that connects Elk Lakes Provincial Park to Kananaskis. I was so motivated to start early that day. I was like a horse that knew the way home.

I think I told the boys stories for three hours non-stop while I held their hands and walked. The boys would stop to pick huckleberries and raspberries.

I was so excited to go have a shower now and sleep in my bed. We stopped for lunch at Fox Lake. I had curry quinoa soup. I still wasn't tired of it. It's delicious.

This was actually one of our fastest hiking days, especially because the boys had their bikes for 1.7 km.
It was so funny to be passing all these people on the trail, knowing we had been out here for almost a month with no shower, and they were hiking in for the day. It's a weird feeling.

But it was still a three-hour drive home. When we pulled up, Koa said, "I miss hiking." Honestly, I'm so grateful that he felt that way and that he doesn't hate the outdoors after this trip. It was super special. What a trip.

The hardest part was committing to doing the trip. Once we were out there we knew where we were going. We just had to wake up in the morning and keep moving. Supporting the kids. Making sure all the needs were met, but it was simple out there - we had our food all prepped, the kids knew the routine, we just had to keep moving.

We. Did. It. 🥹

09/01/2026

Day 23 of 24: Elk Lakes Trailhead to Mount Sarrail

Trail time: 8 hours
Elevation: 296 m gain
11.1 km

The boys biked the first 1.7 km to Elk Lakes. It's stunning. We came here for the first time last year. It was special for the boys to be somewhere they'd been before. Then we followed the single track back into Alberta. I had been here once on a girls' winter trip. Once we got to the wide cross-country ski trails, it was easygoing. We held hands, and I told them stories. This was so exciting. We were so close to being done section B.

There's this one last hill at the very end. It's really, really long. You get to the top, and you get a view of lower Kananaskis Lake, which is beautiful. Then there's a long downhill and you get to the parking lot which concludes section B!!

At the bottom, there's a bear cache with a registry that we signed and also a box of food from other hikers that they didn't need. Everyone found a treat in that box - a new kind of granola bar and some coffee. I was so proud of the boys and honestly just was in awe and shock that we were done.

But we weren't done -we would camp the night and then hike 10 km back to our van tomorrow!!

We hiked the last kilometer to the campground. It was so weird to see pavement and so many people. We saw a bear 200 ft away. It makes sense that it was in the Kananaskis campground, and it was kind of a fun way to end the trip to see it at a safe distance.

08/31/2026

Day 22 of 24: Riverside to Elk Lakes Parking (along Elk River Road)

Trail time: 6 hours 20 minutes
Elevation: 193 m gain
11.7 km — bike

The hardest part for me at this point is being so dirty. I want a clean shirt. It used to be pink, and now it’s grey. I keep trying to pick the dirt out of my fingernails, but it feels like it's no use. The kids' hands are permanently grubby. I clean out Sky's toe jam every night.

I don't mind having to dig catholes to p**p in or sleeping in the tent, but I'd love to have some running water. I'm dreaming of a warm shower.

After three days of travelling down the Elk River Road (with bikes), we've made it to the trailhead for Elk Lakes. Just one 10 km day tomorrow to Kananaskis, and we did all of Section B of the GDT.

It was a tiring day, but this valley is beautiful, and these mountains are stunning. The boys were a bit sore from biking, but we made it.

Clay keeps saying to me “mama when we get home I won't be home for very long because daddy is gonna take me to climb Crowsnest Mountain” 🥹😅❤️

08/30/2026

Day 21 of 24: Weary Creek to Riverside (along Elk River Road)

Trail time: 6 hours 20 minutes
Elevation: 166 m gain
11 km — bike

For breakfast I made pancakes from my homemade Bisquick mix. We ate them with almond butter and maple syrup at a picnic table; what a luxury.

Once again, like most mornings, we started with an uphill. This time, we pushed our bikes up, and Daniel had Sky on his back in the Osprey carrier (he hiked). We could go twice the speed of hiking since we had bikes. But there were LOTS of breaks.

We had lunch by a little waterfall stream with moss. A big herd of horses passed us on the road. We made it to the next campsite by 2:30 pm (11 km). Elk River campsite, really pretty, big river behind us with another picnic table. Daniel biked back to last nights campsite to grab the van with our camping stuff.

The boys literally put up the whole tent by themselves! What a cool moment for us as parents.

We were happy to have another chill day with lots of food. I read the boys Charlotte's Web until Clay fell asleep.

08/29/2026

Day 19 of 24: Fording River Tarn to Aldridge Creek

Trail time: 10 hours
Elevation: 101 m gain, 895 m loss
11.4 km

We started excited for a 10 km downhill, but it turned into a heinous bushwhack for hours and hours.

When it let up, Daniel went ahead to make us a hot lunch and ran into a grizzly mama who charged him twice. Just wanting to give him a warning—all was okay. However, high anxiety for him and for me on the other end of the radio when he is catching his breath and telling me a bear twice bluff charged him.

I thought I would want to go back to Fording River Pass for a short backpacking trip to the beautiful pass, but that trail sucks.

Then the trail was washed out by the big creek, and so crossing large rocks in a big riverbed for 1.5 km with short kids took quite a while. It was a long day. We thought it was going to be a shorter day because it was so much going down in elevation. I think that makes it harder when you think it's gonna be a chill day and it's not at all.

We met a guy doing the exact same hike as us in 4 days, averaging 50kms a day - literally 6 times faster than us.

The highlight was all the fireweed blooming and the delicious raspberries.

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Calgary, AB
T0K0M0

Website

http://besidethemountain.com/

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