Hoerman's House

My life day to day

Archive for the tag “hiking”

Teahouses

There are two trails that we wanted to hike while we were at Lake Louise.  We decided to hike the Lake Agnes Tea House Trail and the Plain of Six Glaciers Trail.  Both trails total 14.6 km (9.07 miles).  The trail for Lake Agnes was a relatively easy hike, while the Plain of Six Glaciers was more challenging.  Of course the going was all mostly up.  We did get to see some nifty things on the way.

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This gray jay was very accommodating by sitting on a low branch and posing for our pictures.

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There were all kinds of interesting mushrooms along the way.

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We did see some folks later in the day foraging for mushrooms.  I know nothing about them except for the ones at the grocery store, so I just take their picture.

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This is Lake Agnes.  The Lake Agnes Teahouse offers up quite a selection of teas, and I witnessed an employee getting water with a teapot straight out of the lake, which I found interesting yet disturbing.  We didn’t take any pictures of the teahouse as there was quite the throng of tourists and we just wanted to get moving on to the next teahouse on the Plain of Six Glaciers Trail.

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We discovered a “fairy house” on the Plain of Six Glaciers Trail.  Not sure if the mushroom grew upward with the pine cone on top of it, or if there was human intervention.  Either way, it was very picture worthy.

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The further along the trail we went the higher and higher we got.

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The higher and higher we got, the less air there seemed to be.  Glen is a good man though, he periodically turns to make sure I am still trudging along.  I get there, just a lot slower than others.  This is me, trying to suck in air.

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We did finally make it to the teahouse, and we were both starving.  We managed to find a table and had a wonderful lunch of homemade vegetable soup, sandwich and chocolate cake.  No pictures of the food, it was consumed too fast 🙂

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This tree, complete with a raven, was next to the patio where we were sitting enjoying our lunch.  He was keeping a sharp eye out for any food that got left behind.

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Lastly, is a panoramic picture at the teahouse.  In the middle of the shot are the glaciers on top of the mountain.  It was a very rewarding view after a long hike up.  Of course, we still had to go all the way back down.

Lake Louise

On Sunday we went to Lake Louise in Banff National Park.  It really was gorgeous!

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There were a ton of tourists there even though the weather was on the verge of being ugly.  It rained ninety percent of the day.

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This is the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise.  Looks very grand doesn’t it?

Hiking Mount Sulphur

On our first full day we decided to head to the town of Banff and hike up Mount Sulphur then ride the gondola down.

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We had only made it about a third of the way up at this point and I was still doing ok.

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Still only about a third of the way up and we were being rewarded with fantastic views.

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At about the halfway mark we could see the town of Banff.

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Great shot of the gondola…if you can see it through the smokey haze.

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We had stopped so I could make every attempt to catch my breath when some friendly people offered to take our picture.  I look happy, but inside I was dying like a fish out of water.  The higher we went the more I struggled to breath.

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The view from the top of Mount Sulphur.  I wish it was clearer, but the smoke from the wildfires in Washington made it so hard to see any views.

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Our view from inside the gondola riding down the mountain.  Going down was certainly a LOT easier than going up 🙂

First Long Walk of the Season

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Chewed Tree

Evidence that beavers have been in the area.

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It was exciting seeing that beavers have been thriving at Knob Noster State Park, but I would have been beyond excited to actually see a beaver in the wild.

Wasps Nest

When we were out hiking at Knob Noster State Park we came across an old wasp nest laying on the ground.  This is a paper wasp nest, which is characterized by open combs for brood rearing.

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Deer Tracks

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Found this perfect deer track in the mud.  It is the print of a doe.  We looked all over to see if we could find those of a buck for comparison.  No luck.

Hen of the Woods

Also known as Maitake mushroom, grifola fondosa, sheep’s head or ram’s head.  It is an edible mushroom, that I hear is quite tasty.  I would love to try it sometime.   They grow at the base of oak trees or stumps and are a pore fungus (polypore) and lack gills.

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Puffball Mushroom

I believe this is a puffball, but I am not sure what kind exactly.  Being in a state park we weren’t able to pick the mushroom to investigate it further, and I can’t find anything that looks like it on Missouri Department of conservation website.

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Acorn

While Glen and I were at Knob Noster State Park hiking the trails we saw lots of neat things.  There were a lot of oak trees that have dropped a lot of acorns.  This one particular acorn caught our eye.  It was cracked open so we could see the nut inside, which was reddish in color.  I have never seen an acorn with red meat and I am not able to find anywhere on the “all knowing internet” as to why it would be red.  We did get a lot of rain last week and maybe it had been soaking in some muddy water and the tannins in the nut made it turn red…..that is my best guess.

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