Shadow Lake Lodge

July 25, 2026

Flew out to Calgary, had the usual unpleasant dealings to get a rental car in this city, and finally hit a couple grocery stores before driving out to Canmore. Next up was a fantastic scavenger hunt that Tana set up for us to get organized for our mountain bike ride into Shadow Lake Lodge. It went something like this; Find the lockbox on the outdoor bike rack and get the keys inside. Use those to get into the parking garage and get a cart to move your gear up the elevator to my apartment. Get more keys here. Return to parking garage, find, and unlock bike. Drive to trailhead. Find my car and fetch the bike stashed inside. Bring bike locks with you. Bike ten km uphill. Lock up bikes in the woods. Hike another three km uphill. Find me. Congratulations, you made it to Shadow Lake Lodge!

We finally hit the trail on two of Tana's bikes at 17:00 mountain time. The trail was steep! Had to walk a few parts of it. Took us ninety minutes to go ten kilometers and climb about 400 meters of elevation. Sang songs and rang the bell on Katharina's steed constantly to warn the bears as we had neglegted to bring pepper spray with us. With relief we finally spied the end of the trail and a bike rack to lock the bikes up at. I suppose the bikes saved a little bit of time on the way in, but I think they will be much appreciated for the downhill coast out tomorrow.

Mountain biking in the mountains!

Busy bike parking

The following hike took another hour, still with a lot of uphill, but the trail was good. Arrived at the lodge and met a couple women eating supper by the canteen. We asked if they knew where we could find the custodian at which point they exclaimed "You must be Mike and Katharina!". Tana was located, her supping staff members were introduced, and we cooked up supper for ourselves in the custodian cabin, which consisted of a pasta concoction made up of left over food from previous guests of the lodge. This was washed down with beer from the canteen store and a lovely bottle of red that Tana produced from her stash.

No bikes past this point

A fairy along the lovely trail through the woods

Supper with a view!

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