Lower Lake, Kananaskis
Mark your calendars for Dec. 13, 2017 at 6:30 pm! I am celebrating the end of the successful Walk 150 initiative with a 6+ km Christmas Lights Walk through Mount Royal and Elbow Park, followed by a party at the Alexander Calhoun Library! Come one, come all!
Have you walked Briar Hill and West Hillhurst in Calgary’s northwest lately? How about Hounsfield Heights, the Mount Royal of the North?
I featured the Briar Hill & Housfield Heights on my CTV Morning segment this week. This route is a wonderful mix of neighbourhoods, single track trail green space climbs with phenomenal downtown Calgary views, gardens, and the Bow River. And you’ll be pleased to know that the route travels past Amato Gelato and Dairy Lane Cafe, a wonderful little diner with outdoor patio on 19 Street, NW. Kensington Road is a perfect side-trip option if you want to do a bit of shopping, grab a book at Pages Books, or a fantastic sandwich one home-made breads, from Peppino’s on Kensington Road.
Watch my July 8 Walking Wednesday CTV Morning segment!
Join me at the Marda Loop Farmer’s Market (South Calgary Community Association) at Sat., July 11, 2015 at 9-1 pm. It is Stampede breakie day at the market- free pancakes! Check the events page for all upcoming talks and walks and signings! Or ask me to speak to your group and lead them on a walkabout!

I featured the Douglas Fir Trail and Wildwood on my CTV Morning segment today. Wanna sweat? Check it out!
Hidden amongst the most easterly stand of Douglas fir trees that tower above the Bow River is the Douglas Fir Trail. Stairs, bridges, creeks, and narrow winding paths dip and climb 60 m from the river valley to the lookout point. A fantastic trail for physical training, it is also a shaded wilderness oasis in the height of the summer. Trees, some more than 2 m in diameter, and multitudes of western Canada violets line the trail. Descend to the marsh trail along the railway and listen for the chorus of frogs. Move slowly in an attempt to sneak a peek before they stop croaking and dive for cover. At dusk, tip you head back and watch for the great horned owls on this same open flat stretch of the trail. These magnificent birds fly low over the open areas near the railway tracks when the natural light fades.
The City of Calgary has the trail closed at times as they repair the bridges that were damaged during the flood of 2013. Underground springs caused some bridges to tip and the trail to slide in places. While it is still passable, you may find the trail closed on occasion.
You can choose to navigate along the alternate route through Wildwood and observe the magnificent homes perched on the escarpment. Travel off the beaten path through green-space trails tucked behind homes to reconnect with the Douglas Fir Trail and the Bow River Pathway below.
Cross the Bow River on the pedestrian underpass under Crowchild Trail or stay on the south side pathway and follow the Bow River Pathway west. Keep your wallet ready for an ice-cream stop or a hot drink on a cold day. A few tasty eateries are en route on the north side and Angel’s Cafe is at the north side parking lot. This wonderful wild walkabout has a very civilized café ending.
Find the CTV segment here: http://ow.ly/OKfIO

We explored to Downtown Art Walk on my CTV Walking Wednesday segment today.
Check it out here: http://ow.ly/Osnlq
Engage in this public-art treasure hunt through the downtown core. Public art is always a surprise, a distraction from the business towers above you and the cars, people, and sidewalks surrounding you. Modern-day urban planners design streetscapes for the benefit of pedestrians, integrating the unexpected into the everyday built environment. The unpredictable is what makes walking in the city so enjoyable. Slow your pace and appreciate walking for walking’s sake, to simply experience the urban cityscape, alleyways, and hidden corners and surprises. Become a flâneur, which, according to the early nineteenth-century French, was a leisurely urban explorer who observed and contemplated as he or she sauntered.

For those who would like to pick up the pace and travel farther, follow the southerly route option provided that follows the people-populated streets of the Beltline, a community that is being rejuvenated with a pedestrian focus. Walk through the Memorial Park public space, grab a food truck lunch along Twelfth Avenue, and, on a blue-sky day, sit in the sunshine at one of the many outdoor tables just outside Memorial Park Library. Stroll farther south to Seventeenth Avenue, the popular walking, shopping, and dining street, or walk west along the Thirteenth Avenue greenway followed by a visit to Barb Scott Park and an intriguing public sculpture called “Chinook Arc.” It comes alive with colour at night.

The alternate loop takes you east to RiverWalk, which runs along the Bow River and hosts temporary and permanent art installations and murals. Designed to accommodate walkers and cyclists, there are two pathways, so you can relax and enjoy your chosen activity. Bring your lunch and get comfy on one of the many benches or lounge chairs. Sit back and watch the river, and the walkers and cyclists, flow by.


This week I featured a Nose Hill Park route from my book, Calgary’s Best Walks, on my Walk Wednesday segment on CTV morning. Nose Hill is Canada’s second largest urban park. The largest is Fish Creek Park, also in Calgary. It is also the highest point in the city so the views from the hill are phenomenal. Watch my segment and then grab my book to take a walk and explore the natural oasis in the heart of the city.
It was an excellent start to a Saturday morning when I opened the Calgary Herald newspaper, wait, I didn’t have to open it since I WAS ON THE FRONT PAGE! Sorry to yell, but it was a great start indeed.
Click on the photos below to read the stories on the Calgary Herald website. See you out there, walking the city!
BLOG NOTE: I post more often on the www.calgarysbestwalks.ca blog
My book, Calgary’s Best Walks, is released on March 9, 2015! Here’s a teaser video to get your pumped up about walking in Calgary. Check the books website for more information on the book, and a full list of book launch events!
With the Christmas season is upon us, things start to get a bit hectic. The malls fill up with shoppers (including you), family come from afar to stay in your guest room, you cook and bake for said family, you make lists, and look for parking at Chinook mall, and then you start to wonder WHAT exactly what is so great about the “holiday” season. I am here to tell you that a good walk is all that you need.
Turn off your texts and in fact, leave the phone behind and walk away. Keep walking until you feel alive (sane), relaxed and refreshed. And most importably, until you feel happy. It works, I do it everyday.
The Huffington Post had a great article this listed some walking quotes. Here is an excerpt.
Here are 17 eloquent literary quotes that remind us of the simple, restorative power of a good walk:
“I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.” — John Muir
“Now shall I walk or shall I ride?
‘Ride,’ Pleasure said;
‘Walk,’ Joy replied.” — W.H. Davies
“To walk is to lack a place. It is the indefinite process of being absent and in search of a proper.” — Michel de Certeau
“If I couldn’t walk fast and far, I should just explode and perish.” — Charles Dickens
“Only thoughts won by walking are valuable.” — Friedrich Nietzsche
“Walking and talking are two very great pleasures, but it is a mistake to combine them. Our own noise blots out the sounds and silences of the outdoor world; and talking leads almost inevitably to smoking, and then farewell to nature as far as one of our senses is concerned. The only friend to walk with is one… who so exactly shares your taste for each mood of the countryside that a glance, a halt, or at most a nudge, is enough to assure us that the pleasure is shared.” — C.S. Lewis
“I am alarmed when it happens that I have walked a mile into the woods bodily, without getting there in spirit.” — Henry David Thoreau
“After a day’s walk everything has twice its usual value.” — George Macauley Trevelyan
“I would walk along the quais when I had finished work or when I was trying to think something out. It was easier to think if I was walking and doing something or seeing people doing something that they understood.” — Ernest Hemingway
“I find more pleasure in wandering the fields than in musing among my silent neighbours who are insensible to everything but toiling and talking of it and that to no purpose.” — John Clare
“We ought to take outdoor walks, to refresh and raise our spirits by deep breathing in the open air.” — Seneca
“I always feel so sorry for women who don’t like to walk; they miss so much — so many rare little glimpses of life; and we women learn so little of life on the whole.” —Kate Chopin
“Thinking is generally thought of as doing nothing in a production-oriented culture, and doing nothing is hard to do. It’s best done by disguising it as doing something, and the something closest to doing nothing is walking.” — Rebecca Solnit
“Above all, do not lose your desire to walk: every day I walk myself into a state of well-being and walk away from every illness; I have walked myself into my best thoughts and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it.” — Søren Kierkegaard
“Perhaps the truth depends on a walk around a lake.” — Wallace Stevens
“Walks. The body advances, while the mind flutters around it like a bird.” — Jules Renard
“[Walking] is the perfect way of moving if you want to see into the life of things. It is the one way of freedom. If you go to a place on anything but your own feet you are taken there too fast, and miss a thousand delicate joys that were waiting for you by the wayside.” — Elizabeth von Arnim
Merry Christmas!
I hope you will join us on the snowy trails this winter! The snowshoeing and cross-country skiing is fantastic right now in the Alberta and British Columbia Rocky Mountains. The urban hikes in Calgary are great year-round. Come on out for a fresh walk and cup of coffee at unique local coffee shops in Calgary.

Check our calendar of events, the winter programs begin on January 7th. Come once or get a membership for the winter session.
Join us for a fresh, outdoor, active New Year!
Hope to see you on the trails in 2014,
– Lori




