With thirteen months until we head to Saint Jean Pied de Port in France where we will begin to walk the Camino Francés, Maureen and I are taking advantage our our travels in Canada to get our bodies ready for the 800 kilometre long walk through north-western Spain to Santiago del Compostela. We had stopped in Dead Man’s Flats near Canmore, Alberta for our first walk of the day, a short walk of about two kilometres simply because we stopped to fill the car with gas. Our plan was to go to as far as Golden, BC for this first day of our July holiday. We stopped again at the Redgrave rest area where we soon discovered a trail that we decided to follow. The trail zig-zagged down a forested mountain passing flowers, streams and even a rustic cabin set off the trail. We followed the trail for six kilometres. With our impromptu hike done, we then continued on to Golden where we booked into a hotel.
With a few hours of sunshine left in the day, we decided to hike the trails next to the river and then through the forest in order to work up an appetite and to stretch our legs from the long day of driving. We easily walked another eight kilometres giving us a day’s total of sixteen kilometres.