I have often stood at the top Guinn’s Pass looking across the “bowl” wondering what lies beyond the tree line.
Running the Ribbon Creek loop has always been at the back of my mind but I’m easily distracted by new adventures and something shiny.
Recently I joined a group of runners to run this classic 32k-loop starting from the Ribbon Creek parking area. Leaving a car at the Ribbon Creek parking lot and the Galatea Creek day use area, runners have the option to run a point-to-point.
Shuttling can be a real pain so I am happy that our little group wanted to run the full loop. We left a couple cars at Galatea in case someone was having a bad day or had to get back early.
We started out as a short conga line running along the lovely single track along the Ribbon Creek trail.
About 8k in to the run we reached Ribbon Falls. Sadly no one took up my suggestion to cool off in the waterfall. Another two kilometres away we would reach a headwall that we had to climb over.
Some people get a little antsy over this hands-on section but I assure you it is not that bad especially since they replaced the chains and put in other safety measures.
Our group easily made it up and over without any issue. No doubt it would have been more challenging had it been raining or wet.
After our brief rock climbing moment, it was pretty much straight forward running before we began climbing up to Guinn’s Pass.
Another CTR group was running the loop at the same time but counter clockwise. We knew we would meet them at some point. Such cool timing that we met them on the pass.
These views never grow old. It was also one of those rare days where there was little wind. After our groups went our separate ways, we can down to Galatea Lakes.
To keep things exciting, we ran around the higher lake to add an extra 2K to our day. A little snow on the shore made for a slippery but careful jaunt around the water. It made for a cool picture though.
We came across a lot of hikers on our way down from Galatea Lakes. It was bit of a buzz kill starting and stopping but quite frankly I was happy to have the reprieve. Our final 9K was on the Terrace Trail, which turned out to be surprisingly nice.
All in all it was a great day out on the trails. I was a little zonked/grumpy after reaching Galatea Lakes but I am happy to have finished the entire loop. More than anything it was great to spend another day out on the trails with my new trail running friends.
Have you ever run the Ribbon Creek loop? Do you prefer loops or point-to-points? I would love to hear from you in the comments below.