Fall Running in Calgary: the Douglas Fir Trail

True story: when I lived in Texas from 2001 – 2006 I grew weary of the never ending hot weather.  A cold front was when the temperature dropped from 90F to 85F.  The weather did get cold at times in the winter, but for the most part the year felt like it had two seasons: hot and hotter.  I missed spring, fall and winter.

Here in Calgary winter and summer are fairly definite seasons.  Spring and fall often blend in and seem short lived thanks to the snow that can fall in any month of the year.  The exception has been this year because fall has been absolutely beautiful in Calgary (the only bad weather being the weekend of the Harvest Half Marathon).

It has made for some pretty great running over the last few weeks.

This past weekend I set off on my long run without a clear idea of where to go.  As I ran down the pathway I saw the turn off for the Douglas Fir Trail and decided to explore.

If you’ve never been on the trail before, you can access it from the pathway along the river, just on the south side of Edworthy Park.  The City of Calgary webpage says the trail is closed but there was no indication of this at the trail heads.  I did notice some areas fenced off with signs, but I stayed on the busy well worn trail.

I’ve never been on the Douglas Fir trail before, but it was really fun to explore!  There were a lot of stairs.

The views made all of those stairs well worth it.

There was one spot where the boardwalks were very clearly not where they were supposed to be.

There was a way to avoid the sketchy parts, but if the ground was wet the alternate access would be really muddy.

Thanks to the great weather we’ve been having lately the trail was still in great runnable/hikeable condition.  We have some great trails within city limits here in Calgary so it was really nice to explore a new one!  It was also really nice to just focus on the fun of being outdoors without thinking about pace or distance at all.

Have you run the Douglas Fir Trail at all?