A Short Hike Along Mtn Bike Trails East of Goldstick Park

There’ve been more than a few barriers to doing extended hikes lately, with high temperatures and forest-fire smoke topping the list. That’s why doing what was even a modest hike starting in Goldstick Park this morning seemed like a memorable outing.

If they know about the park at all, it seems to me Goldstick Park is probably not at the top of the list in Edmontonians’ minds when it comes to considering a nice walk in a local park. That’s because it’s quite a small sliver of land oddly sandwiched between a residential area and golf driving range to the west and, get this, an oil refinery to the east. Yeah, not a location that screams “Get away from it all!”, is it? I guess it’s meant to be a different kind of a park though: a “sports-focused” park with three baseball diamonds and a soccer field complete with scoreboard and night-lights.

GoldStick Park

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My path today took me past the ball diamonds and soccer pitch and down the long hill toward the North Saskatchewan River. Near the bottom of the hill I recognized the trail I needed to take and started east along the path that skirts around the Imperial Oil Refinery which is bounded by a tall chain-link fence topped by barbed wire.

In fairly short order the path starts long the lower banks of the river and the boundary fence is forgotten. With all the tree cover the existence of the huge refinery is also forgotten and the feeling of being “away from it all” settles in.

What struck me today the most was the number of tree roots snaking across the trail today. Of course that’s really nothing new but these roots somehow seemed to have “character” as they reminded me of the life of each tree extending into the ground to extract nutrients needed for life.

The thing that lured me out onto this trail today was a geocache I hadn’t been able to find in December, 2023 when I walked the trails starting from Science Park east of here. I spent about 30-45 minutes searching for that cache back then; today, my phone lead me to a different place and starting from there, this time around I found the cache in about 2 minutes time. Wow! That seemed positively magical!. That’s just the way it goes with this geocaching thing sometimes.

After that, it was just a pleasure to retrace my steps back west toward Goldstick Park, this time glowing with the aura of a successful geocache find. I continued on with the feeling of zero haste and an intention of infinite attention to the beautiful surroundings.

Here’s my post about my December, 2023 hike from Science Park to Goldstick Park:

Edmonton Science Park to Rundle Park Via Gnarly Mountain Bike Trails

December 6 2023·126 words·1 min

Geocaching Edmonton Walking

I really didn’t know what I was getting myself into when I started the loop hike from Science Park, but I not only survived the hilly mountain bike trails I ended up walking on, but I enjoyed the experience.

Gallery

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